Easter-Wood Alpaca Stud

A period of absence explained

2011-12-18T08:40:00.000Z

My blog has, I'm afraid been somewhat in-active during the last couple of months and for this I can only apologize. Plenty has been going on here at Easter-Wood and what with winter preparation, Christmas plans and garment production, I just simply ran out of time! For those of you who are well disciplined in regularly blogging, I can only take my hat of to you in admiration. I wish I had that kind of well organized approach.

Woke up to a crisp, cold morning today and what a welcome this is from the ever present "mud" we have endured over the last couple of weeks! Taking a leaf out of other breeders blogs, I have decided to ensure that all photos of our alpacas are limited to head and shoulder shots in future however, this approach will commence with the next blog as I haven't yet captured any worthwhile pictures.

In a way to reduce the effect of the mud on our alpacas, we have now re-organized our paddocks access so that most of them are now able to wander in and out of the barn thus reducing the "poaching" effect on the fields and giving them a warmer, drier place to sleep/eat. We also find it far more practical when administering their injections and routine husbandry. I have to say that this design was in part due to some outright plagiarism (thanks Barbara & Paul)!!

On the subject of husbandry, we had an excellent day at our local vets earlier this month. They put on a husbandry class for alpacas which covered just about as much as one can fit into a day's session. It was, to say the least, exemplary and we both came away feeling that we had learnt so much in such a short space of time. Anyway, well done Larkmead Veterinary Group.

Whilst paddock cleaning is such a back breaking exercise when the weather is so wet ( on the basis that it's impossible to get the "poover" out), I am now so much happier that the cold weather has hardened up everything such that alpaca poo can now easily be removed using a simple rake and scoop! On that note, I will take my leave of you and promise to return soon (with photo's)!

A weekend away

2011-10-24T11:51:00.000+01:00

Saturday was the day that we moved Easter-Wood Metisha and Easter-Wood Adelle to their new home in Cumbria. An early morning start was the order of the day as we were faced with a 300 mile trip and to make matters worse, I had come down with the dreaded "man-flu" and as we all know, this is indeed a serious illness for us men folk!

However, all went well with the move. Metisha wasn't too keen to make her way into the van even though I carried Adelle in first but once in, they seem to settle down nicely. This was the first trip in the van for us and we were pleased with the ride, etc. The on-board CCTV camera to view the animals was a real bonus and we could at least check on mum and cria at regular intervals during the journey.

We were pleased that the weather was good and upon arriving in Cumbria, we were soon greeted with a magnificant sight of the hills/mountains which heralded our introduction to the Lake District. After a slight hicup with the Sat Nav, we soon arrived at Beck Brow Alpacas of Cumbria. What a wonderful, idylic place that Barbara and Paul have. This farm, at the heart of which is a charming old farm house simply oozed character and of course fields full of alpacas graced the scene.

Obviously the first thing for us to do was to unload Metisha and Adelle who were led into a unique, well planned series of pens all of which was covered and enabled the alpacas to be seperated into their various groups. Both Sheila and I were well impressed with this arrangement and I hope that we may be forgiven for a bit of plagiarism in the future!

We were made to feel most welcome and following a lovely meal at their local Fox & Pheasant, we stayed overnight and despite my cold getting worse, I managed to get a reasonable nights sleep. Problem was, I ran out of tissues so Barbara, very kindly sent me on my way the following morning with a couple of loo rolls but not until we had had a good look at their alpacas. Barbara and Paul have some very special animals there and with their attention to detail, we came away with the knowledge that both Metisha and Adelle will be well cared for! During our stay however, Sheila was particularly taken with Velvet, one of their little dogs and as can be seen from the photo, she has a tight hold on her (several attempts at sneaking her into the van was made of course)!

Sheila is determined to smuggle Velvet away!!

We eventually arrived back home at 8:30pm last night and pleased to say, without a hitch. Thanks to both of you for a most enjoyable but brief weekend.

This and That!

2011-10-06T08:39:00.000+01:00

In some respects, I feel that a blog without photo's is a bit like Fish without Chips! I had planned to take advantage of the wonderful weather over the last week and take some photo's of our latest cria but like most plans, it didn't happen so here is a brief update, without the Chips!!

Subsequent to one of our Alpaca Experience Days back in August, I was invited by Christina, one of our visitors to a radio interview on a local radio station to talk about Alpaca Breeding yesterday. What a great experience that was and I was most impressed with their sophisticated and professional studio. Christina and Joanne made me feel most welcome so a big thank you to Marlow FM for a most enjoyable morning.

Now that we have completed our birthing for this year, we have our vet coming in tomorrow for ear tagging and microchipping which, given the numbers, will be a fairly lengthy session.

We have had a fair amount of interest from our local Agricultural College this year again with a number of students requesting work experience. We acknowledge that spending time on an Alpaca farm is good experience for the students and therefore, we have a couple commencing their time with us at the beginning of November with further students arranged for early next year.

The bad news is Summer is officially over! Can't complain however as we have had a better than average growth of grass here this year, we have a good stock of haylage and there is plenty of wood for the wood burning stove!

