Friday 2 July 2010

Glastonbury Festival - a tenuous link.

What is she wearing?
Can you eat it?
I'll give it a try...

With shearing out of the way, we've been able to strim, mow and rake all the Nettles, Thistles and Docks, so the paddocks are looking better, and the alpacas can get to every diminishing blade of grass, as the 'drought' continues.

I've started giving Alfalfa to augment their grazing, which they took a few days to get accustomed to, but are all liking it now - and doesn't it smell great?

Autumn Gold has at last, started taking supplement at 11 months old, while her half sister started at 7 months - she has been enjoying carrots for a while though.

I had last weekend at Glastonbury Festival, and whilst many of you may be wondering what that's got to do with alpacas apart from spending three days living in fields like an alpaca, well the craft area had workshops for felting, spinning etc.! so I was able to pretend to be doing a bit of research in between enjoying the great music and other entertainment on offer!

Lettuce pray: I was making a sandwich for lunch last week, and dropped a leaf, only for it to land in the dogs water bowl...I washed it off and put it in the sandwich as intended -well it was homegrown - I'm fine, and I don't think the dog has suffered...

We've been considering our breeding programme, which is made particularly difficult due to land constraints - while it seems many breeders are happy to breed from 12months of age, provided they are well-grown and mature, I've seen comments that some breeders have had less success with females of around that age, and I feel we should perhaps let our yearlings wait until the spring, otherwise we'll be re-setting the mating clock within a year or two in any case - that way we can work on selling their mums and/or getting more land to ease pressure - ultimately, the health and comfort of the herd is paramount.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Dave, Like the photos of the hat-eating alpaca. We have a boy who does the same with hats, watering cans, feeding bowls, trugs - anything he can pick up, knock over or run off with! We've plenty of rain here - we'll send some south for you. Take care. Shirley & Robbie

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  2. It's amazing how the cria vary in their interest in supplement food. We also had a girl who didn't have anything other than hay until she was around 8 months. However Explorer is trying out the Camelibra and the garlic at 5 weeks!

    Glad you found an excuse to enjoy Glastonbury!

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