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.