Back to mating!!

Throughout the last two months, we have been getting concerned over the lack of "spring growth" and thus the continued reliance upon dry matter for our alpacas. Now with the abundance of rain and the rise in temperature this week, panic over! We do however have a few more alpacas than we would prefer and following the sale of some females and a couple of our young boys a couple of weeks ago, we are slowly getting the numbers down to an ideal herd size. These girls however are to leave Easter-Wood pregnant and as Easter-Wood Diego is not quite ready to service the ladies yet, we headed out to Chase End Alpacas in Essex last Sunday to see our friends Joe and Ann to collect Cambridge Ice Cool Lad, our jointly owned stud male. He is the bees knees when it comes to "getting on with it" and we have always been absolutely delighted with his progeny in all the time we have used him! It was great to see our friends again and as usual, much alpaca chatter went on but once the conversation turned to knitting, Joe and I sneaked out to take on a herd inspection! They have some lovely alpacas there and as usual, the farm looked a real treat, despite a brisk, chilly wind!

Yesterday, Cambridge Ice Cool Lad was introduced to one of the three girls who are leaving us and without any hesitation, he was performing....What a star! Mind you, he made a point of stamping his male authority over the other young males here with, what can only be described as a parade superiority or putting it another way, "showing off"!! Today is the turn of the second female!

A couple of years ago, we sold our first male, Easter-Wood Navigator as a yearling to Petlake Alpacas of The New Forest but we retained a couple of matings from him once he had reached maturity. Following a phone call to Sue Sears the owner, we arranged to use him on one of our Elite girls this summer. Navigator's genetics are exemplary with EP Cambridge Ceaser and EP Cambridge Neptune on his Sire's side and EP Cambridge Peruvian Maximus and EP Cambridge Sara on his Dam's side. We are also bringing in another superior Elite stud to enhance the Easter-Wood herd this summer and so we are really looking forward to some superb results next year!

I just looked out of the window and the sun is shining, the temperature is climbing and work beckons!! I will be back again soon.

.....and another fine day!!

Well this would appear to be somewhat of a record of late!!! Three consecutive dry and sunny days (well until today that is)!! During those brief moments of spring, we managed to run one of our Alpaca Experience Days, clean up some rather neglected paddocks and have the herd sheared! I am so pleased that the shearing is over for the year on two counts: the herd now looks really smart and secondly, the rush/panic/trauma is over for another year. No matter how familiar you become with the shearing process, it is always tinged with stress, not only for the alpacas but also for us and everyone who helps out. Anyway job done and now the fleece sorting commences. We are very pleased with a number of them this year and hope to secure some recognition of this through the various fleece shows.

A neat and tidy Philby

Today normal service has resumed, at least as far as the weather is concerned as it is again, "tipping down". 

Today sees the "Paca Wagon" gets it's MoT so I am a little nervous as it is it's first, under our ownership and as we recently made a decision to scrap my Laguna as it had had a good innings with us and completed 120,000 miles, we are now reliant upon a roadworthy van!...........................concern over as whilst writing this blog, the van has been returned having passed the MoT!

Next up today is commence some matings with three of our girls whom we have just sold and now that they have all been sheared, we should have less of a problem (famous last words!!).

Alpaca Experience Day 2012

After many days of constant rain and wind, we finally had a respite in the weather, all in preparation for our first-of-the-year Alpaca Experience Days. We awoke to glorious sunshine (not seen in many weeks!!) and after a quick check on the presentation equipment set up in the barn, we shortly received our guests with coffee/tea and biscuits and loads of chat. It was good to see the Irwin family again (Terry, John, Rachael and Dan), who interestingly enough we met a few years back when Sheila had decided that hand spinning would be a good thing to do and we found a second hand spinning wheel on eBay which Terry was selling!!! Anyway along with Elaine and Dave, a lovely couple from Swindon, we all had a great time at our farm as was evident from the following photo's.

 Two of the boys getting a great deal of attention!!

 The group down by the Kune Kune's

Terry getting up close and personal!

A final thanks to all our visitors for the kind comments they made during the day. This is just a short blog as I had been suffering from a sore throat most of the day and I have decided to get an early night for a change!