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.