Season's Greetings

We would like to take this opportunity to wish all of our Blog followers a Merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year.

Home safe and sound.

Saturday morning we tumbled into the truck and once again headed for PEI to pick up the girls from the Vet College. This was a much more leisurely trip and we even had time to visit friends on another alpaca farm on the island.

Upon arriving home the girls were a bit confused at the sight of their familiar barn. Perhaps they were expecting something different after all their travels. They settled in just fine in the end.

All health checks were clear and Kiana will be the first we breed in the spring. Wish us luck!

And two are gone

Friday night we took two alpacas to the vet college in PEI, and then drove back again. The trip is about 3 1/2 hours each way and amounts to a lot of driving in an evening. Kiana is in for a thorough examination to determine why she is not remaining bred. Coco tagged along for company, and the students at the college are delighted to have alpacas to study for a week.

Sweet Dreams returns

Sweet Dreams has returned from breeding camp. She spent 3 months at another alpaca farm for an outside breeding. There was much welcoming by the resident ladies when we led her back into the barn, and I'm sure she is happy to be home.

Formal introductions

Today we introduced the yearling males to the adult guys for the first time.

Now that barn renovations are complete and the fence and gates are operational we moved the "teenagers" into the pasture right next to the studs. There was much male posturing, tail raising and nose sniffing along the fence, but the whole thing was less exciting than anticipated. This is good.

The young guys will remain in the new pasture for the day; I want to keep an eye on things and then back home for the night. The final "move in" day will be Saturday which will give us a couple of days to monitor behaviour before we go back to work.

WWOOFing Season is over

Well, WWOOFing season is over for this year. Without the help of all of our volunteers we certainly would not have so much completed. We enjoyed our conversations with all of you and enjoyed sharing recipes.

Thanks to Clemens and Eva for keeping the gardens in great shape, planting tree seeds and helping with the breedings.

Thanks to Joe and Tina for helping with building the loafing areas on the barn and drilling fence post holes.

Thanks to Mayumi for even more weeding and painiting the trailer and inside the barn. Your help with haying was great.

Thanks to Marisa and Stefanie for helping pound in fence posts, yup, more weeding, and help with breedings.

Thanks to Fanny for putting the gardens to bed for the winter and becoming an expert wood splitter and stacker.

And last but not least thanks to Mathias for building doors, gates and walls in the barn.

Open Farm Day a Success

On Sunday approximately 160 people came and visited our farm. Caroline and I talked about alpacas all day long. Between 945 and 415 I think there was only 15 minutes that both of us were not showing at least one group the alpacas. Based on conversations and the reviews in our guest book, I think everyone had a good time. We had SweetNS and Toblerone in a temporary pen so that everyone could have a feel of how soft their fibre is. The girls were not as cooperative as only half decided to come in for morning mineral rations so not all of them got their picture taken by the many guests. Our farm store of Alpaca products, homemade breads and vegetables from the garden also did well. Special thanks to Caroline's mom (Muriel) and Genevieve who manned the store. I think the only ones who did not enjoy themselves were our dogs as they unfortunately had to stay in the house all day as this many people would have been to much for them.

Nova Scotia Open Farm Day Sept 20th

Nova Scotia Open Farm day is Sunday September 20th. We are participating and will be open for visitors from 10am to 4pm. Come and see the alpacas. We will also have alpaca products, vegatables, and homemade breads for sale.

Another girl!

We now have had the last cria of the season, about a week earlier than expected. We have named this last one Alteza in keeping with the letter A theme for this year.

We will start thinking about a theme for next year before too long.

Summer Breeding 2

Well this weekend we had some more successful spit offs by Cadence and Kiana (finally) Hopefully the trend continues. Only Wyonna still responded so we tried again on sunday. This was expected as last week when breeding Wyonna the process was interupted because we moved Perilli past Icelander which caused to my stress between the two. Note to self...always keep males out of visual range to each other during breeding. Fingers crossed this is successful as we would like to avoid September crias in the future.