I hope to be able to include some photo's in my next blog, so apologies for the lack of them this time!

Back soon.

A correction and another delivery!

2011-09-24T16:25:00.001+01:00

Following on from my blog yesterday, announcing the arrival of Easter-Wood Dante, we reminded ourselves that we had set out to follow the Three Musketeers theme for our elite boys and clearly "Dante" doesn't fit....doesn't even come close to D'Artagnan so we have re-named him Easter-Wood Athos!!

A slightly "cleaner" version of Athos

With this correction suitably addressed, we now come to the naming of our elite male delivered this morning! Easter-Wood Porthos came into this world at 9:45 am weighing in at a healthy 9.59 kgs. His Dam is Yuralee Daisy of Cambridge and his Sire is EP Cambridge Strike Gold with genetics as follows; EP Cambridge Valour, EP Cambridge Peruvian Spartacus, EP Cambridge Equinox.

Porthos - at 6 hours old.

Porthos completes our 2011 birthing and so we are now planning for next year's show circuit and as we have recently purchased a suitable "Paca Wagon", we are looking forward to hitting the road, so to speak!

Will be back again soon.

A bright start to the day!

2011-09-23T21:05:00.003+01:00

An early rise to this view above our farm was recorded this morning and my thoughts turned (for some inexplicable reason) to an event in British history which happened way before I was born ... the Battle of Britain!!

Anyway turning to modern history, I am proud to announce the arrival of a very healthy male cria born this morning to Eringa Park Artistry of EPC and was sired by Cambridge The Chairman of ACC. We have named him Easter-Wood Dante. Sadly, mum decided to deliver him directly on a patch of very dusty earth which has given him a distinctly filthy look!!

Easter-Wood Dante

A "sooty" looking Easter-Wood Dante seeking the milk bar!

His genetics are as follows; Jolimont Commisario, Cambridge Show Stopper, NWA Ltd Ruffo, Jolimont Encantador.

Following this mornings excitement, we then got on with other jobs around the farm, one of which is my routine "clearing up" of the spillage from the hay feeders......Whilst these feeders are meant to keep the hay/haylage within the feeder itself, our alpacas seem to be able to spread hay/haylage over an extremely wide area around the feeder! I must have cleared at least four barrow loads from the proximity of two individual feeders! Messy lot!!

Will be back again soon.

Something is in the air!

2011-09-17T19:06:00.001+01:00

Just a short blog tonight......As Lawbreaker's Legend and Adelle are rapidly developing, they are now inseperable and whilst all cria's are gorgeous, I can't help spending so much time just simply watching these two play together....you know what I mean...... the evening pronking and the playful tag games....it's all so spellbinding. I guess I have to admit to being a bit of a softy really! Anyway, here are a few photo's of the aforementioned pair:

Lawbreaker's Legend and Adelle's first attempt at a kiss!

Mirror image as their attention is grabbed by chickens on the other side of the fence.

Lawbreaker's Legend wants to play rather than graze!

Adelle chases away a playful Lawbreaker's Legend

If you enlarge this photo, you can see the reflection of Sheila in Lawbreaker's Legend's eye!

The weather hasn't been to kindly today but at least we managed to clear two paddocks of alpaca poo....a job which is always quite demanding however, Sheila drove the mini tractor whilst I "poovered" this time which made for any easier and quicker task.

Signing off for tonight but will be back soon.

What a night!!

2011-09-12T09:15:00.000+01:00

Our poor little Lawbreaker's Legend went through the mill yesterday/early this morning!!

Yesterday morning, it was evident that he had been rolling around in the mud a lot and his demeanor, to say the least was listless. During the course of the day, he would kush then roll over and kick his legs out. This he did frequently. He would then get up and walk a bit and then drop down again onto his side and again, roll. He did not take any feed from mum whatsoever during the whole day, so it was down to bottle feeding him with some of mum's milk that we had expressed. Took his temperature........that was fine but nonetheless fitted him out with his cria coat. Called the vet and went through all the likely possibilities. Took instruction all to no avail. Decided to bring him into the barn with mum and continued the bottle feeding. This carried on until late last night when we decided that we were none the wiser as to the cause of his problems and we called the vet out on an emergency!

She arrived in the early hours of this morning....checked temperature, listened to his pulse rate, checked abdomen, weighed him, took blood samples and then as we had not seen him poo yet, she administered a liquid paraffin enema! Well that certainly did the trick in quite a spectacular way!! No sooner than he had ejected the retained meconium, all of his troubles were over and within 20 minutes, he was up and feeding from mum. We all breathed a huge sigh of relief but it taught us a very important lesson.......................if you are unsure about the ailment of your alpacas, do not hesitate to call the vet!!

Two Special Arrivals!

