A worrying moment

My heart nearly stopped this morning as I drove through the field gate.  I could see Little Star flat out with no other alpaca anywhere near her.  I had the camera out as I had been trying to catch a nice morning view over the valley so for some daft reason I wasted a minute taking a photo of her before charging across.

From the photo you can see her ears are pricked and she is simply asleep - but my eyes aren't that good!  Anyway all was well and after sorting everyone out it was a trip to the library van where I found a very exciting book - how to knit two socks at the same time on one circular needle!  Yes, I know, how can you write a whole book about that?!  However, it is something I have not been able to master and I feel sure I can adapt it to knitting two gloves at one which will save having to try to work out what I wrote on old scraps of paper whilst knitting the first glove!

I then went up with Mum to clean the church for the last time this year - someone else's go next month.  This took a while as we had to get the bird mess of the chairs!

Now Sam should be back a little earlier tonight as he is at college today.  I had been getting a bit worried about all the hours he was working and even thought of having a word with his tutor but then yesterday afternoon Carl got a phone call from him.  "Dad is it alright if I am late back tonight?  I've asked if I can work late."  He was driving a mini digger, removing tree roots and making holes - so exciting he didn't even require paying!!

Driving with an annoying Yeti

I have had some very useful tips on fleece shots so, once I have tried them out, I shall publish the results and Debbie can judge from the results if the tips are a thing to share with the world!

We have had a busy and fairly unproductive time here.  Saturday we had to go over somewhere near Bath to look at new Kubota tyres for Sam.  The entire journey Carl and Sam were annoyingly hysterical as they had changed the sat nav back to Yeti voice.  This is completely useless as it just snorts randomly, laughs spasmodically and makes strange Yeti noises.  The tyres were no good.

Carl went somewhere to collect lots of tin for which he says he definitely has a use - we will see. 

The Truck is very good at pulling things and is comfortable but Carl has managed to break the aerial - quite dramatically as it shot out the hole and unwound lots of wire at speed.

My car is due an MOT which means I am now looking for another one as the list of things needing doing to it is far too long.  It also uses a lot of petrol which is not good.

Body scoring at the weekend was exciting with Little Star.  She was Bert's first baby here and so was a bottle fed girl and has always been fairly good about everything - slightly temperamental at times but easy to handle.  She has now changed and turned into a mini Bert - stamping, spitting and finally sitting down and moaning.  This is actually quite good as it is exactly how Bert is when pregnant and you want to do anything to her.  I had thought Little Star might not be pregnant but I am changing my mind.

More matings

Second matings for Emily and Little Star today with spit off for Prue at the weekend so it is all rather sexual here at the moment - on the alpaca front anyway!

Little Star went off and had a good think on her own after her adventures with Jed!

My most pregnant girls are all looking increasingly tired and spending lots of time in the shelter.  Greeves is not best pleased about this as he would like them to play with him.  I think the time is soon coming when he will have to be split up from his Aunty Islay.

The two day thing in action!

Judi asked an interesting question on yesterday's blog and I am going to answer it but it might make for a boring blog for my non alpaca breeder friends and might sound ridiculous to my alpaca breeder friends!  Sorry in advance!

The question was - Why use a black for Prue?
Well - Prue has a problem!  She is a blue eyed white.  However, all her babies have lovely fleece.  In the past she has been mated to two whites and a fawn.  With one white she produced a multi with a slight blue tinge in mostly brown eyes.  With the other white she produced a solid white - with blue eyes.  Last year she was mated to a fawn - Samurai - and had Barnaby Rudge - a great fleece, strong and healthy, brown eyes and a solid colour apart from white in his topknot.  We purposefully got Harry (Black Arrow) because of all the solid black in his pedigree, with the hope that we might overide the hidden white spots in the white which is what I think causes the problems.  Harry is not ready yet so we are having a go with Jed.  What we hope for is a solid colour with brown eyes.  If it is a boy we will know we are on the right track, if it is a girl we will be able to breed on to Harry when she is ready and see how we progress.  That is the theory to my way of thinking anyway!!

Here is Jed, ready for action!

So - tonight was the second mating for Prue on the Two Day Thing.  At exactly 7pm we got them together and Prue retreated as fast as she could.  Jed chased her round a bit sniffing but he wasn't really interested in her and she certainly was not interested in him.  Looks very much like that could have taken - so spit off in 7 days from yesterday.  Poor Dude is on spit off duty for her - that is not going to please him one little bit!
Once Prue was out we brought int the next candidate - Little Star.  Little Star is registered as white but not solid but it is more of a fawn white now and she has a darker fawn patch on her neck and one on the top of her shoulder.  She also has a nice fleece despite the colour.  Her father was Koricancha Sinbad of Wessex so I am thinking there must be a good bit of black within her genes.  Her Mum is Bert who is solid white and was one of the original imports from Alpacas of Wessex.  Bert had one cria before we had her and that cria is registered as white.  I did see him when we got Bert and don't remember seeing colour on him - his dad was Wirracocha.  So - the thinking according to me is that crossing her to a black could bring out all that hidden black and give a black - or maybe a brown - or, of course, could be a fancy!  I don't know but I find breeding with colour in mind facinating!  Well anyway - after all that waffle - Little Star went in with Jed and was not in the least bit interested.  She had a jump around, Jed sniffed a bit, then Jed turned his back on her and mooned over the fence a t Zara who he is in love with!!  We shall try again tomorrow but this time Zara is not coming anywhere near!

Snow start to the day

A bit of 'starter' snow today - but it didn't lay much.  Roads are very icy though.  Sam made it to the abattoir and found it very interesting.  From the detail he went in to I think he could be considering a career as a butcher.  He said they were very respectful of the animals and the whole thing was very slick so altogether a good trip for him.

Smudge was intrigued by the snow and spent a long time staring out the window before he eventually ventured out.

I had a lot of hay and water to carry round which went well until I got a big grinding noise from the Mule.  I stopped and got out quick as I didn't want to make it worse and end up without it for ages.  The rest of the day was spent plodding up and down the hill.  The alpacas didn't take much notice of the snow, apart from Little Star who took up solitary residence in the field shelter - and remained there!

 When Carl got back he went out to have a look at the Mule and said it was my fault (of course) as I had not emptied the poo out of the back and it had dripped in the brakes and frozen.  At least I think that is what I had done - I switched off after he mentioned it was my fault.  Apparently I must now not put the handbrake on but use a block of wood while it is so cold and I MUST empty it out.

After all the animals were sorted I spent ages updating the website and creating a new shearing page.  Dude's stud page got started but it is not complete yet.  I also have to do another pair of gloves urgently,

One thing I didn't mention on the blog (on purpose) was that 2 weeks ago I had my hair cut.  I must have had about 8 inches cut off and ---- no one has noticed!!  Well, Carl and Sam have of course.  This is a tribute to the truly awfulness of the new hair cut - it looks just as much of a mess as the old uncut hair!  I am going to another hairdresser next week to have another hair cut (apparently Shaun by the bed shop in Blandford is very good!).

Foo Man Choo

Very exciting this morning! Carolyn looked very restless when I let the chickens out. She was on her side moaning, back end gaping, grunting like yesterday. . . then she wandered off on her own . . . then she rolled around . . . then she stood straining over the poo pile for ages . . then . . . she calmly started grazing again!

Little Star spent an hour this afternoon looking like Foo Man Choo - she had got some fleece stuck in her teeth!


And this evening we have been removing posts that it took ages to put in because the paddock is not the right size for the Master Plan! Dobby and the rest of the wethers loved the posts coming out of the ground and kept pronking about while I operated the front loader and Carl did something technical with a piece of rope.