Moonlight shadow.

Night-cap for Golden Delicious.

With a 'spare' hour last night to say goodbye to British Summertime, I took tripod and camera up the hill for some experimentation. these pictures were taken between 11.30pm and 12.15a.m - it's amazing how much 'light' the camera absorbs (the sky did look black), and how many stars, more than I could see!

Orion grazes the horizon, with Jupiter above.

Principally, good breeding relies on selection of suitable genetics, deliberate breeding choices, considered and programmed  husbandry, and well-managed grazing and housing - but there are in-between times when you just have to be out with your herd, and if you can share a hobby with them, day or night everyone's happy! It was freezing cold of course, and it took about two hours to warm up afterwards!

With Orion off to the right, Castor and Pollux, the heavenly twins float 'above'
Autumn Gold with Golden Delicious in her shadow.

Yesterday was clear and sunny all day, with a fierce northerly wind, which helped dry the ground, so I got the paddocks cleaned, and drove (manually) fifteen fenceposts into the tennis court paddock - the alpacas enjoyed the dryer conditions and had a mass gathering in the rolling pit -  this morning, rain is lashing down, and I have to go the office and do the VAT return...back with more news soon hopefully.

Someone takes offence.

Feeding time.

 We spent a bit of time preparing 'the tennis court' today, a little paddock we are renting, which is a bit of secure space we can use for weaning and other purposes - we'd flattened a lot of ant hills and re-seeded them, and the grass has sprouted, and we've cut back a lot of bramble - however, I had stacked 30 fence posts behind a hedge three weeks ago until we are ready to do the fencing, and today I noticed that eight were missing... in a sleepy village with no pub, street lights, or until now, I thought, crime... so I told Mrs. Smallholder, and over lunch we discussed the possibilities - I headed back to carry out a thorough search and ask the neighbours if they'd, 'seen anything'... as I approached, I noticed an apple-pickers step ladder leaning against a Chestnut tree in a  thicket by the paddock, hidden by brambles, and saw a fence post leaning against the ladder...I went in, and saw three posts lying on the ground near the tree... I looked up, and fifteen feet up in the bows of the tree I saw the remaining posts lashed together as the commencement of a tree-house! My daughter says someone needs to tell Kevin McCloud that he is taking this 'off the grid' thing to an extreme! I say they'd been 're-purposed' before I'd even given them a bloomin' purpose! 

"hmm...which is the smallest hole my head will fit through?"

While I was digging out some weeds from Mrs. Smallholders veg. garden, Discovery lived up to his name and got his head stuck trhough the fence again - I had to pull his body back while Mrs. S threaded his head through.

Golden Delicious

Later, we went out with a 30m tape and did some measuring... and it wasn't fleece we were measuring...

Darcy Spice - a mummys boy

Chip & pin

Mud management has been a phrase on my mind and I'm sure every farmer and smallholder in the country. I opened up the hay barn to allow the herd more room to spread out beyond the shelter in the wet nights, and they made the most of  it as you can see in the picture, where 9 of them have squeezed for a sit down or some new hay. Our village is approached via. Ford Lane, and as the name implies, there has been a ford - however, in 10 years living here, it has only risen over the road three times, until this autumn, when it has been flooded at least 6 times.

We had a visit from Colin Ottery to insert some micro-chips and ear-tags, and do some teeth trimming, which he did with his usual no-nonsense and very efficient approach - we had Bramley and Ambrosia scanned, and unfortunately Ambrosia is not pregnant - we had our doubts, as Bramley has turned very feisty, yet Ambrosia, hadn't changed behaviour noticeably - should have checked sooner, but there you go, coulda', shoulda', woulda'... 

It has been dry and sunny this weekend, as you can see from the misty cob-webby morning photo', we even had a thin sliver of ice on the water buckets, and with a couple more dry days forecast, a chance for the land to recover a bit.

We do have a very exciting development, which is so exciting that I daren't let on what is so exciting, but suffice to say, we are excited about it, and if it happens, I won't be able to contain my excitement and I may tell you about it...

If you've got an itch, scratch it!

Golden Delicious continues to gain weight steadily though the rate slowing down, probably converting her intake to energy for warmth rather than growth - we know we're giving her enough, as she has started leaving a little occasionally - this perhaps concurs with research that I read recently by Bozedown Alpacas I believe, who noted that cria born later in the year gained weight more slowly.

By the way, on Kevin McCloud's, Manmade Home tonight (C4 8.00, he makes a bathrobe from alpaca fleece - courtesy of Tai Wind Alpacas I believe.

In the absence of fluffy alpacas at the moment, I'll leave you with a picture of autumnal leaves on the house - Virginia Creeper last week, before the wind and the pruners got to it today.

Time to give baby her bottle.

Rainy day musings

! Autumn Gold has that light-bulb moment !

Yes, a hot air balloon went over and landed on the edge of the village a few nights ago, and the following night two balloons went by - there have been very few balloons around this year because of the weather, no doubt.

