Llama walking

We went out on the moor with the llamas for our first walk of the year, it was cold, windy and occasionally wet but the customers enjoyed it and we managed to find a sheltered spot on Yar tor to stop for our cream tea.
Murphy and Merlin came along for the walk whilst Polo carried the tea.  It was Murphy's first time out on the moor and as usual he took it all in his stride, he really is a very laid back llama!
I really hope we don't have too much more of this wet weather as we have several walks booked over the next few weeks and it is much more fun when the sun shines!

We have had the confirmation that we have got the new land we were after for the next two years at least, we can now make plans for the fencing we will need to divide it up.  The field is seven acres and is a very strange shape, wide at both ends narrowing in the middle which lends itself to being split into three paddocks.  With bio security in mind we will also put a catch pen at the gate end to not only give us an area to use for husbandry but giving us a good barrier between our animals and the livestock on the common land as this gate gives direct access to open moorland. Luckily all the fences have a good thick hedge so there can be no contact with any other stock.

Sun, Snow and Dartmoor Grey Drizzle

I have just spent a week in the french Alps with one of my daughters and my two grandsons,  the weather was fantastic, wall to wall sunshine and blue skies and the snow was still pretty good as well.  Great to see the boys learn to ski, how they go from not being able to stand up to skiing down the mountain in 6 days is amazing.  So a whole week away from the wet miserable Dartmoor weather, poo picking, hayrack filling and feeding up.  Luckily for me Steve doesn't do Skiing so he stayed behind and looked after the animals while we were away enjoying ourselves.  Couldn't wait to get back to them though, the llamas did give me the silent treatment for awhile, but this morning they were all back to normal.  The alpacas didn't seem to notice I was back either but then until they have had their breakfast they aren't interested in anything.

We have our first Llama walk tomorrow and as the boys have had a bit of a lazy winter we had a little training session this morning, turns out they didn't need any refresher course, Polo took the pack system as if he has been working all winter.  Blackjack just enjoyed to walk as usual, poor old Lenny is suffering with his leg and is limping quite badly so we are now seriously considering retiring him this year, although he couldn't wait to get out on the walk this morning, so it is difficult to know what to do.

We have been discussing the grass situation as we need to rest the birthing paddock.  We have the boys who will be off to Cornwall in April and the female Alpacas who are due to give birth later in the season who could be moved onto the new grass once the owner gives us the go a head,  this would leave us with just the 3 or 4 females that are due end of March/April in the Cottage paddocks.  That would mean we can shut up the Birthing Paddock for a good 5 weeks, give it a good clean up, clear out the field shelter ready for the first of this years babes.

If we decide to retire Lenny this year he will go and live with the two old female llamas and the female Alpaca herd, which I am sure he will enjoy as he does like to think he is in charge and play the protector role!

Poor little Murphy!

Murphy has not had a good day today and it was all my fault.

Murphy and his buddy Merlin have been sharing a paddock with the two weanling Alpacas Prospect and Stephano for several weeks now and the time has come for some paddock movements.  We wanted to get all the llamas together so that they could sort out their differences before the trekking season starts off and I wanted to get the five Alpacas who have been sold into another paddock with Prospect and Atlas who now form my entire Show team!  All went well, I split the groups out and let the two little llamas into the track, then let the other llamas into join them.  I was sure that everything would be OK as they have all had contact over the fence for months with no trouble.  Polo and Logan took one look at Murphy and chased him down into the bottom corner of the paddock, pinned him down with Logan (who is usually the most mild mannered Alpaca who is in the llama trekking team) sitting on Murphy's neck and Polo stamping on him.  Blackjack was just about to join in when I got to them, they gave up when I shouted at them and let Murphy get up.  He was obviously very shaken and I managed to guide him back out of the paddock into a pen where I checked him over, no damage but obviously shocked.  He is such a good natured young llamas and didn't bare any grudge towards me and we did have a cuddle.
I don't know why they picked on him when they completely left Merlin alone.
I have now put Merlin and Murphy in the small paddock with Lenny our old llama who will not worry them, I am hoping that he will take Murphy under his wing and we will introduce the others to this group one at a time I think.  Lenny usually defends the youngsters but this morning he had taken himself off to the lower paddock and was not around to help them.
Murphy is not quite sure of Lenny and when I left him this evening he was gazing longingly at Prospect and Stephano in their paddock next door, Merlin seem totally unaffected by the whole thing.
It was really shocking to see how violent these usually mld mannered animals could be, the Alpaca group couldn't have been more different............. not sure the older group even noticed the two youngsters arrival, the hay rack had just been filled up after all.

