Karen's alpacas

VISITORS AND BACK TO WINTER

What a lovely way to start the day, breakfast in bed, complete with a Mother's Day card and flowers on a tray from my gorgeous daughter. I wonder if I can arrange to have that every Sunday morning?!!

Yesterday was very Spring-like, a balmy 11.5 degrees, even a bit sunny, we had masses of frogs spawning in the pond, the birds were singing and the grass was growing. We trimmed those toenails which were much easier after the rain the day before, and we had the whole show team on halters again... the weanlings are walking OK now and have been in and out of the trailer a few times. The big boys just needed a refresher - Bonami and The Sorcerer have a bit of an attitude problem and I have given them a good talking to on how to behave for the Judge, hope they listened. They all look such a mess after a deluge of rain on Friday, and I suppose as winter is back this week, snow forecasted to come maybe tonight or tomorrow, they'll soon look even worse. Just hope they're going to be dry to travel up to the Futurity on Thursday and I hope it warms up a bit for me - it's really freezing out there now.

This morning we had the 1st Titchfield Sea Scout Cubs come for a visit and I have to say what a lovely group they were too! Lots of really good questions and observations and the pacas enjoyed the visit too, especially Medusa who lapped up the attention, bless her, we're going to start a Medusa fan club, and Yerba our llama who couldn't believe his luck with all the food on offer!

Well this time next week the Futurity will be over ... I have to say I'm not sure how we're going to do .. some days our show team look tremendous and other days I wonder why I entered them at all! Hopefully we won't get the walk of shame too many times. I'm a mixture of excitement and anticipation of possible success, tamed with the inevitable fear of failure. I just hope my special ones get in the front line - the competition will be tough for sure. Either way I can't wait to see everyone again - lots of gossiping to do, and this time I need to try and sell animals not buy them! First show of the season - bring it on!!!!

Medusa and her new fan club

She's loving the fuss!

Yerba - happy to take food from anyone!

SPRING IS IN THE AIR

It's official, spring is in the air... the weanling boys are being very naughty and I'm going to have to split them up from the weanling girls soon or their fleeces will be felted by all the rubbing!

BonBon, one of our best "B" line females, daughter of Bonita and dam of Bonami and Bond, who I had left empty after she had Bonnie this year, is also behaving very badly. She's humping any other empty female that'll sit for her .. with very impressive ogling too, she's getting them all going, and whilst we were dosing them all with stuff this morning we had 3 pairs of females all at it! I don't mind at the moment, whatever turn's them on, but by the end of April she's moving into the pregnant field away from all the other empties, so they settle down ready for the real thing! BonBon will be first in the queue for a 'go' with one of our new Snowmass fawns - I have told her but she still can't wait! It's very easy to tell when she's pregnant as she attacks any male that comes near her and rams into them with her chest.. spitting doesn't come into it, just violence! Anyway, she's given us a pretty good idea who's pregnant in her group and I don't think any have 'slipped' over the winter. Alan, our scanner-man will be checking them over for us soon anyway, just to be sure.

Our fields are so lovely and dry here now that I've been able to get the paddock sweeper out, first time for ages, and with the grass so short it's done a great job and got loads moss and dead thatch out of the grass as well as all the poo, still plenty of moss left on the weanlings fleeces though!

We've been offered some grazing just up the road which is great, now I can take a whole load up there and rest our big winter fields for a few months. I'll be taking around 30 up there next week, it'll seem very odd here without them but I will be visiting them a couple of times a day and they'll enjoy the change of scene, and I won't have to pick up their poo - hurrah!

I wanted to get the whole herd wormed and vaccinated before the rain comes back, and this morning we did the last group of females, it's a nice feeling now it's finished! What's not so nice is all the toenails that need cutting, we've put that off until we get some rain to make their nails softer, I know I'm a wuss but there are a lot of toenails and I have such delicate hands!!!

Not taken many pics lately but here's a few...

Cotton Fields ( Neifi) Just love that profile !