2011-09-10T23:30:00.005+01:00

We are very excited about our latest cria who was born today exactly as predicted (according to our "Alpaca Manager" software). Our Cambridge Sara is always consistant not only with her gestation dates but the sex of her cria. She delivered a beautiful, healthy male cria today out of Eringa Park Lawbreaker, this years National Supreme Champion. This is her 3rd male cria since we purchased her some 3 years ago. We have called him Easter-Wood Lawbreaker's Legend and he came into this world at noon today weighing in at 8.4 kgs. He adds to the latest foundation of our elite breeding programme for the Easter-Wood herd and we are so delighted with the genetics he brings into our herd namely; Jolimont Warrior, Jolimont Conquistador, Eringa Park Showtime, NWA Ltd Ruffo, EP Cambridge Peruvian Maximus.

Within 20 minutes, he is getting some of mum's colostrum

Adelle looks on as Lawbreakers Legend struggles to find his feet!

Still struggling to stay upright!!

The second arrival announcement comes in the form of alpaca transportation! We have been seeking high and low for the right kind of vehicle to transport our alpacas around and until 2 days ago, we had drawn a blank. Either the vehicle was too small, too large, not enough power, wrong colour....you get the picture? Anyway, we spotted what appeared to be the perfect solution..............a horsebox! It made no sense to us to purchase the van and then spend a fortune in modifying it, so Sheila came up with the solution....a horsebox.

The aforementioned vehicle however was found in Hexham, Northumberland so yesterday, I took a plane out of Heathrow and flew to Newcastle where I was greeted by a lovely couple, Sarah and Jools who very kindly picked me up from the airport. The van is great and after a chat about all sorts, including alpacas of course, I set off back home in the newly acquired "alpacamobile".......8 hours later, I arrived back totally wiped out but satisfied that it was a good buy! We will of course be applying some signage on the bodywork but in the meantime, here is a picture of the vehicle:

Once we have new signage on it, this will be the Easter-Wood Alpaca wagon!

Will be back soon.

The next chapter for Easter-Wood Metisha

2011-09-05T22:42:00.001+01:00

Our lovely Easter-Wood Metisha and cria are on their way north!

Sheila and I had spent some time deciding that Metisha should be sold but we were always concerned that she was our only EP Cambridge Neptune progeny currently left in our herd after Easter-Wood Navigator was sold late last year. Her pedigree was always precious to us however, but once we had commited to sell her that was that;..... or so we thought. Readers of this blog will have read that she gave birth last week to Easter-Wood Adelle, a beautiful female out of Cambridge The Chairman of ACC and we then started to have doubts about selling her and her cria once more!! From the genetics point of view, Easter-Wood Adelle has a stunning pedigree with Jolimont Commisario, Cambridge Show Stopper, NWA Ltd Ruffo and Cambridge Neptune all in her blood line! However, Barbara from Beck Brow Alpacas came to the rescue and made up our minds once and for all as she had earlier expressed an interest and since we are due another The Chairman cria from another of our elite girls, we happily agreed the sale and so both Mum and Daughter will be heading off to their new home in Cumbria some time in the future. We are actually delighted as Barbara and Paul at Beck Brow Alpacas of Cumbria are a very professional team and we know that the girls will be given the recognition and care that they deserve.

This past week has also given us a fair old challenge on the weather front too with intensely strong sunlight and very heavy (torrential) showers which severley tested my previously erected gazebo to act as a sun shade for a few of our pregnant females. This sun shade was in the form of a tarpaulin hung from the side of one of our field shelters and tethered to some Alpaca hurdles some 12 feet away. Anyway, I didn't reckon on 1) the vast quantities of water falling incessantly from the sky and 2) unexpected and intermittent violent gusts of wind which finally did untold damage to my "construction"! Two tarpaulins later, I have now admited defeat and will either purchase another field shelter or hope that our English summer is finally over!! (I can't believe I actually said that!!).

Whilst the grass is still growing (what with the rain etc) it simply doesn't have the quality that the spring growth brings and as a result, our alpacas are really demolishing our haylage stocks. Mind you, I can understand how they feel as whenever I am loading the haylage into the various feed bags, I am overpowered by the wonderful aroma of it! Fortunately, we had the foresight to order more than we were expecting to use!

I will sign out now but will be back soon.

A Chairman girl!

2011-08-28T13:27:00.001+01:00

Welcome to our latest cria;...... A beautiful female cria out of Cambridge The Chairman of ACC whom we have named Easter-Wood Adelle:

Easter-Wood Adelle finding Metisha's "milk bar"

She was born on Saturday morning and since Metisha was a maiden, it was not an easy delivery. She was clearly struggling during her labour and in the end, she simply gave up trying, finally deciding to lie down at which point we helped her deliver. We sprayed her navel and checked her weight and all this time Metisha just lay there trying to figure out what was happening. I then carried her cria and placed her in front of Metisha's nose. She seemed a littled startled by the fact that this little pure white bundle was doing her best to get to her feet. After a while, she realised that she should be doing her bit and so up she got and within 20 minutes, both mum and baby were bonding well and subsequently, she found the milk bar. Adelle came into this world at 8kgs and although we are a tad biased, we are very pleased with her along with her excellent pedigree.

Easter-Wood Adelle

Just showing off now!!

Today, our two new elite crias have been introduced and they have spent the best part of this morning running around together. Both Adelle and Aramis, who is now 2 months old and an Accoyo Remarque boy, seem to be enjoying each others company. Here they are together:

Adelle and Aramis

Will be back soon.

