Shearing day!

With a later date this year, we finally had our shearer arrive yesterday. The alpacas were certainly long overdue and despite having a number of shearing days under our belts now, it is still an amazing shock to see the transformation..................all of which creates a total confusion as to which alpaca is which!! It was, as ever a full on event but surprisingly over in a relatively short while. Three hours later, all 33 alpacas were sheared (or is it shorn?), toenails trimmed and the odd one having their teeth trimmed. Along with Mike Banks and his team from Shearco, we were ably assisted by Gemma and Andrew who recently purchased their herd from us and my sister-in-law. Thanks to all of you. No sooner had the shearing been completed, the rain descended again so not only was our timing good, it was satisfying to see the paddocks getting a further dose of the wet stuff!

Seems like a different herd!!

Who are you now??

Our next job for this week is to sort and skirt the fleeces which, whilst being labour intensive, there is a significant satisfaction in performing this task and we are looking forward to having a really good look at all of the fleeces.

Once the routine feeding jobs have been done, we have decided to have a relatively easy day today although I am probably tempted to have a quick clean-up of a couple of paddocks which were used as a holding bay for the groups of Alpacas during the shearing!

Will be back again soon.

At last.....Rain!!

It has got to be the best part of 3 months since we had any (decent) rain but all that has now changed following a good drenching most of yesterday. We were getting quite concerned as no rain meant no grass and our birthing this year has not yet started................the first is due in early July but before that, we have our shearer due to arrive on Friday this week. He is later this year but despite our request for May shearing, he was held up in Australia for some reason! Anyway, now that the weather has finally broken, we are praying that Thursday/Friday is dry!!

We had an interesting incident the other day which involved both the horses and our Alpacas............We always keep Sheila's two horses quite seperate from the Alpacas in that they each have there own paddocks. The horses's paddock is not stock fenced, only post and railed but on this particular evening we decided to give the horses a treat by opening up a smaller paddock which is usually only occupied by the Alpacas. Access to the other paddocks which the Alpacas were in was by a small gate which can only be opened inwards. It appears that the youngest of the horses "sussed" out how to open the gate which then led to four paddocks being shared by both horses and twenty Alpacas!! No real damage done of course but since the horses paddock is only post and railed, any of the Alpacas could have quite easily slipped through the fencing!! Another lesson learnt.........don't underestimate the animals intelligence!!

We also have a very good reason to celebrate this week as the lovely couple (Gemma and Andrew) who recently purchased five of our Alpacas have been successful in securing a very nice piece of real estate for their farm. Congratulations to the both of you!

Signing off now but will be back soon.