Fasinex finally

We finally managed to drench the last group of animals with Fasinex yesterday, the llama and Alpaca boys.  The rest of the herd had theirs in December but with the onset of the bad weather the boys missed out.  Anyway they are done now, the Alpacas were all little angels no spitting or extreme dribbling in fact Titan seem to positively enjoy his dose.  The two young llamas were no problem but the older ones which we had left til last in the vain hope that they may watch how the others behaved were little b.....rs, Lenny first refused to open his mouth so I had to pries it open and maneuver the drench gun into position to administer his dose which he promptly let drain out as soon as I let him go.  The difficulty for me is that I am only 5ft 2in and I can't reach to hold the head up and squeeze the drench gun, Steve is tall enough but then I can't hold them.  Blackjack wasn't to bad but he doesn't like having his halter on at the moment.  Polo wouldn't let me catch hold of his head collar and somehow ended up kneeling down, which made it easier to hold his head up once I had managed to get hold of him.  I gave him his dose and everything seemed to stay down so Steve released his hold on him for which Polo rewarded him with a full blow sneeze which coated him with a good dose of white liquid.  I wish the boys were like our old female Llama 'Georgina'  we just ask her to smile and she opens her mouth, put the drench gun in and she just drinks the liquid.............. great job done, no hassle!
Whilst we had the boys in they had a ADE shot and we had a good look at fleeces,  Prospect's fleece is looking amazing, definitely the best we have ever produced.
Over all this attention they we all awarded with a little treat of concentrate, just to make sure we had been forgiven for giving them horrible medicine.
This morning we had time for some Halter training with the youngsters, the two Alpaca boys are coming along nicely and the two llamas are now progressing onto walking with blankets and even a training pack.  Murphy didn't bat an eyelid at walking with the packs on but Merlin was not impressed at all, just to prove that they are all different, he will be fine with a couple more training sessions.
Then we decided that we needed to take down a couple of trees along the track down to the holiday cottages. We have a bank on which there are several Sycamore and some Ash growing, as we have a rather lovely stone barn on the other side of the track we don't want to let these trees grow to big as it will be very difficult to take them out.  So with me on the rope and Steve with the chainsaw we had to drop these trees into the track without catching the roof of the Barn.  Luckily they fell exactly where Steve said they would and we now have a stack of logs and kindling ready for next winter.  They will grow back from the stumps so this will screen the rather ugly farm buildings next door and we will take out another two trees next winter.  Good to know that we have our own supply of wood which will continue to regrow for future winters especially as the price of oil is going through the roof.

A few Pictures

Stephano

As the sun was shining yesterday I took the camera out mainly to take some shots of the boys who are going to Cornwall in a couple of months.  Stephano who has so much fleece has been very messy and dirty in all that wet weather but is now looking all cute and fluffy now.

Atlas with frost on his back is now one of the two boys left in our show team, both fawns luckily with the hot competition going on in the brown classes this year.

 Calypso posing in the sun shine all bravado as he is a bit of a whim especially when being given a pedicure, he whines in your ear the whole time.

Finally Titan with frost on his back and straw in his top knot, he definitely got attitude, followed me around putting himself in front of camera.  He's going to be a herd sire in Cornwall in a couple of months.
Today we have 10 tonnes of scalpings being delivered ready to be spread over the car parking area next to the holiday cottages which will make it look much better since Steve dug a trench right through it.  Once this is done we can get on with connecting the camera on the field shelter in the birthing paddock.  It's so nice to be able to get these outside jobs done now it is dry.

Looking for a New Stud

Langaton Caliban

Following on from our sales over the weekend we have decided to look for a new Stud male for this seasons breeding's.  Our two Stud males have given us some stunning cria and we are really please with them but we would like to purchase a much darker male, currently we have Caliban who is light fawn and Nugget is dark fawn ................. yes I know we have just sold a dark brown male but we really would like to introduce some new bloodlines into the herd.