Enjoying the evening sun yesterday

Arrhhh!

INTRODUCING THE BOYS

We had great fun yesterday checking out our boys again and having a bit of a photo shoot and celebratory champagne and cake party to welcome them in properly. They still have their silly lollipop hairdo's, and of course great chunks of fibre missing from all the blood tests needed for export from USA and Canada, they're also amazingly dusty and could do with a good drenching of rain, not that I'm wishing that any time soon, it's currently very sunny, dry and quite Spring like here, so much so our girls have been climbing into the water troughs this morning to cool down! Anyway here are some snaps I took of them - enjoy!

Snowmass Puna Sky

Snowmass Puna Sky (PS)

Snowmass Roll of Honor

Snowmass Golden Legend

Snowmass Puna Sky with Rebecca

Snowmass Xxxtreme Dimension xx

Snowmass Xxxtreme Dimension

SNOWMASS IMPORT

At long last our second group of Snowmass boys have arrived! After a 15 month wait, 6 months of which was the usual quarantine period in Canada, the rest because they got stuck in the States as the Border between the USA and Canada closed just at the wrong time, they are finally here safe and sound, and very impressive they are too!

Nick, John and I arrived at Heathrow just after 10am on Thursday to meet up with Jay and Hilary and Richard, and a film crew from the program Airport Animals, which goes out on Animal Planet, who were going to follow the story of our Alpacas coming into the Country. We elected Nick, who had selected these boys on our behalf, (and who we all know is very good at talking!) to be interviewed on camera by the film crew, which he did admirably, of course, and as it turned out, numerous times throughout the day.

For the rest of us this was to be our first sight of the animals - we had only seen their pedigrees, fibre stats and pictures and of course had Nick's descriptions and recommendations and so there was a certain amount of nervous anticipation all round, which intensified as time went on, and on....and on.

Little did we know how well we would get to know those sofas in The Animal Reception Centre, with many delays, the first of which because some 'Div' (John's word which I like very much, there were other's which I couldn't possibly repeat), taking them in their crate to cargo for 2 hours, but mostly because of some quite unbelievable cock-ups on paper work in Canada, which was apparently sent back to the farm by officials rather than accompanying the animals?!?!?!?

Incidentally, the toilet facilities for the day came as a bit of a shock, one of those metal round things with scary doors which threaten to open leaving one exposed to the whole world when one's knickers are round one's ankles - one desperately needed pee was enough for my nerves, I had to insist on using a proper indoor and secure staff loo for the rest of the day!

After many hours it was agreed by Animal Health that we could at least have a sneaky little look at them before Jay and Hilary had to leave and wow, they did not disappoint! After many frantic phone calls to Canada by Richard our Agent, who incidentally did a sterling job keeping us all calm, resulted in journeys to neighbours for scanning, and emailing and the eventual approval of document copies from Customs and DEFRA. Some nine plus hours later we loaded them up, with TV crew still filming, now in the dark, and drove them away. The planned tea party with all the co-owners had been abandoned hours ago.

Unloaded, we took another little peek at them in the light of Nick's head torch before leaving them in the peace and quiet of their cosy barn. I then completed my own journey home, another hour, tired, hungry and feeling bizarrely car sick from my own driving and fell into bed, exhausted.

I can't wait to see them again properly, hopefully very soon and get to know them. It'll be a while before they come to our farm as we don't start breeding until May but in the meantime I will enjoy planning who I will use over our females. They will compliment our white Snowmass boys superbly both with colour and genetics and it promises to get very exciting - how can it not with sires amongst them such as Snowmass Canopa xxx and Snowmass Matrix.

Their names for you to get used to - Snowmass Puna Sky, Snowmass Roll of Honor, Snowmass Golden Legend and Snowmass XXXtreme Dimension - I'm sure you will be hearing a lot about them in the future.

A share in the two blacks we couldn't quite stretch to, but we will almost certainly be taking the odd service to them here and there! Roll on Summer!

