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