Caton Golden Nugget

So Caliban has gone up for sale at a very sensible price, he is a bargain for someone and Nugget will stay with us for a while yet.  Well as I have just found out  Black/Dark Brown/Grey Stud males are like hens teeth at the moment, Oh there are quite a lot advertised as Stud males but looking at Bloodlines and fibre stats as well as the actual look of some of them,  you soon dismiss them as just not good enough.  So I think we are going to have a bit of a search for the right male.  What really frustrates me is when you think you may have found something and you send a e.mail or leave a message nobody returns the call ........ even more annoying when you here the said same persons complaining about the lack of Alpaca sales!
Anyway thats enough ranting, yet again the weather interrupted work plans again today, Steve had got himself set up for a fencing job this morning but we woke to thick mist and heavy rain, not good for getting landrover and trailer across several steep fields.  So as usual when it is raining we went out to buy materials in readiness for anticipated dry weather.

Our hens seem to think that spring is on its way the older hens are giving us 3 eggs a day now and the point of lays we brought in November have actually produce one egg this week, no ideal which one it was and it must have been a bit of a shock as we haven't had one since.

Life is good

West Webburn Titan

Despite the awful weather we have had a great week, as many of our regular readers know Steve gave up his employed work at the beginning of last year to concentrate on our Alpacas, Llama walks and Holiday cottages.  He also went back to Landscaping on a part time basis, everything seemed to fall into place and we had a very successful year, enough work to keep us going, good Holiday bookings and the llama walks were really popular and we sold some Alpacas!.  We knew we needed to earn enough to take us through the winter if it was bad weather.  Well as we all know the weather has been pretty bad and Steve hadn't work since the beginning of December and we were starting to worry a little bit.  So this week has been really encouraging, we have had rain all week and have had to put work off again so we even got to the stage of clearing out cupboards, so its got to be bad.  Anyway the phone has started to ring with work for Steve, we have taken a couple of holiday bookings and had several more enquires.  Then best of all we had a phone call about Alpacas which has turned into a sale,  so five of our young boys are off to Cornwall at the beginning of April.  Titan our Dark Brown male who won a 1st at Devon County and 3rd at Swag is going to be a herd sire with Calypso as a companion possible stud male and the other three Quartz, Felspar and Stephano are going to be pets.  We wish their new owners who I can't tel you about as I forgot to ask their permission all the best for the future.  

Felspar and Quartz

We are now feeling that we will be OK for the rest of the winter and are looking forward to some nicer weather, this is what life is about, not being tied to a job that was frustrating, we work hard but we work for ourselves, we don't make mega bucks but we have enough to feed, cloth and house us, we live in a wonderful place and we really appreciate it.  For the first time since we have been breeding our Alpacas we can say that we don't have any males for sale so we are looking forward to this years crop of youngsters and then we can decide on what we would like to sell later this year.

We have been halter training in the rain and even if they look all wet and miserable they are all getting used to it and walking fairly well.  Golden Prospect as he is so small was getting covered in hay as he seems to like to sit under the hay bags and the other three, Murphy, Merlin and Stephano eat over the top of him.  Prospect is going into our very small show team this year so I would like him to keep clean.  With this in mind we decided to buy a small hayrack hoping this may help, so off to Mole Valley (as it was raining again) and a 4ft hayrack which fitted nicely into the back of the car was acquired.  It's amazing that the cost of the 4ft is nearly as much as the 8ft racks but they are much harder to move around and it is so nice to be able to put the rack in the back of the car if we have animals in fields over in Widecombe, saves a journey with the trailer.

We are having a proper day off today, well after feeding up,  we are going to some friends for lunch and probably tea, and possibly evening drinks.  They are neighbours and they are very good to us in the summer months as they see us working in the fields from their windows.  So they feel sorry for us and feed us quite often to save me going home to start cooking, ............ which is so nice.  Audrey is also teaching me to weave so I think we may be setting up the loom this afternoon.......... did I say this was a day off!


I have started knitting up some of our wool from the mill and I am really pleased with the results, it knits up so soft and I already have had enquires for some hats.  I am also hatching up a plan, it is very much in the planning stage at the moment. !