SUNSHINE

Yes the sunshine makes my headlines! I'm rather obsessed by the weather, probably because for so much of my life I have had to be out in it.

With my car, a trusty and very grubby Kia Sorento in the village garage being MOT'd and having a long awaited service, I'm ashamed to admit the last one was back in November 201, well she was running OK do they really need all this servicing? Anyway, unable to go out food shopping, very dull (I'm equally as bad at domestic chores as I am cars) I got on with a bit of halter training - much more my thing! Concentrating on the boys and three in particular who objected strongly to the whole idea the last time I had a go with them.

Last time Agent, who looks like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, protested violently, shouting and carrying on and as a final protest flopping down on the ground and refusing to move! Today, after a few words in his ear and stroking his head until he stopped shouting, he was persuaded to walk across the field to the woods, through the trees, over a log and back again. I wouldn't go so far as to say he enjoyed it but if he could talk I think he would have to admit that he felt a little foolish making such a fuss!

Agent

Next was Touchwood, not as hysterical but stubbornly awkward about the whole thing and in push- me-pull-you-fashion we gradually made our way to the woods, up the path and then he walked beautifully back beside me.

Touchwood

Then Bamboozle, who just didn't get it, so we followed everyone else about in the field together and after just a few minutes he was walking quietly beside me where I wanted to take him.

Bamboozle

MICROCHIPS AND REGISTRATIONS

I'm awarding myself a gold star for getting all the microchips and registrations done today. It's been tricky finding a dry day with the help available but today it all came together.

Sheltered from the bitterly cold Northeasterly wind and in the sunshine we organised the 21 weanlings so that they came into the pen 3 at a time. Because of my dodgy back I had to kneel on one knee to put the chips in, plus it makes it much easier to get the angle of the needle right. Lucy was holding them still and Rebecca was in charge of recording the numbers and working the gates. Thankfully it all worked like clockwork and didn't take long at all.

For those of you who haven't come across microchips before they are about the size of a grain of rice and they are implanted under the skin just below the left ear using a scarily large needle. Each has a unique number and can be read with a scanner to verify the identity of the animal against their registration document on the British Alpaca Society register. This doesn't seem to hurt them, though it took me a while to pluck up the courage to do it when we first started breeding, and I still dislike doing the first one of the season.

Having implanted the chips they have to be read with a scanner to make sure they tally with the numbers on the label and that they are actually in the animal and not still in the syringe or needle.

Later on today the numbers were recorded, along with their names, parentage, colour, sex and DOB onto the BAS Registry - much easier now that we can do this electronically. I also keep my own records of all that on a simple spreadsheet and on a herd software program.

One little chap had to have a name change, as he didn't quite live up to "Brilliance" after all and is now "Bono". Had to begin with a B - I was tempted with Bloody Disappointing!

Anyway, job done and now I can get on with entering some for the shows... that's if I can make up my mind who's good enough, they seem to change as often as the weather.

You don't want to slip with that needle and get yourself or your handler!

Push the plunger and the chip goes in

Scanning

Waiting their turn

THE BIG SNOW!

Well I got my wish, a really good covering of snow 3-4 inches by the end of the day. I even woke early to see if had arrived as forecasted and it had, very exciting (big kid)! I can't help it, I just love the stuff! Yes it's a pain when it comes to getting the animals fed, and if you have to go out on the roads it's hazardous ... but for the little amount we get here I enjoy the change and just love the smell and the feel of it crunching underneath my feet and how beautiful and brand new everything looks. Thankfully we didn't have to go out in the car anywhere, bread and sweeties were bought from the village shop on the way home from our walk!

The weanlings looked a bit confused by it all this morning .. their first experience of snow and they were all sat out in the field when I looked out first thing. As soon as it got light they all went into their shelter and they have been there ever since!

Thankfully I had done a double hay-up yesterday in preparation but by this evening a few hay feeders were looking low so out with the sledge to haul the bales about. I know it's a bit basic but we don't have the luxury of a quad or little buggy thing and for the amount of animals we have it's enough in the short term.