Spring cria

The first of the 2011 crias have arrived safe and sound. Kiana was first with a good sized Perilli daughter who we promptly named Dolce Vita. It was a cool drizzly day so we immediately outfitted the little one in a cria coat to keep her snugly warm.

Nikki followed suit the next day. It was a hot one and she must have sneaked off under the trees to deliver her cria as we didn't really notice a second cria until feeding time the next morning. Nikki wasn't showing any signs of being ready to deliver and when I saw two cria in the barn I did a double take before I realized there were two. Nikkis' gal is an Icelander daughter who we named Demoiselle.

Shearing, weather and coats

It's the day after shearing and the weather remains cool; no, cold and wet. The poor naked alpacas are huddled in the barn and shivering.

I happened to have a half dozen alpaca coats cut out of fabric and ready to sew together. I had prepared them for shearing last season but they were not needed. So here we go with a group effort to construct the coats and get them on the animals. One wwoofer, Patricia is pinning them together as I sew and another wwoofer, Clotilde is running the stitched parts right side out.

As each coat is completed Patricia and Clotilde take it and head for the barn to dress the coldest looking alpacas.

Before long we have the chilliest animals warmed up and we're praying the cold weather will break.

Successful Shearing Day

Another successful shearing day with out to many injuries to the humans. A couple of scrapes, a few knocks and a lot of sore muscles. Alpacas made out fine except a little chillier as today is damp and grey.

Thanks to Dianne, Liz, Clothilde, Patricia, Roy, Lynne, Don, Thomas, and Steven. Special thanks to Kevin, David and friends (sorry I missed your names) from the Agricultural College. The extra hands and strong arms were a huge benefit in making the day go smoothly. Thank you again Lucas for another good day of shearing that went by without major incident.

There were the stubborn girls who decided to cush every so often on the route to the Shearing site, the escapee at the end of the day that needed to be herded back into the barn from the pasture, the couple of screamers and only one spitter.

Thanks again for helping shear our 25 animals.

Note: For the second year in a row a pair of sun glasses were left behind.

Shearing Day Saturday May 14th

Shearing day is on. The animals are quite dry. The fun begins at approximately 9am. It takes about 15 minutes an animal so come by later in the day to see the fun.

Finally dry weather

For the first time in weeks we had more than 24 hours with out rain. This is good timing as tommorrow is shearing day and a dry windy day with sunny breaks has got most of the animals dry. We have locked them in the barn tonight to be on the safe side.

Mayflower Show

May 7th was the Mayflower Show in Crapaud PEI. This was our third year at the show. Each year the show runs a little more smoothly. So our hats off to Heather and Paulette of Alpaca Bay Farms the organizers.

We took eight animals this year with Andele and Bartholomew taking 2nds in their Class. Bechamal and Bacio were second and third in their class. Anuone, Alteza, and Arwyn finished 1st, 2nd and 4th in a class of 7 animals. Anuone went on to win White female Champion.

The drive home saturday night unfortunately was a wet affair with heavy rain and fog over the Cobequid pass. But we all made it home safely.

A bird in every.....oven?

We have had some excitement at Rocaro Alpacas.

During a quiet moment, and there are few here in the spring, our Wwoofer Els and I noticed a scratching noise coming from the overn chamber of our wood fired cook stove.

The first assumption was that a squirrel had found its way into the stove and we had great discussions on the demise of the squirrel as we didn't want to run the chance of it escaping into the house.

We left the problem until the next morning, hoping the situation would resolve itself.

The next morning it became evident that the visitor was not a squirrel but a bird. We discussed our options to remove the bird and settled on using the live trap we have on hand. We arranged the trap tight to the stove and opened the door. Nothing.

We decided some bread would be an enticement for the bird and stuffed a crust into the trap. We waited...and waited....and finally the bird headed towards the bread. We quickly shut the door to the trap and scuttled the whole thing out to the woods.

The bird was grateful for his new freedom and we were glad we were not having Starling for dinner.

Saltscapes Expo

Our attendance at the Saltscapes Expo was a success. Thank you to everyone who visited the Rocaro Alpacas booth. We hope to see many of you at the farm over the summer.

Many thanks to Roy, Particia, Els and Elizabeth for your invaluable help.