I did it !

The pink Walk for breast cancer was last weekend , and I did it! Along with 2 friends we trudged the tow paths on the Brecon and Monmouth canal until we reached Llangattock - it was good fun , but the last few miles were hard , very tender feet were OK as long as you kept going but when we stopped ....ouch! We finished in the first 100 , anad took just under 5 hours , so those of you who promised money - now would be a good time to cough up!

Clear as mud!

I did some spit=off's this morning , and really life is no clearer!

West shows great enthusiasm for the first girl , but if he gets a knock back , he goes off the boil and isn't very interested in any of the others - kind of tricky when spit-offs are the order of the day. Help from the 2 eldest boys is actually more of a hindrance , but I never seem to remember this until they are already 'helping' , #'s 3 & 4 sons , althou' smaller are much more help! anyway, with 'help' everyone was rounded up and penned for said spit-offs , first up was Kirsty who gave a resounding spit or several- good result.
Second up , Acantha , she is a really sweet little girl , and whilst not spitting , refused to be caught , conclusion - pretty sure she's pregnant. At this point West sat down himself , in sheer frustration I think!
Third up was Veronica , she spat for Wales - pretty good , but West hardly moved off the spot , took one look got spat at and refused to show any further interest.
Tried for a fourth result with Hermione , who's status is unclear but leaning towards pregnant, West refused to budge , had a cursory sniff , she spat he ignored her ! Cue me doing a passable orgle to see if that would get things moving - definite interest from all the alpaca , but more om the lines of ' what the hell is she doing now' , and a few surprised walkers .......

hey ho , life is never as simple as I'd like ! Off to view new puppy who is now 4 weeks old !

Big decision!

The last few days have been hectic but very productive , hence the blogging gap. Over the bank holiday, with the help of generous friends, we managed to get new gates hung at the bottom of the drive onto the yard , new fencing on the side of the field by the drive - it all looks very smart on arrival now- rose hedge trimmed , beech hedge trimmed ( understatement ) all the rubbish clippings burnt , veg gardens weeded..... all this with 6 kids in tow , a very arduous ( and for everyone else) enjoyable walk- I don't like steep hills so it was on the side of torture for me , and a riding lesson for the children. Pretty pleased with ourselves right now.

Plus the grass is growing ! We seeded and rotivated etc. a large patch of lawn and it is definitely green. Also managed to get the empty alpaca fields fertilised and it then obligingly rained... fab.

I have also been doing spit-offs and matings , which seem to be going well,I still wouldn't stake my life on Hermione being pregnant , but she is certainly doing a good impression. Bijou is looking larger by the day , she is due in 3 weeks so fingers crossed that we don't have to endure the wait like last year.

Now for the decision- I have put my first alpacas up for sale! I feel slightly sick at the thought of selling them , but it has to be done . Bourbon and Bilbo , my beautiful brown boys , do not have a place in my herd , being too closely related to most of the girls , but Bourbon particularly shows a lot of promise and I have tried every which way to keep him , not to be . The two of them are so close I think it is fairer to let them go together . I have also put Bozedown Kirtsy on the sale list. She is a great animal who has produced a couple of lovely girls for me , fab quality , but she is white , and my dream goes towards the darker colours , so sadly she too is going . Although I've put them up for sale , parting with them will be another story - gin will be in order !

surprises

The weather has been lovely , and the alpaca have been making the most of the gorgeous sunshine . Today , I did some pregnancy testing , and got a couple of surprises - Riva isn't pregnant going by the joyous greeting she gave West when she saw him . That is a shame ,but hey ho . Artemis was very keen to make friends with West ( little hussy) as was Acantha and Veronica. I wasn't expecting any of them to be pregnant , so Veronica was the first to be mated this season. Kirsty did a runner as soon as she saw West , so I didn't get a chance for a close encounter - the jury is still out on her status.Then came the surprises, Hermione is now 4 and a half , and for 3 years we have been trying to mate her with no success. Today , she went berserk and turned into the resident spit fountain , I have my fingers firmly crossed, interestingly , just before I went outside I had been reading an article on an alpaca forum in the states which was specifically saying that big boned animals ( Hermione ) and those with accoyo( Hermione) take longer to mature and may not be mate able until 3 or 4 years old ! How spooky is that. Athena was the next surprise - the jury is still out , but it looks promising - she spat at West , and after much sniffing he didn't even try mating with her , can the males tell I wonder?

The chicks were due to hatch today, and sure enough last night I saw a few piping . By this morning we had 7 chicks, 6 were bouncing and one looked distinctly dodgy , but tonight we have 14 healthy chicks including the dodgy one . I am really pleased- 5 barnevelders, 5 buff Sussex and 4 heinz 57 from my own flock. Currently they are all flaked out in the incubator like a huge chick carpet.

chickens always make me smile

Today I went to collect eggs , and just had to laugh. One of the hens had very carefully collected my lemon shaped and coloured egg timer into the nest and was contentedly sitting on it ! Moments like that are just so few and far between , but make life a little bit lighter .

What goes around.....

What a busy weekend . No paying guests so we took the opportunity to do some gardening - well rotivating actually. We ( DH & I ) worked all weekend rotavating and stone picking an area of approx.400m2, and boy did we find plenty of stones to pick ! It is back breaking , shoulder knackering work , followed by rolling and raking . Luckily it is all now done , and fertiliser has been applied , just waiting for the weekend to grass seed the whole lot - keeping the chickens and the children off should be fun!

Along with everything else , I am now on the look out for a puppy ! 2 litters look promising , but we are on a waiting list for both, I am after a black lab bitch , and the people on the list ahead of us cannot decide between black and yellow , so we are holding our breath and praying quietly that they prefer yellow!

The days are beautifully warm and the alpacas are sunbathing a lot which is lovely - get those Vit D levels up girls- and the hens are doing fine as are all the chicks , incubator still purring away nicely -D Day is the 1st May

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 !