Herman arrives and bubbles

Some rather upsetting news yesterday put a bit of a damper on the start of the weekend but animal tasks could not be put off so it was lambivac and body scoring for the alpacas, vaccinating and worming sheep - luckily we had a bit of help with the sheep as the SFS turned up on their way back from an alpaca auction near Dorchester.  The ex marine side of the SFS proved a dab hand at lamb wrestling although a lot of rugby style sliding seemed to be involved.  Sam's sheep were a lot easier as they went through the race.  Lady SFS brought me something called Herman.  Herman is white and bubbles and smells.  It has to sit in a bowl for a while and be fed and then after several days it gets cooked and becomes a cake.  The downside of this is I have to find some friends as part of the Herman has to be given away.

Carl is unhappy as he had to let Sam do the topping of top paddock because he had other things he had to do.  It is not that we have too much grass - just the dead bits needed to come off so it thickened up.  It has meant all the girls have had to go together for a while and they are not too happy about this. (Although in this photo they look perfectly content!  You can't see the others out of shot covered in spit and with droopy mouths!)

 Lina is jumping anyone who lies down (Can she really be pregnant?  She is still spitting off - maybe she just wants to dominate everyone after seeing Dude in action ?)  Zara is charging around pronking and really galloping with skid stops when  Dude looks at her. 

Greeves is fascinated with Cassie and tries to mount her - something he has no chance of achieving without a ladder.

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.

Love is in the air!

Very nice evening - no rain, not too warm - time for a couple of matings!  And Dude got his first mating of the year.  Emily was a little wary at first but I am afraid Dude was in no mood for messing about.  He was in the mood as he came down the track - orgling away, he knew what was coming!

Quick check to make sure everything was where it should be and get a leg reorganised - Emily and Dude are both in need of shearing and we ran out of time last weekend.  Once that was done Jed got going with Little Star - but I forgot a picture, have to do that tomorrow when we do the follow up.  Sam was too busy taking sheep pictures and he was on camera duty.  This is one of the two bottle feds - Limpit and Nonlimpit with their mum.

Everyone is now in their right paddocks happily eating or resting and we are about to enjoy a nice bit of venison - and a rest! 

Rained Off!

Very proud of Mother this morning - she drove up to visit!  This may not seem much but she has not driven for a good while now and, despite being a good driver, had lost confidence.  She has had a few refresher lessons and is doing well.

Sam had the dentist this afternoon where he was told off for not cleaning his teeth well enough - told off by the dentist, hope that has the desired effect!  Met The Keeper of the Churchyard in The Coop and then dashed back again to set to with more matings but rain stopped play!

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!

Making babies!

Jed's first date with a lady this evening!  He ate a hearty tea, we have sorted out the problem with the plastic drainpipe - apparently he is used to eaing from a hand made, finely sanded wooden bowl and, not having one of those, I found an old salad bowl I thought might do (much more his style!).  Jed is a forceful, yet romantic lover who whispers sweet nothings in his lady friends ears, having forced them manfully to the ground first!  His first date was Prue and at first I thought we were on a non starter but he was having none of that and Prue quite happily let him get on with it!  Prue is not my best looking female but she is mum to Barnaby Rudge who has what I think is a very nice fleece - waiting for the fleece stats to come back at the moment. 

All went swimmingly - with the young boys watching at a respectful distance (luckily Dude didn't realise what was going on).

Then when Prue went back into her paddock with the other girls Lina went wild.  She got Prue to the ground, mounted her, orgled so loud Dude heard from three paddocks away, got very aggressive with Emily who was trying to sniff Prue and spat all over the place!

She stomped, stropped and posed!

And kept blocking Carl from getting anywhere near poor Prue!

We'll be doing it all again tomorrow!

Painted/not painted!

Yet another busy day and an early start.  Sam was in charge of everything here whilst Carl and I headed out to do a little assisting with foot trimming, condition scoring and handling - great fun and we were priveliged to  see a couple of delightful young cria.  When we got back we checked over the boys and sprayed the sheep against fly strike.  This was easy with Sam's in the race but for mine it meant creeping up on them with the gun behind my back and catching them unawares.

We have just had a mammoth downpour, which could not have come at a worst time as Carl had just put the first coat on the upstairs wall of the house - outside!  It has now all washed off into the water collection trough, not good and he is stomping a bit.  We also had a lot of rain in the night but none of the alpacas are any the worse for it and it has done the grass a great deal of good.  Jed is settling in well and spent a great deal of the afternoon sunbathing.  He was a bit wary of his feed trough which was obviously not what he is used to, but after a lot of sniffing and backing away, he tucked in and cleared the lot.  Watched closely by Harry and Dylan!