How to bath a cat

I am more of a dog person. I don't know a lot about cats. I have however increased my feline knowledge in preparation for taking one of the barn cats, Tab to the vet for a booster shot.

You don't always see a barn cat on the morning you have an appointment for the vet. The evening before the appointed day, I saw Tab in the barn and thought ah ha!

The first thing I have learned is that unlike a dog, you cannot put a cat in a crate for the night. Well actually you can, but you end up with a really messy cat.

The following morning I found Tab was in need of a bath before going for a car ride. The following method worked for me.

1. Wake spouse from his deep sleep to tell him you need help right away.

2. Fill the kitchen sink about half full of quite warm, but not hot water. Assemble shampoo and dry towels.

3. Wrap the cat in an old tea towel.

4. Stand towel wrapped cat in the sink, and have your helper pour warm water over the cat to soak it.

5. Slowly soap the cat, removing the towel as you go. Keep a firm hold on the cat, and don't let her reach out and grab onto anything. This takes four hands to do.

6. While holding the cat, have your helper pour warm, clear water over the cat until it is well rinsed.

7. Let the water out of the sink, while the cat is still standing in it.

8. Wrap the cat in a clean dry towel and dry her as best you can. Keep her warm until she is dry.

Cats take a surprisingly long time to dry.

Hurricane Bill

On Sunday, Nova Scotia was hit by Hurricane Bill. This category one storm passed along the atlantic coast about 75km offshore. Our farm being on the Bay of Fundy side of the province was not subject to as much of the storm as other areas were. We did suffer minor wind damage in that an apple tree was pushed over and some of the roofing panels on the barn have been loosened enough that the next storm will be more than they can handle.

All the alpacas are doing well. We actually bred two of the girls in the morning just as the heavy rains were starting. Future alpaca name could be Bill or Billie if a successful take.

Quiet Week

Been a quiet week at Rocaro Alpacas. We dropped our last WWoofers at the airport on Aug 9 in preparation for relatives to arrive this weekend. I ended up working lots of overtime on my day job which kept the farm activities to a minimum. Harvesting is becoming an almost daily activity for vegatables and blackberries now with green and yellow beans ready, and all the salad products in full production mode. Also got a dozen peaches from our new peach tree.

This week we are also babysitting a border collie (Ziggy) for a friend. With the new dog around Perilli makes a warning call of descending highpitched notes when ever he approaches. Ziggy also has discover manure piles and a skunk so has been getting lots of baths.

Fourth Cria of the Year

Wyonna had her Cria on Friday. A lovely fawn male with a birth weight of 17.2 pounds. Mom and baby are both healthly and doing well. We have decided to name him Andele.

Teenagers finally controlled

I think we have finally stopped the young guys from getting into the females pasture. The final cog was getting the proper gate installed. A little help from the farmer down the road got the job complete. For two days now the boys have not been able to find away through the fencing. Fingers crossed

Breeding this week

Well Kiana looks like she is finally pregant. She spit off Icelander this weekend and also has stopped dropping for the teenagers. Poor icelander also go spit off by Sedona on her spit test. This was expected as she has been spitting off for a couple of weeks.

Karmelita also spit off Perilli for the second time. Cadance though had her first breeding with Perilli. Should try again tonight weather permitting.

Teenager Fencing

Well our fencing is almost done. Three weeks ago we did the fence post holes. Then we secured the posts. This past week and weekend we secured the wire and top and bottom rails so that the youngs do not slip under and are visually impeded on top. Only have the gate left to do. Will be glad when this is done so we can focus on other activities.

Delinquent posting

Sorry we have been so long since posting...Still dialup at home and work has been crazy busy. Highspeed is supposed to arrive about september. Please come sooner. Read below for as I have backdated some July posts.

Summer Breeding

So far we have had good success rebreeding our mothers who have given birth.
Sedona seems to have taken nicely after the first set of breedings and now spits off the males.

Karmelita who we bred for the first time on the weekend was already spitting off yesterday.