Two more births and an Alpaca Experience Day

2011-08-14T23:56:00.000+01:00

We have had an interesting few days just lately with two boys arriving in fairly quick succession. The first was a lovely light brown boy with a beautiful phenotype and weighing in at a healthy 8.9kgs. His mum is Blackie who is quite frankly, getting on in years but she certainly knows how to produce wonderful cria and this year decided to pop him out at 7:20am!! Her cria last year was a beautiful girl Truffle, whom we sold just a few months ago. Whilst her cria this year has yet to be named, we are in no doubt that he will soon attract interest.

Our unamed boy

Last Friday, at 1.00 pm, Marmite delivered a medium brown boy with very interesting white markings. This is the first time we have had one of Ice Cool Lad's cria producing a non-solid colour however the markings are quite distinctive and as can be seen in the picture, his name of Zorro is probably quite appropriate!

Zorro weighs in at 8.1kgs

Today was this months Alpaca Experience Day for us which has so far proved to be very popular. We had a smaller turnout than usual however as we had two postponements but it was, nonetheless a most enjoyable day and we were blessed with good weather. Here are a couple pics from the day:

Will be back soon.

And along comes the seventh!

2011-08-07T13:34:00.001+01:00

An absence from blogging during the last few weeks is down to a rather pressing care issue with my father whom I mentioned in my last blog, as he had undergone some major heart surgery followed by a lengthy stay in hospital. This was, I am afraid to say compounded by the intervention of well-meaning "friends" and it was necessary for both my sister and I to put a care package in place for him...........it's a long drawn out story which I won't go into as this is as far away from alpacas as you can get!!

Anyway, back at Easter-Wood, we have now had our seventh cria all within a 3 week period....here are some of them:

Arabella and Philby, who is on the right

This is Boniface

Chester with mum, Lai Lai

This pictures shows Layla with her mum, Torn Ear and Boniface on the right

This is Arabella having a snooze with mum, Fedora

Our swallows this year have taken to nesting in the same spot as last year, namely the rafters within the stable block and the other morning I had a need to go into one of the stables which is no longer in use, and there upon the ground was a young swallow. He couldn't yet fly but had managed to climb out of his nest and had dropped rather ungainly to the floor. Poor little blighter was clearly distressed, so I scooped him up and placed him back in the nest along with his brothers and sisters. Two days later however, they were all gone so I guess they were due to fly the nest anyway.

We had a visit from a lovely couple from Holland last week who are over here on holiday and following a call from my son's in laws who know them from their camping connections, they came to look at our alpaca farm and went away with a bag of fleece from one of our boys. It was a nice afternoon and it was great to see their delight when showing them our most friendly girls who insisted on nibbling their clothing.

Will be back again soon.

More arrivals coming thick and fast!

2011-07-21T15:34:00.001+01:00

Following on from the announcement in our previous blog that we would be pretty busy this week, we have had three more of Cambridge Ice Cool Lad's cria born during the last two days. One fawn male whom we have named Easter-Wood Philby and one light fawn female whom we have called Easter-Wood Alice both appeared on Tuesday of this week within an hour of each other! This morning saw the arrival of a light fawn female who we have named Easter-Wood Boniface. Thankfully, all cria are healthy and full of energy. We are now awaiting the arrival of three more of Cambridge Ice Cool Lad's progeny over the next two weeks, during which time we are also expecting Easter-Wood Metisha to give birth to a Cambridge The Chairman of ACC's cria. The following months, up to September will also be busy with the remainder of the elite herd giving birth.

Easter-Wood Philby at 3 hours old

Getting to know you!

Easter-Wood Alice trying to bond with mum!

Less than 1 hour old!

Yesterday saw me heading off to the south coast whilst Sheila was on farm watch. Sadly, my father is somewhat unwell at the moment having just undergone major heart surgery so both my sister and I visited him in hospital, hopefully to give him some cheer! He will take a while to recover of course but he certainly looked pretty good considering what he has been through!!

Will close for now but will be back soon.

A new arrival!

2011-07-17T20:16:00.001+01:00

With our birthing now in full swing, we had another new cria today at 3:40 pm weighing in at 8.86kgs. She is a beautiful, solid mid brown female out of Alonso Fedora. Fedora always seems to deliver early and is not only a text book mum, she also always has a text book delivery! From the moment she went into labour she appeared to be very relaxed and after about 30 minutes, her cria (we have named her Easter-Wood Arabella) was delivered without any hitches. She was up and on the milk bar within 15 minutes as is evident from the pictures below.

With the fast approaching rain again tonight, we have now put both Fedora and Arabella in the barn so that at least both mum and baby can bond in the warmth/dry.

Will be back again soon with no doubt the announcements of further births!

Fleece delivered for the GWR show!

