After Christmas Weaning

Well hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas, we had a great time with the alpacas and family and friends.
This year the weather has been kind, the wind has dried the ground and clearing the dung has been much quicker because of this, shame that the sun has been hiding away. The youngsters are being weaned as their dates and weights allow, some of the boys have missed their mums and for a little while told us by calling out in their "Sweep" voices, but all is going well, and they have settled very quickly into the new way of life, grazing happily and eating hard feed. Pictures are so dull at present, hopefully the sun will put in an appearance and I can add some illustrations to my words. I mean the weather is dull not the alpacas !! They are always fun.

Routine Tests

It has been busy on the farm with routine tasks getting all the alpacas ready for winter. We have recently had alpaca samples checked for worms and coccidia this checks out that our husbandry is working and the correct doses are being administered. All came back fine, so after checking in with our vet, Keith, we know that our all the alpacas are free from any routine intervention until the spring. We will of course monitor them throughout the winter for any additional needs, and we are still giving a course of A,D & E injections where needed but especially to the 2011 cria, who are all growing up quickly now, a few have been weaned already and some are due to wean any day soon.
Aside from farm work which is a pleasure when the weather is so good, we are busy with orders for hand knitted hats, gloves and scarves using our own alpaca fleece which is so lovely in the natural colours and so soft to touch. It is a joy to knit with and a pleasure to wear.

Mushroom foraging

We have been foraging for mushrooms this morning. When we went down to feed the alpacas first thing there were some lovely fairy circles of mushrooms that had popped up overnight in a paddock that is being rested. It is a perfect autumnal day today, lots of sunshine and such colourful hedgerows and trees. Back off outside to finish toenail clipping the alpacas, the last few left now.

Cherwell Leys Tangaroa the Supreme Champion

Following on from our success at the Romsey Halter Show, we dipped our toes in the water of Fleece Showing at The Heart of England Autumn National Fleece Show. This was to be our first attempt at a Fleece Show, hoping that we got the skirting correct we chose only four fleeces, two white, one grey and one brown. It was a brilliant day out for us after finishing the paddock cleaning we raced off to Oxfordshire. Imagine our delight when we found again all our entries had been rewarded with rosettes, four first places. Then the grey colour champion and white colour champion, were awarded to Cherwell Leys Smokey Joe and Cherwell Leys Tangaroa. The best was yet to come, Cherwell Leys Spirit of Islay had taken the prestigeous Judges Choice Fleece, and at our first attempt we scooped the Supreme Champion Huacaya Fleece with Cherwell Leys Tangaroa. We are still buzzing now. Tango will take up stud duties next season with the inevitable wait to see the resultant cria. Islay is still proving herself a winner even though she is a senior now she still has it, and her offspring are following in her footsteps, little Bella taking her own reserve championship at Romsey. Alameda, Tango's dam is scanned pregnant to Woody who did well at the Romsey Show, a cria to look forward to next year.

Rosettes at Romsey Show

We have not been to halter shows for quite a while but decided to support our local show, The Southern Alpaca Group inaugural show at Romsey. After much discussion and fleece assessing we decided to take 6 alpacas, then increased it to 7 and finally booked for 8 alpacas (hoping they would all fit into our stock trailer, alpacas travel very well sitting in the kush position for the journey and Romsey is not a long distance away.) Three fawn and five white. It was a fun day out, starting out packing alpacas into the trailer in the dark was a new experience for us all, such a long day after clearing up we got home in the dark as well !! Anyway, the day itself was very successful for our alpacas, all of them came home with rosettes and our white intermediate female gained Reserve Champion White Female  our two white adult boys got a 2nd and 4th place. It is great to go to a show and be rewarded for your work in breeding select elite alpacas. Indeed our Reserve Champion female white, Cherwell Leys Isabella was show entry number 8 and was determined to sit through all our halter training lessons, you just never know how things will turn out, so lucky we persevered with her.

All tagged up

Been so busy have not had time to update the blog. Today we got all the 2011 cria microchipped and tagged. Lovely day, sunshine and blue skies, spent the rest of the day tidying up the paddocks and keeping a check on the young ones.

Mists of Mellow Autumn ?

I have made it back to the computer not much to update all the girls are at their summer grazing which is nice for them, plenty of grass and with the recent weather plenty of new green shoots growing. All is well, mating is progressing with new boys Rufus and Woody added to the mix. They both have excellent pedigrees including the greats, Highlander, Conquistador, Ruffo and Commisario, Neptune and Ceasar a great mix of top USA and Australian genetics from those two. Looking forward already to next year and the new cria to come. Photographs of this years cria to follow. The mornings are starting colder and misty now, but so far today it is warming up well, time for some halter training of the youngsters.