I've spent the day working out how much temporary fence we need for the little extra paddock, catching up on some much missed guitar playing, and satisfying the inner nerd with some statistics - yes, it's been raining.

I was curious as to how much poo an alpaca produces, and since our herd is of a modest size, I can clear all latrines in a session, so I weighed the bins as I emptied them. Making allowance for the tiny amount that the cria currently produce, and the small amount collected by hand each morning in the shelter, I can reveal that our adults have produced approximately 6kg each in the last week. I guess this might vary seasonally, and of course nursing mums may eat more than others, but there you have it, a statistic to use as you wish. You might also be interested to know, that I could collect it on one tank-full of petrol, with it running out with one 'deposit' to clear (0.32litres, 0.07gallons apparently).


That reminds me to mention some good service from Paul Helps - the suction hose had split, and so I requested a new one, but Paul suggested that at 18months old, the hose on a hand-pulled 'poover' shouldn't have failed, so he negotiated a replacement under guarantee. Thanks Paul http://www.paulhelpsmucktrucksales.co.uk/

Captions on a postcard please...

I've also plotted the weight development of all of our cria on a graph, in order to compare Golden Delicious' slower growth,and hoped to include it, however, I haven't the skill to post it in this blog...

Comfort in various ways.

Golden Delicious continues to gain weight steadily, and we have increased her bottles to accelerate the rate - meanwhile she continues to feed from mum, Autumn Gold, which is comforting. I was wondering, when other breeders have asked, 'is she a first-time mum?', implying that short milk-supply is not unusual in first-timers, do they usually continue to breed from them without milk-supply problems in subsequent years?
It's funny how pregnancy can change the behaviour of a female - we decided to do some toe-nail trimming today, and Bramley was having none of it - she used to kush but would sit quite happily while you worked around her, but not today, and she even spat - comforting in one way - smelly in another!
We were invited to the Ashcott Harvest Fayre, so last saturday we took Autumn Gold and Golden Delicious, along with Appleknit products and advertising for the spinning and felting evenings.
We have negotiated use of a small paddock across the road, which will be useful for weaning and keeping the boys in - we've pulled out some Ragwort, and have a bit of bramble clearing and fencing to do before we use it, but it's comforting to have arrangements in place.

Eventually, you will need plasma.

My last post was announcing the arrival of Apple Vale Golden Delicious - she is now just over three weeks old. After the expected first day loss of weight, she also lost weight on the second day (alarm bells rang, we got some goats milk in), and then was just about the same for three days. We were sure she had suckled frequently during the first day, though she was slow to start, but perhaps on reflection, she wasn't getting much milk. She's always been active, and bright, so we feel confident that she had taken some colostrum. So we have been giving her a bottle morning and evening, and she has gained steadily, albeit not at the rate of our previous cria - we haven't increased her bottle quanitity much, as we don't want to reduce what she does get from her mum, as that will still be better than milk suuplement. Eventually we had her IgG measured and this was found to be very low, so we asked the herd for a volunteer blood donation - since three are nursing mums, two are pregnant, and three are cria, the short straw was given to Moira, our maiden companion, by default. Since Moira is not halter-trained, and is a large animal, I decided we would use the shearing restraints to be more sure of a successful outcome - apart from a bit of squealing and spitting, the task was trouble-free, and a good 350ml bag-full came forth. The camper-van 'fridge' was brought into service, a quick trip to Classical Mile End, and their while-u-wait plasma-spin had me back on the road within 45 minutes. Our vet then came, and we found another use for the garden table, as it became the 'operating' table for Delicious to receive her plasma.
We also have some in the freezer now, in reserve. I've known that it was a good idea to have plasma in store, but the logistics put me off - another experience gained.

mmm, Delicious.

The evenings, when the cria are more playful, have often been gloomy, and so there haven't been many photo-opportunities.

A piano has not been air-brushed from this picture.

We have managed to secure the use of another small paddock near-by, which will assist with weaning the boys and getting Camelot back - we have a bit of fencing and bramble-clearing to do first, to make it secure.

"so, you want an alpaca scarf, do you?"

50 shades of...

Now that got your attention, didn't it?

I was 50 miles away on a building site this morning, when Joy 'phoned to say that Autumn Gold was in labour - nothing I could do, so she 'phoned around a couple of friends for back-up. 45 minutes later she 'phoned to say we had a cria, that was Golden, AND Delicious - that meant she was a female, and the colour we expected, as her Sire is fawn, (Ashill Fandango) and her grand-dam is fawn (Pelachuta).

With this years names being apple varieties beginning with 'D', we had decided that  (Golden) Delicious would have to be for a female - we'd had two males Discovery and Darcy Spice, and so had used the suitable names for males.

The head and feet had been out for around 30 minutes, and Autumn was kushed, when Joy decided it was time to assist, and with Di and Chris (who had never handled alpacas) at the front end, Joy pulled to ease the shoulders out - Delicious has been feeding steadily, and running around this evening. Autumn Gold looks a bit 'raw' and open at the back end, so we'll check on that in the morning, and hopefully she'll heal overnight.

The class of 2012