STUFF

Still very cold here, but having had no rain or snow for a few days,  I felt obliged yesterday to spend a couple of hours with the paddock sweeper cleaning up after the weanlings, they are very messy little whatnots and just go everywhere and sooo much too!  I was freezing despite all the layers, just sitting there on our ancient lawn tractor going up and down the paddocks I almost froze solid. However it's a nice feeling having done it and it gave me lots of thinking time - some of my thoughts went along the lines of what the hell am I doing this job for, if I didn't have alpacas I could be travelling the world and  going to exotic places in warm sunshine etc etc, but then I also started thinking about all the cria we have coming and what they might be like and honestly I do love my alpacas and generally it's a great lifestyle, albeit cold at times!

We had the females scanned again this week and all 14 have held their pregnancies over the winter which is great. We use a lovely chap who is a professional scanner - mostly sheep and cattle and now quite a few alpacas. He's amazingly quick and only takes seconds to give you a yes or a no, I have to slow him down so I can have a look. The girls are usually very well behaved, he's very calm and considerate with them and they don't have to stand for him for too long which helps. We had another female a maiden Callista, who he thought was empty but not 100% sure when he scanned her in October, and this time he still wasn't sure but he thought she may have an infection or maybe reabsorbing. We'll give her a course of antibiotics just in case and run one of the studs by her to see how she reacts .. if she spits off then maybe we'll scan her again in a couple of months or she may even be showing by then... she'll probably sit, I'll keep you posted.

I really like trimming topknots, I used to love clipping and trimming up horses too, but we don't have any anymore.  As a child all my dolls got regular haircuts, until they ran out of hair, and Pippy our long suffering and long haired Dachshund ... well you can imagine!  Anyway, today armed with my hand clippers I set about the weanlings as half of them couldn't see where they were going... now they are all beautiful and can all see me coming!  Middle age isn't kind is it? My eyesight is rubbish and I wear contacts because I'm short-sighted, but I've got to the age when I need glasses for close up stuff - I know it sounds daft, but some of you will be with me on this one.  I had trimmed 10 or more topknots, without my glasses, never think of taking them outside, my eyes had adjusted to all this close up stuff -  when I looked up I couldn't see a damn thing - like looking through a heat haze - I wish! Normal sight resumed after a few minutes thankfully.

Anyway enough of my drivel, some pics ... nothing in the remotest to do with anything I have waffled on about!

Ena our lovely harlequin grey - due to Ardingly again,
last year she had Enigma a solid black from him who came 2nd at the Futurity. The year before she had Eros a light fawn by Snowmass Incan King who was 3rd at the Futurity. 
Bobby Dazzler 

Midlington

Bliss - one of our bottle feds, with Ena, Jumper and Medusa

Medusa - she likes the camera!

Treasure - a  Tulaco Centurion maiden and pregnant to Ardingly,
she has a really lovely dense fleece and I can't wait to see her cria.

Midlington - we call him Middi-lips!

Bobby-D - he's a real sweetie

Bobby Dazzler and Midlington are going on to our sales list as pets, soon as I get round to it, will miss them when they go they're such characters.


4 comments:

  1. Ugh, trimming top knots is my dreaded chore. We need you to come here and do your magic!

    Cara

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  2. The hardest thing about writing a blog is thinking of a title I often find...stuff!..I like it (and the blog of course )

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