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Monday 12 April 2010

alpaca make over

The sunny weather just keeps on coming ! A week now and the days are just lovely , the alpacas are doing some sunbathing and so are the hens. It is lovely to see everybody laid out and relaxed after a tough winter.

Yesterday I moved the mums into a new field next to the weanlings and yearlings , in order to clean their field and let it grow for the births in June , needless to say that within a couple of hours 3 alpaca had made it back in with the mums , funnily enough not the ones I would have predicted , all the boy weanlings stayed away , and since they were all mummies boys I'm quite surprised , and Brizo didn't bother either , but her older sister did! Anyway , it became clear that keeping them in separate fields was a bit of a farce , so I let them all in together , amid much excitement ( well 2 mins worth) and then it all settled down and they got on with munching and sunbathing .
Today , we rounded them up and did a bit of toe nail trimming , and a bit of facial hair trimming , Brizo and Binky have fantastic fleeces , with great crimp and lustre and it grows all over their faces , so much so that their eyes were fast disappearing , which in a huacaya is a bit disconcerting ! Anyway I trimmed and trimmed and tried not to go over board , but I fear I didn't make much difference and we may have to repeat the performance tomorrow. I also did a bit of dagging and washing of hind legs for the same two ladies who have a habit of getting their legs gummed up with any twig or bramble within a 5 mile radius and then get into a horrid mess , so a good wash was called for after the worst was cut away - we don't want fly strike , that's for sure.

The school chicks are spending their first night out in a coop without a heat lamp , the day temps have been great and they are all fully feathered so it should be fine ........

Also , I had a bit of a shopping spree and am now the proud owner of ..... 4 cream legbar chicks - all hens ( they are autosexing ) and an incubator full of eggs ! 6 Barnevelders , 6 Buff Sussex , 3 Panteg khaki and 3 dark brown eggs of the Heinz 57 variety ! Hatching date is May bank holiday so fingers crossed .

I have my sister to stay for the rest of the week , and then next week I start halter training and spit-off's for real , with a dose of mating thrown in for good measure . Watch this space !

2 comments:

Millie said...

Isn't that hoof care a never ending job. It seems like I'm always cutting or just finished cutting goat hooves.

Lois Evensen said...

What a lovely update. :)

The alpacas are just precious.

Lois