2011-07-14T00:04:00.002+01:00

Whilst I got on with the daily farm duties, Sheila, along with Gemma (our Daughter) had arranged to drop off our fleece entries for the forthcoming GWR show to Rosemary at Westhill Alpacas today. After an uneventful drive to Blandford and by way of a reminder of directions via a brief telephone call to Rosemary, Sheila was, as usual, warmly welcomed by Rosemary and Sam. After some Alpaca/Yarn banter accompanied with coffee and biscuits, Sheila set off once again for the return journey, arriving home armed with a Take Away Chinese! Its amazing what you can pick up on the way from Dorset!!

Our latest cria, Aramis is showing us how fast he can run with spontaneous sprints across the paddock causing his mum to panic as he temporarily disappears out of sight only to appear again heading back at breakneck speed! At only four days old........It never ceases to make us smile when they get up to these antics particularly during the early evening just when the sun dips out of view. Next one is due soon so the birthing box is always ready!

This is only a short blog tonight but I feel guilty that my blogging is a little infrequent!! I will be back soon.

New arrival, visit to the mill and a weekend off!!

2011-07-11T13:27:00.001+01:00

As everybody knows, it is a real delight when the first cria of the year arrives and as always, we were excited at the arrival of our first for this year........ a healthy, 10.24kg boy from Memory of ACC out of Accoyo Remarque. We have named him Easter-Wood Aramis following on from our latest theme out of Alexandre Dumas's book, The Three Musketeers.

It wasn't a straight forward birth as we would hope and so we assisted Memory with her ordeal. As soon as the cria's head and part of his feet were presented, it was obvious that one foot was slightly back and to make matters worse, both of his feet were alongside his head and not above it! Once the feet had been manipulated into the correct position however, everything went to plan and she delivered without any further complications! Since Gemma, a new Alpaca Breeder and latest client of ours, was here at the farm, she was able to witness her first birth! We are expecting a significant number of cria this month so our lives are going to be pretty hectic during the next few weeks!

Having collected 25Kg of solid white fleece from this years shearing back in June, we took a trip up to Banbury a couple of weeks ago to deliver our fleece to Haggers Mill. Whilst there, Richard Hagger gave us a quick guided tour around the mill and I have to admit that whilst I have an engineering background, I was in total awe of the complex machinery that surrounded us! Anyway, we are looking forward to receiving the finished product from them.

At the beginning of this month, I went off to play a bit of golf in Devon. Along with my son Neil, my brother-in-law and another friend, we headed off to a long weekend of Golf, eating good food and enjoying the sunshine. I have to say that my golf wasn't up to much but the break, the food and the banter was much appreciated!! Whilst this was my second year at Ashbury (near Oakhampton), my son had not been before and upon arriving, he acknowledged that this was indeed a wonderful golfing mecca but observed that 98% of the guests were men! We have therefore nick-named it "Blokeland"!!

"A blokes weekend"!!

We have now taken delivery of another 40 large bales of haylege for this year and it seems that not only is it most prefered by our Alpacas, it is cheaper than hay so it's a no brainer really...... ! We are also trying a new (to us) Alpaca/Llama mix from our local stockist. It appears to be somewhat similar to goat mix but certainly seems to be a favourite of the "pacas"!

Will return again soon.

Shearing day!

2011-06-11T09:59:00.001+01:00

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!!

2011-06-06T12:45:00.000+01:00

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.

A satisfying day!

2011-05-24T08:00:00.001+01:00

Yesterday was a very satisfying day! All of the paddocks effectively "Poovered" and even the erradication of some persistent weeds in the form of Ragwort. It is truly remarkable that despite the intensly dry spell we are experiencing, those weeds continue to thrive. We are now so desperate for rain however and by my reckonings, we have only had a couple of "showers" in the last 11 weeks!! Carefully managed paddock rotation is the order of the day for the Alpacas as they would simply not get the grazing they require otherwise but we are still giving them ample helpings of haylage which appears to be well received!

Since building some raised beds around the farm and stocking them with a mixture of flowers and vegetables (they certainly smarten up the place), the chickens have taken a great fondness for scratching around these beds and effectively destroying these vulnerable plants so drastic action was taken in the form of converting a mating pen into a chicken run and restricting their roamings! All seem to go well until I noticed that one of the chickens, closely followed by the other began frantically pacing backwards and forwards along the fence line, seemingly looking to get out. I thought nothing of this as I had made sure that there would be no escape............................famous last words, first one of them was spotted in the paddock where their coop is, closely followed by the second! They had made their escape simply to gain access to their coop in order to lay their eggs!! Once this was done, I delivered them back to the converted mating pen and further escapes were never then attempted. So now we lock them in their coop at night and transfer them to the "mating pen" in the morning after they have layed their eggs! Who said that chickens have no brain!!

We had another group of visitors to Easter-Wood over the weekend and despite our preference to keep the visits to a strict timetable, we always over-run. Much interest is expressed with all of the animals we have and whilst the Alpacas remain the focus, many visitors are also drawn to Sheila's horses as well, not surprising though as they are both magnificant looking creatures.

After 12 years ownership of my Renault Laguna, it is now beginning to cost me more and more in repairs and so we will soon be seeking a replacement vehicle. Having seen Beck Brow Alpaca's and Wellground Alpaca's magnificant vans on their blogs, we acknowledge that a company van will be the answer for us to, so the search is on.

