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.