Kiana on the other hand is not taking very well. She is dropping down and accepting the male on repeated attempts but is not clicking with him. She has been open all winter and spring so hopefully she catches soon

Sweet Dreams was taken to Alpaca House Farm 10 days ago for her rebreeding as she reaborbed her cria over the winter unfortunately. Hopefully she accepts breeding quickly.

Trouble with teenagers

Our 5 young 1 year old males have discovered girls. They have also discovered that temporary fencing has flexibility. They have learned to hop over the 3 foot fence where it droops or if it is not flush to the ground they get thier heads underneath and then lift of the fence. This then pulls up the nearby movable fence post creating either a large gap underneath the fence they can crawl through or a large droop they can easily jump over.

Two weeks ago we had rented an auger and drilled holes for fence posts in anticipation but the young guys have progressed much faster than us even with all our woofer help. We got the first 150ft stretch of wire up on Monday night. Some busy evenings ahead if it does not rain.

WWOOFer help has been great

Since the couple from Vienna has left we have had another couple from Germany, a Japanese girl and currently two girls from Germany. All the extra help has been great. There regular routine chores are taken care of allowing more time for special projects like fencing, building leanto entrance ways etc.

It has been also great have visitors from away as we learn about there daytoday lifestyle and culture in their country's. Each of them have also often prepared dishes from their homeland and bring unique perspective and ideas to the farm.

Thanks everyone for all your help. We appreciate it.

Cadance has a girl

Another girl. This is great. This young girl has the same parentage as our Artic Blizzard who won best in show at the Mayflower show in PEI. This is our third girl this season.

Karmelita has her Cria

And it is a girl...yippee. A fine young girl at a strapping 20lbs in a light fawn colour. We had a Japanese woofer staying with us at the time who told us the apricots in japanese is "anzu" which is what we have decided to call her.

Our first WWOOFers

Earlier this year we joined an organization called World Wide Opportunities on Farms (WWOOF). For the past week an Austrian couple (Clemens and Eva) have been staying with us and helping us out. They have been great. The two of them have helped with the weeding of the gardens, sorting the fleece from this years shearing, setting up feeders, planting and harvesting of early vegatables plus other odd jobs. We have also had them leading the alpacas and helping out when we gave the heard their quarterly needles.

In the spring time we often get behind on the additional chores as the alpacas keep us busier so their help has been most beneficial. Additionally we have enjoyed great conversations during and after dinner about their travels and life in both Canada and Austria.

On Sunday we took the two of them to the top end of the Annapolis Valley region to the Grand Pre Exhibit, Windsor, Wolfville and also visitied a few wineries. They found the Maple wine unique and the Best wine of the day was the Alchemy from L'acadie vinyards in the Gaspereau Valley. They are currently Nova Scotias only certified organic vinyard. The other two wineries we visited on sunday were Sainte-Famille and Gaspereau

Breeding Season Starts

Now that we are in the middle of June we have started breeding. This year we set up a temporary pen in the middle of the girls pasture. Kiana who we think reaborbed her cria during her choking problem in November was our known open female. She quickly went down for Perilli. As this was in the pasture the other females all came and checked out the situation. Most of the girls then walked away and kept a little difference.
Nikki though came by sniffed around and then cushed a few feet away from the fence. She then rolled around and after about 5 minutes got up and walked away. Nikki did have a positive Ultrasound in Junuary.
A bigger concern though is Sweet Dreams. She came up to the fence of the breeding pen about 15 minutes in and then cushed right next to the pen beside the mating couple. She stayed in this position until the end 15 minutes later as if waiting her turn. Immediately after we had led Perilli away Sweetdreams then went into the breeding pen and sniffed around for 5 minutes. This would be disappointing if Sweet Dreams reabsorbed as we had done an outside breeding for her last September. We have had no indications that she was stressed in away during the winter that would have caused the cria to be absorbed. Her ultrasound was mixed but the vet did have issue getting a good position on her compared to some of the other tests but at the time we were not concerned as she was spitting off well.

Our first 2009 Cria

And it is a girl.