Today, we plan to take a trip to another local breeder as we haven't seen them for a while now. It will be good to catch-up and talk alpaca and have a fleece rummage so we are looking forward to this.

According to the weather forecast, it looks as though we are not expecting any rain what-so-ever over the next 5 days but I wouldn't mind betting that when it does finally arrive, it will be for a very extended period!

Some interesting thoughts and observations!

2011-05-12T07:38:00.000+01:00

Isn't it funny when, whilst immersed in routine jobs, your mind generally wanders off into the distance and you start thinking of all and sundry?? Yesterday's "poovering" job was a case in point and I started thinking of our birthing which has not yet commenced this year but my mind was focused in particular upon the new genetics that we are eagerly expecting later this summer. When we started the business, we had always planned to have a strong "elite" element within our herd and this year we will have, for the first time, a much higher percentage of first class alpacas at Easter-Wood. We are of course excited about the forthcoming births particularly now that they have all been scanned pregnant but waiting is not one of my stronger traits!!

I have always wondered about the truth of "old wives tales" but the following photo's may have convinced me that the old saying; Red sky at night, shepherds delight may well be true!!

Previous night - Red Sky at Night, Shepherds Delight

Following morning......wall to wall blue sky!!

Today, is another day of paddock maintenance with further doc weeds and thistles to remove and thanks to a tip from Denise, the docs will be getting a dose of Grazon later!

Signing off for now but will be back again soon.

Ice Cool Lad returns to Essex!

2011-05-10T08:23:00.001+01:00

Having completed his "duties" here at Easter-Wood, Cambridge Ice Cool Lad was readied for his return to www.chase-end-alpacas.co.uk yesterday where he has a number of "appointments" with some of Joe and Ann's females. Joe arrived with us on Sunday and so we spent a lovely two days with him (sadly, Ann couldn't join us as she was keeping watch over an expectant mum). Shortly after he arrived, somewhat pertubed that his Sat Nav had led him in the wrong direction, we served up the tea and coffee and caught up with news from our friends in Essex. In the evening, after booking Joe into a local hotel where Gemma, our daughter works, we went and had a lovely meal at our local pub and chatted well into the night. The following morning, we conducted the Easter-Wood tour, taking in some "fleece rummaging" which was followed by some brunch before Joe hit the road again with Cambridge Ice Cool Lad. It was so nice to enjoy a relaxing weekend in such good company.

Sheila & Joe in the "boys" paddock

Today will be spent on ridding ourselves of some persistant weeds that the recent rain has encouraged and in particular, within the paddock that Cambridge Ice Cool Lad has just vacated! These weeds (not sure what they are actually called but they have doc leaves) have the longest "tap root" that I have ever seen and are very difficult to erradicate, so this will be a job for the garden spade....failing that, a mini digger!

Will be back soon.

Wildlife identification!

2011-05-07T14:36:00.001+01:00

I thought I would post a short blog for this weekend....Like many of you right now, we are also "enjoying" some much-missed rain and I was calculating that it must have been at least 6 weeks since we had our last shower!! Before the weather broke however, we had some interesting visitors recently.....the first of which posed a bit of a challenge in identification but I am sure that some of you may be able to come up with the answer..............

The following "visitor" is even more of a challenge and I look forward to hearing from those of you who recognise this little creature...........................

Armed with my camera the other day, I also caught up with some of the Easter-Wood herd in their paddocks before the rain came................

One of my favourite's...Easter-Wood Diego, from EP Cambridge Samson who is owned by Wellground Alpaca Stud!

Easter-Wood Latte and Easter-Wood Diego busy doing what they do best...eating!!

This is Fedora who is a charming, experienced mum who has given us 4 lovely females to date!

Be back again soon.

An active weekend, but still no rain!!

2011-04-26T16:58:00.002+01:00

Whilst the sunshine continues to parch our paddocks, it has given us a fabulous two weeks of wall-to-wall blue sky which was a great backdrop to a number of farm visits here at Easter-Wood in the guise of "Experience Days" which we hosted and both Sheila and I were delighted in the numbers of interested parties and their kind words which they left in our visitor's book. We do enjoy showing people around the farm and love to hear their endearing comments about the alpacas and of course, the recently acquired Kune Kune pigs! This weekend's visit was a particularly busy one and we felt that it was very rewarding since many of the questions were focused upon all aspects of alpaca breeding culminating in the subsequent garment production. We are now preparing for next months "Experience Days" and hope that these will also be as successful.

The woodland path to our Kune Kune pig enclosure

They seem to love having their tummies tickled!

What's going on then?

An inquisitive and "bearded" Ice Cool Lad

Will be back again soon.

.....and still no rain!

2011-04-18T14:58:00.000+01:00

Whilst we have been too quick to criticise the bad weather last month here in the south, we now find ourselves somewhat concerned that we haven't had any rain for at least two weeks!! However, despite that, we are constantly reminded of the fact that spring has arrived by appearence of leaves on the trees, the omni present ragwort and fortunately, lush green grass. So long as the dry spell gives way occasionally to some (just a little) rain to keep the grass growing!!

