Wet neck.

Here's a strange occurrence: Apple Vale Empress seems to be having difficulty holding her drink - in the last few days she's acquired this wet neck. She doesn't seem to be drinking significantly more than usual. I've felt her jaw and checked her teeth, and all is normal. On two successive evenings, when sitting, her chest appeared to be heaving quicker than usual - we checked her faecal sample, and all was normal - she is bright, grazing, and eats her supplement in the morning. It may be due to a water bucket which is hanging on a fence a little higher than other buckets, causing her to drink with her head higher than usual, but then why isn't Elstar similar, when she is even shorter?

Picture post

All of our herd enjoy Hazel leaves.

Empress and Elstar: "we've got our ears up - you can Photoshop the gatepost away later".

The females resting while Scrumpy looks on.

"Do you want to know a secret?"

All that lush grass behind them - but the herd aren't keen on grazing near the hedge - they aren't keen on the rush of the wind through trees, and perhaps they feel vulnerable to ssurprise?

Kangaroo capers!

Elstar

We've separated the weanlings again to finish weaning, after one of them was caught having a sneaky suckle the other day, and her mum seemed happy, but she's supposed to be pregnant so we don't want her being over-stretched - weaning got interrupted after 3 weeks, early in February when the weather became so appalling that we had to get them all sheltered. The suckling was a surprise, as they had been together for over a month with no sign of either bothering their mum.

I

In the picture above, they are looking longingly down towards their mums. We have continued halter training, with steady progress, and today Oscar, who is six and-a-half, started preparing as a junior handler, and he and Elstar got on very well together!

Look! I'm a kangaroo! (Golden Delicious - supposed to be pregnant!)

We've started making show entries for this year, and today following an inspection, we thought we may add another to the team.

16th March

We spent saturday at The National Show in Telford, staying overnight on friday - catching up with fellow breeders/friends, as the new season of shows kicks off. As a visitor, it seemed to be an excellent venue, with the hotels, parking and hall in close proximity, a short walk between each. A possible downside being that the exhibitor displays are outside the hall, so cannot quite follow the procedures in the showring. I'm looking forward to seeing the ring results from sunday to fill in what we missed. It's frustrating not to be able to speak for long to many people, as the process of preparing animals for the ring and so on, takes place, but at least better than not being there!

Today was a day to catch up with paddock cleaning, fencing issues, halter-training, some injections and attention to a mite-affected alpaca - a satisfying day, after the winter months - I see that rain is forecast for thursday, and I do believe that a little 'moisture' after the last couple of weeks dry weather will be a good thing, to stop our clayey ground drying too hard, and encourage the new growth of grass.

From a roar to a murmur(ation).

Warning: there are more Starlings in this blog, than alpacas.
Calm settled in today. Two weeks ago, the waters had receded a whole field away, but this week they have risen to be lapping at our boundary again. Friday evening the wind was roaring for four hours, and thankfully all the shelters stayed un-damaged and in place. I had kept enhancing the anchorages, including adding bags of manure to hold them down!

We brought weaning to an end after just over three weeks, when we had to bring the herd together for shelter and a dry bed - after a couple of attempts to suckle, the weanlings were told to forget it by their mums, and we've not seen any attempts since. Halter training has been suspended temporarily for fear of recreating the famous Blue Peter incident with a baby elephant on a lead!

The herd were back over the hill today, and they were joined by a 'murmuration' of starlings - usually these occur on the permanent wetlands about 8 miles away, on a nature reserve called Shapwick Heath, but clearly they recognized  our nearby new wetlands and saturated ground. As they take off, the instantaneous beating of wings makes a loud thud which Scrumpy found quite irritating!

uh oh - look out...

here they come...

"what the?"

Scrumpy is cornered...

...but makes a break for it!

"what's that noise?"

"is it his camera?"

Add caption

that's enough Starlings - here are some Swans.

And hopefully, we'll have clean and more photogenic alpacas soon.

Weaning, cats and blogs.

This week the flooding of The Levels crept closer daily towards our fields, and on thursday reached a peak, just entered the bottom of our hayfield, and since then has slid out slightly. We keep the bottom paddock as a hay field deliberately to give us a margin to reduce the possibility of the snails that host liver fluke.

 Joy acted as Queen Canute each morning:

 
In the brilliant sunshine of saturday we cycled around the flood plain to look back at our herd. A large number of swans are taking advantage of new grazing swims:

and we messed about like big kids - well you wouldn't want to miss an opportunity woould you?

Thats half a mile across to our fields, and it was a 3 mile loop around the water to this point - where there are no hedges or trees, you can't see the line of the road, and so wouldn't dare cycling or driving through it - this was just a little paddle at the end!

 Scrumpy and one of the girls let out an alarm call (screech, yodel?) yesterday - I looked, and it was a ginger cat - looking like a fox?

We held a spit-off session today, and found four-and-a -half spat - well, Scrumpy had realised by the end that he wasn't going to be lucky, and didn't make any effort, and there's always one inconclusive isn't there?

We've also started weaning,  halter training next!

Scrumpy admiring the swans (or his reflection?)

Manure to Manchester

In a period of respite from wind and rain, the herd graze in the crisp sunshine. We've moved them back over the hill as the home paddock is bare and muddy.

I moved the shelters, and had plenty of offers to help fix them:

These breathable shelters have lasted a year now - in contrast, Scrumpys shelter, which had corrugated plastic sheet roof and rear wall was ripped out of the ground and sent into the next field on the monday before Christmas (Scrump was in another more sheltered paddock). Here he is topping-up his tan this morning

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Our son has just returned to Manchester, taking four bags of alpaca manure for their new garden!
Sorry about photo quality, due to being taken on my 'phone.

Footnote to Andy and Bev of Lane House Alpacas: your latest blog, 'Mud, Mud...' isn't displaying.