After 2 weeks with almost no rain. Sedona chooses to have her baby on a day with heavy and steady rain. Thankfully baby is doing fine with good temperature, teeth, 4 nipples and walking if not running around. She weighs in at 20.1 pounds.

Alpacas in the pool

In the summer to help keep alpacas cool we bought a few of the 1 foot deep hard plastic swimming pools for little kids. The alpacas will then go and lay in these pools to cool their legs and bellies. On Sunday being hot we were filling them up again as they had been emptied when we were moving the soil around. The girls have two pools and were in the first one as soon as the water started running. Meanwhile, SweetNS had climbed into the pool on the male cria section and layed down in it despite it being completely empty of water. I was quite funny to see him stay there for over 5 minutes. He would look over at us almost suggesting - Hurry up...I waiting for my swim.

Stuck in the Mud

Last weekend we had 3 loads of topsoil delivered to help the recovery of some ground near the barn. We had put down the winter manure and bedding mix and now wanted to cover it with a layer of soil before seeding. This will add another 4000 sqft of pasture for the cria section. On Thursday, Bill the local dairy farmer who helped pull out the dump truck last weekend came by with his front loader to move the soil from the dump spot to the locations I needed and smooth out a couple of old manure (now soil) piles.

It rained on Friday, so I waited to Saturday late afternoon before I started smoothing Bills small piles with my little tractor and blade. I was about 90% done on one the second area I was working on and found a very wet hole that was nicely covered up by soil. The entire rightside of the tractor went it and was not coming out under its own power. Caroline was not pleased and said I should have known better (which is true but I had the time and new I was pushing the limits and had lots to get done.)
I went up and got the 4 wheel drive truck hoping to tow it out. But this was unsucessful as well and ended up chewing up more ground. Caroline even was frustrated with my stupidity. I at least did not get the truck stuck and called it a night.

Sunday, thankfully, was sunny and hot which helped dry somethings some more. I waited until after lunch before tackling the job of digging out the tractor. I had dug around the tractor removing some of the soil from the driving path and was about to attempt another pull out with the hard earth now being dry. Tony our tenant though arrived and said that would still not work and we needed to jack up the tractor, stick wood underneath and then drive the tractor away. So I got the 2.5 ton jack, some 2X6 planks and a few big rocks to stop the jack from sinking under the weight. After an our we had got the tractor high enough to get to pallets under the right side and were able to drive the tractor away.

While I did not get the two other sections done for spreading, I at least finished this one and then mowed the lawn.

Alpacas in the pool

great weekend weather

Now that the Mayflower show and shearing are complete we are able to focus on other activities about the farm. The weather was great this weekend with temperatures in the high 20's (celcius) on Saturday and cooler and overcast on Sunday but no rain until the late afternoon.

• Things accomplished included giving all the lawns their first mow of the season (also helps dandilion control).
• Did a full trim with the trimmer around all the fruit trees and other spots from the spring growth. Used a tank and half of gas.
• Caroline planted the tomatos and peppers from the sunroom to the greenhouse.
• reorganized the interior fencing for the cria pen so that we can rotate them from one week to the next.
• had three tandem loads of soil delivered improve pasture area for reseeding in cria fields
• full pasture was fertilized. (fertilizer costs have all but doubled this year from last. OUCH!)
• Finished planting the upper garden with less frost hardy vegatables
• Tilled the lower garden so it is ready for Squash and Corn plantings later this week.
• Planted some more gooseberry and blueberry bushes so in a couple of years our crops will be closer to our needs.

We also had time to enjoy our property a little bit.

• This included seeing a doe and her new born fawn move across the field from one copse to another.
• Found a baby painted turtle about 1 inch in diameter about 100 yards from the nearest water source. Probably a new born from last years egg layings. We gave it an assist to the nearest pond.
• Watch a rabbit eat our dandilion heads. He can eat as much as he wants but not the garden please. I am scared though to have him invite his friends.
• The leaves are now on coming out and the bird life in plentiful. A couple of highlights were a magnolia warbler about 4 ft from me and a purple martin (a property first) flying around with the barn swallows.
• The hummingbirds are back and put out the second feeder this weekend to ease the territorial pressures.