We gave one of our elite girls the last of her course of three injections yesterday in an attempt to finally get her pregnant (no, I know that you can't do this with simply an injection!!). Sadly she has never been able to hold her pregnancy despite a lot of costly veterinary intervention so basically, we had given up on her but a little encouragement from EPC made us try again. Anyway, we will try another mating this coming weekend and keep our fingers crossed!

Sheila took a trip up to Stoneleigh yesterday to attend a fibre presentation/discussion and came back armed with considerable knowledge and enthusiasm gained from hearing expert advice from the presenters and fellow breeders whom she had delight in meeting. It is always good to put faces to names! She gave me an overview of what was discussed and along with a copy of the PowerPoint presentation material, I certainly picked up some valuable details of fibre analysis and general fibre information. After all, Alpaca fibre is the reason why we breed them!

Following on from my last blog re: barn cleaning/jet washing; does anyone know of an effective disinfectant other than Jeyes Fluid as it is so difficult to erradicate the strong, clinical aroma following it's use?

Spring planting and Barn cleaning

2011-04-16T07:45:00.001+01:00

Two of the larger jobs that I set myself to do this spring was the construction of planters around the farm and filling them with plants/flowers and also the mammoth task of jet washing the barn. Both of these projects I can happily report are now completed (well almost!).

Sheila had been watching some horse-related programme on the TV recently which featured a very attractive equine property displaying planters around the schooling area and this of course gave her the inspiration for the odd job man (me of course) to get cracking doing likewise here! I decided to use half round rails and posts which seem to work very well and was strong enough to retain the top soil mixed with alpaca manure of course! Anyway once that was done, we headed of to the garden centre to select plants and shrubs. I don't know if this is a woman thing or not but the time that Sheila took to select a couple of plants, I had almost filled the trolley with what I thought was appropriate plants!! Job done and we finally headed back to finish the aforementioned work. We still need more plants however but it certainly softens the look of our farm (just read that back and it sounds a bit girlie!!)

Over the last couple of days, I have been actively jet washing the barn. I say actively as it was a pretty messy and full-on job but now having completed it and disinfected the surfaces, I have to say it does look and smell so much better. Strangely, the barn now looks bigger!!

The treatment of one of our girls, Black Magic, for an abscess is now complete and after a 28 day course of antibiotic injections and washing of the abscess itself, it looks as though it has totally cleared up thank goodness! This process did have it's funny side however. Alpacas, as we know are quick to learn and after a day or two of "teasing" her out of the paddock into a smaller space to treat her, she realised what was going to happen and subsequently took every precaution to avoid being caught which resulted in me being ceremoniously dumped on the ground a number of times (much to the amusement of Sheila!!).

Cambridge Ice Cool Lad was put to work yesterday with one of our coloured girls. We had previously taken to using the track around Ice Cool Lad's paddock for matings as it was more accessible but have since realised that it is far more appropriate for the mating to take place in the mating pen where it is quieter and less distracting for them. The one thing that we have learnt over the last three years when working around alpacas is the need to be calm at all times!!

With the weather still being dry, my next job today will be some paddock cleaning and dare I say it, another trip to the garden centre!!

Be back soon with photo's next time.

Some Easter-Wood pics

2011-04-10T08:37:00.002+01:00

With a promise of some pics in my last blog, I grabbed the camera yesterday afternoon and took a few around the farm of which these are a sample;

This is Memory in the forground with Metisha looking on.

This line up shows from left to right: Sundown, Diego and Latte (sadly, I seem to have cut off Sundown's nose!)

This is a typical Diego pose!

From left to right: Leia, Memory and Metisha

None of this group were interested in posing at all!!

Some of you may remember that we have about a 1/3 acre of woodland at the lower part of the farm and as an added attraction on our open days, we decided to introduce a couple of pigs in there and so having completed the fencing of the enclosure and the ark, we placed the Kune Kune's into their new home last week. The woodland area is ideal for them as they can forage on all of the nettles, grass, weeds and roots that are abundant in there. Whilst the foliage is still a little sparse, the Alpacas can see them and as mentioned before, often kick up a fuss when the pigs waddle into view however the wood becomes very dense in the summer and will then render them invisible to the girls!

The one on the left is Matilda and the sandy coloured one is Stella!!

Will be back soon.

Spring cleaning.

2011-04-09T07:32:00.000+01:00

What with this exemplary weather and the need to "spruce up" the place, we have been actively planting new shrubs and flowers in the newly constructed "planters" around the farm including the obligatory veggie patch. We have been without home grown vegetables for a couple of years now so I thought it high time to address this!

We have now seperated out our pregnant elite girls so that they have quite a large paddock to themselves with plenty of spring grass. Within only a few days, they are looking decidedly "rotund" however that could be also due to their fleece which has really "fluffed" up since the sun has removed the moisture. The weather has also created a significant "spurt" of grass growth and as a result, all of the paddocks are looking really good now.