While there are still things that need to be done some of the early spring pressures are now complete and a more relaxed pace and continue for the summer season until harvesting time.

Thanks to our volunteers

On shearing day we had 9 volunteers who I just wanted to thank:
Lynn, Brian, Ben and Josh
Jackie and Ray
Darren and Adelaide
and Flame.

Caroline and I really appreciate the time and efforts you all contributed. You all seem to enjoy yourselves and we hope you will be willing to come back next year when we will have 21 animals to shear.

Hopefully next year more will be able to stay for the barbeque at the end of the day.

Shearing is over for another year!

Phew! It was a big job this year with 6 more animals to do. We were a bit better organized this time with 12 people in all including Lukas the shearer.

The screamers screamed and the quiet ones were thankfully quiet. We got started at about noon, a bit later than expected and wrapped up at 5pm. Once again Lukas did an excellent job.

We got the fleeces skirted and sorted except for our prize winners. Those fleeces I will prepare separately to send to the fleece competition in Navan in August. Then off to the mill for processing into yarn.

The white fleeces will be sent to the Co-Op in Calgary for credits for alpaca products.

Today just some final barn clean-up and funny looking animals.

Shearing Day on Saturday May 16

Tommorrow is shearing day. Shearer is expect to arrive at 10 am. Tonight we have to halter an weight the animals, clean the shearing area and set up the fleece sorting tables.

The day will end with a barbeque for our volunteers.

Mayflower Show 2009

May 9 and 10 was the Mayflower Show. Rocaro Alpacas had a great showing. We took our cria from last year and were very successful.

Oreo - First Junior Black Male
Toblerone - First Junior Fawn Male & Fawn Colour Champion
Callebaut - First Junior Brown Male & Brown Colour Champion
Blizzard - First Junior White Male & White Male Colour Champion
Cocoa Blanca - Third Junior Multi Female

Then in the Best of Show Competition which included our four young males the judge spent over 5 minutes choosing between Blizzard and Toblerone.

Aztec Artic Blizzard won Best in show.

NS Farm Investment Fund

Last night we went to a meeting on the this years Farm Investment Fund (FIF) program that is sponsored by the provincial and federal governments agriculture departments. The fund includes money for business development, training, farm health and safety, environmental protection, energy efficiency/sustainability and farm improvements that relate to these areas. Funding is everywhere from 25 to 75% of the cost to get the work or equipment done.

Last year we used the fund to help cover the costs of our protection from predator fencing, website development, and bringing water to the barn.

This year we hope to utilize some of the funding for training (internet marketing, fleece sorting course), manure handling and storage, runoff control from buildings, and a nutrient management plan.

Good news that we got last night was that new start up farms now how five years instead of three to reach the gross revenue goal of $10,000 per year.

For more information go to the following website:

http://www.gov.ns.ca/agri/prm/programs/fifguide.shtml

Upcoming events

Things that are about to happen include:

Mayflower Alpaca show in Crapaud PEI on May 9/10
Shearing Day - May 16th

Last week of May is when we can start to expect our first cria for the year. Sedona is the mother.

Garden needs to be tilled and planted.
Pasture needs to be over-seeded.
Barn repairs/improvements need to be organized and started.

With the arrival of spring the farm becomes a busy place and going to work on Monday becomes a place to rest the aching muscles.

I hate Dialup

One of our biggest problems with living in rural Nova Scotia is ....Dial up internet. The connection moves so slow that it makes going on the computer a frustrating chore versus a quick search, update or pleasant time. For the past two months the situation has got worse. The connection is often failing, connection speeds are now 26KBs at best instead of 30-32KBs. Alaint our provider does not seem to care and they now charge highspeed at the same price as dialup but highspeed is not available in our area. None of the competition is in our area either. The Nova Scotia government has mandated and awarded contracts so that all of rural Nova Scotia will be have highspeed access by the end of 2009 but I will believe it when I see it.

Spring has arrived

Spring has arrived in the last few weeks. Only remnants of the 6 foot drifts of snow at the edge of the woods are still around. Temperatures are finally hitting double digits and the heavy winter coats are put away. Crocuses are flowering and other spring bulbs are at early shoots

Alpaca wise; the winter manure and bedding layer has been removed from the barn. All the animals are healthy and now scrounge the pasture for any greener that is starting to grow.

Clean up has also started on the flower gardens, apple trees are sprayed, some vegetables are started in the sun room for later planting.

Enough Winter Already

It is March 17th and the main sliding barn doors are still frozen into the ground. Since the beginning of January we have had to use an alternate entrance into barn. The inconvienence is biggest when need to carry the 25KG feedbags through two gates while not letting dogs in or alpacas out. The second pain is the light switch of course is near the main doors not the side entrance which means you need a flash light for those early mornings or late evenings. In our 6 years in Nova Scotia we have never experienced a winter this cold for this long. We used to often get a week of rain after a week of cold which I previously hated as it always ruined the snow for skiing. A week of rain a couple of times to melt the snow this year would have been a blessing since we still have a foot or more cover in all but the most exposed places.

Cria school

Halter training has been completed and the cria are used to wearing the halters now. The next steps are lead training and then learning to lead.

Lead training will begin this weekend by attaching a length of inner tube to both the halters and a ring in the wall. The inner tube will allow some flexibility of movement along with restraint.

Spring shearing 2009 Volunteers?

We have our shearing date set this year for Saturday May 16, the weekend after the Mayflower show in PEI.



Adult volunteers are welcome to join in the fun. We will need hands to help hold animals on the shearing table, and helpers to collect, sort,skirt and bag the raw fleece as it comes off the alpacas. It's dirty work but lots of fun.



The day will start early, around 7:30 am and end with a barbecue.

Alfalfa pellet fun

We have one girl, Wyonna who is looking a little thin. After some research we determined that alfalfa is a good way to add weight. Alfalfa hay is not readily available in our market so we opted for pellets.

I gave Wyonna some this morning and after about two bites she began to choke. Oh, no! Not again. I stroked her long neck with great force to try and dislodge the stuck pellet and after a few minutes she appeared to be fine.

The pellets are a good size and perhaps this was the problem. Instead of feeding them whole I decided to put the pellets in a bowl and wet them to soften them up. While this did work (you need a good amount of water) Wyonna was not very interested. Apparently alfalfa is not very palatable.

Next step was to mix a handful of the sweet feed ration in with the mushy alfalfa and this was a hit. Hopefully this will do the trick.

Shot giving day

Sunday was shot giving day. We gave all fifteen alpacas their quarterly Ivermectin shot and a couple of cria their Tasvax shot. We were able to get 14 of the 15 on the scale for a weighing. Only Kiana decided it was not for her and stubbornly dropped into a cush position and would not be moved. Even the alpaca mash would not coax her into stepping on the scale. She would only bound across it, much too fast to obtain a weight reading. While some are hesitant to go on the scale, once on they seem to enjoy the extra height (3 inches) and looked around. Afterwards when we were leaving they were going back on the scale by themselves.

The only casualty was Caroline who jabbed herself with a needle.

Better Living Show Results

Unfortunately our participation at the Better Living Show in Halifax was not a success. Less than 5000 people came through the doors and that was far less than the expected attendance. Those who did attend the show seemed to be disappointed with the overall appearance and types of vendors, thus they were not in a buying mood. In the end, sales did not cover the cost of the booth. We had additional frustration as the wireless Internet system did not seem to work with either of our laptops making the few credit card sales difficult. We will have to look at that in the future.

We had positive comments on our display from other vendors and the publice was very interested in the products which was a good sign. The alpaca duverts drew good interest and hopefully this will result in future sales.

Things that we learned:

• Bring your own dolly/cart to move your boxes. Makes setup and take down much easier as it can be done in only a couple of trips from the truck. We found a good one a Canadian tire.
• The 10x10 space was a little small.
• Bring more pictures of the alpacas.
• Everyone liked the box of raw fleece that they could touch.
• Need a rack so you can hang certain items.
• Create a tally sheet so that keeping track of cash sales on small items is easy. Hard to really know how many finger puppets were sold.
• You definitely need two people all the time so that you can take a break. Caroline had a friend help on Saturday but was all alone on Sunday as I had to many things to do back on the farm.

An unsuccessful 3 day show make a long weekend with not enough rest. I am sure Caroline will have more to add.

Show preparations

We have taken a booth at the Better Living Home Show in Halifax Feb 13-15 and are busy preparing displays for the booth.

We have new product in, priced and ready to go, although there is so much more to think about right down to pins for the displays. I have a new appreciation for the vendors that regularly attend these shows as it sure takes a lot of planning.

We hope to do well, ideally we will sell all of the inventory on hand and take additional orders for duvets and pillows.

Weaning part 2

It's been 2 weeks since the separation and all is going well. The cria have become quite docile around us and we are concentrating on handling them and teaching halter tolerance. The next lesson will be learning to lead.

Coco Blanca insists on making her way into the pasture where her mother is. Being the tallest of the cria it is easy for her to get over the fence. She is also the "ring leader" because once she is over the fence, some of the others tend to follow.

Toblerone also likes to get in with his mom, and his humming has quite an urgent quality when we shoo him back to his own pasture.

The moms are enjoying the break from nursing babies and show little interest in them when they do hop the fence.

Cats and dogs

We had some excitement in the barn last week with the dogs and a cat. We were working away and surprised one of the barn cats. The cat lept up and took off like a shot, right into the path of 2 surprised and excited dogs.

The dogs were on the cat, shaking him and basically wiping the floor with the poor thing. Fortunately I was able to intervene in a hurry and save the cat.

Now whenever we are in the barn, that particular cat stays up in the rafters and watches with a wary eye.

Starting the weaning process

On Saturday we separated the Cria from the dams to start the weaning process. The cria of course are quite vocal in their separation with lots of humming and a few attempts to climb the wall between them. The moms while concerned at first poked their heads over the wall. Saw all was fine and went back to eating hay. The below normal cold weather (around - 20 celcius) is both a blessing and pain. It forces the separation in a contained area which lowers the risk of a Cria trying to jump our interior fencing which is suspect due to all the hard pack snow on the ground. The pain is that the pipes to the waterers are frozen again so we have to cart water from the house.

Another first

The weather warmed up enough to tackle the job of implanting a micro-chip into the hind end of the last cris that needed identification.

The appearance of the needle used to insert the chip is enough to put fear into a novice. However, having some experience in administering the worming shot we "plunged" forward.

Really the process is no different than the dewormer: run some alcohol over the area and slip the needle in. Rob had a good hold of the cria, and it was all over in a jiff.

Wyonna and Sweet Dreams return

This weekend past, my neighbour and I went down to Alpaca House Farm near Berwick to retreive Wyonna and Sweet Dreams who were taken there for breeding last September. Craig my neighbour used his horse trailer to bring them back. This was much better method than using the van we had borrowed before (I am not sure the Mcdonalds have forgiven us yet). My thanks go out to them again. Wyonna only spit a little bit and then settled down nicely on the bed of hay with her cria Callebaut. The trip home ended up being in a snowstorm but all arrived safely.

Thanks for driving and the use of your trailer Craig.

Another snowstorm - shoveling out the barn

New Year 2009 has arrived with a wintry blast of a blizzard.

The girls spent most of the night tucked under their favourite trees at the back side of the pasture, and returned to the barn only when the storm turned nasty.

Because we have not yet built doors for the boy's entrances to the barn considerable snow had drifted in during the night. A carpenter is sorely needed! Fortunatley the snow was light and dry making it easy to shovel it out of the barn.

WWOOF

We are now members of WWOOF Canada, willing workers on organic farms. If you are interested in learning about alpacas hands-on visit www.wwoof.ca.