The installation of the Kune Kune pigs within the woods at the bottom of the farm has created a source of evil intent as far as the alpacas are concerned!! Every time one of the pigs walks into view, a chorus of shrieks and screams are immediately emitted from our alpacas who quite obviously believe that the little chubby creatures will soon be wreaking carnage amongst them!!

We had an exceptional weekend at the Berkshire College of Agriculture's open weekend last week and whilst Sheila took along some sample garments simply to show what can be done with Alpaca fleece, they soon became "must have" items. Gloves, hats, snoods,etc all soon went! As last year, the event was a great weekend and we were very pleased with the outcome.

One of the jobs that I have been promising myself for a while now is the total clean out of the barn which has housed the girls on a number of nights during the winter months. Yesterday, we manged to remove all of the stale straw ready for a good jet wash later this week, a job which undoubtably will be somewhat messy!!

I am conscious that there are no pictures with this short blog but as the weather continues to be good, I promise to capture some images of the Easter-Wood herd for the next blog.

Have a good weekend and will be back soon.

Spring seems to have sprung!

2011-03-25T00:52:00.000Z

Such beautiful weather we have had again today, so much so that I spent most of today in shirt sleeves!! With the good weather, we have been able to clean the paddocks without the "poover" getting clogged with mud and it also seems that the grass is beginning to grow again (at last). As the area of grass around the cabin usually gets it's treatment from the sit-on mower, Sheila suggested that we let our alpacas do the job instead, so suitably fencing off any escape route, we herded them through the barn and onto the track. What a terrific job they did and furthermore, they were treated to some lush grass in the process!

The "Pretty Lawnmowers" at work.

Having now finished the pig enclosure (complete with electric fencing), we will be collecting the pair of Kune Kune's next week so our farm will have this added attraction for our Experience Days. These seem to be very popular and since we are running one each month throughout the summer, we are fully booked for April. We hope that with more and more people expressing this kind of interest in alpacas, many will be inclined to embark upon alpaca breeding themselves.

Just a short blog tonight as I have just noticed the time!! Be back again soon.

Return of old friends

2011-03-20T20:32:00.000Z

Celebrating the Spring Equinox with another fine day, we had another busy session working on the pig enclosure which has now been complimented with a finished pig ark and stock fencing. The final job will be the installation of an electric wire positioned low to the ground which should dissuade the piglets trying to burrow under the fencing and will hopefully put off any attempts of foxes and rabbits doing likewise! Early next week, we will be heading to Alton to collect the Kune Kune's from Tom and Sarah at Mill Cottage Farm Experience.

Today, we were delighted to welcome back Gemma and Andrew to Easter-Wood for them to select their alpacas who will make up their core herd. Their selection are four females: Easter-Wood Pandora, Easter-Wood Cadbury, Easter-Wood Truffle, Easter-Wood Moon Dance and their potential herd Sire, Easter-Wood Sundown. They are extremely passionate and enthusiastic about the forthcoming project of setting up their alpaca breeding business and we are so pleased for them. They are a lovely couple and with their comittment, passion and energy, we are very confident that they will add significant value to the Alpaca Breeding world.

Having just seen the forthcoming weather forecast for the week on Countryfile, we will be very actively getting all of the paddocks cleaned and looking pristine again after the wet and wild weather we have endured during the last few weeks (having said that, Countryfile also reported that the month of March in the UK experienced a lower rainfall than average!!).

I will close for tonight but will return again soon.

The rain arrives!!

2011-03-18T15:17:00.000Z

Woke up this morning to a damp and now, very wet day!! This will certainly encourage grass growth whilst dampening our spirits but I guess it is for the good!

We had our vet, Graham out yesterday to lance an abscess on Black Magic so we will be having to treat her for about a month, flushing out the wound and administering a course of antibiotics. Interestingly, this abscess must of developed within a day or two since it wasn't evident on Monday of this week. It just goes to show that one must be consantly vigilant!! Whilst he was here, he also scanned three of our elite girls who had been mated to Eringa Park Lawbreaker of EPC, Cambridge The Chairman of ACC and EP Cambridge Strike Gold respectively and all are very pregnant so we are really looking forward to their births later this year. Our birthing programme for this year has been designed to embrace a wider, elite focus whilst at the same time further developing our secondry herd which has been, so far successful with Cambridge Ice Cool Lad providing excellent progeny.

Since we decided to house a couple of Kune Kune pigs within the woods at the bottom of our farm, I have been trying to get the enclosure and pig ark built in time for the Kune Kune's to be collected in a weeks time. It is hoped that these little creatures will be an added attraction for our visitors to Easter-Wood during the summer months.

Well it is still raining but there are jobs to do outside so will sign off now and will be back again soon.

The Futurity and Halter training

2011-03-13T09:11:00.001Z

Whilst a strong supporter of Blogging, I seem to be making my trips to the Blogger dashboard more and more infrequent these days!! I guess what with so many different projects on the go and my inability to multi-task, it could be something to do with it!!

We had a great day out catching up with our old friends at the British Alpaca Futurity yesterday. The show looked well presented and of course the Alpacas were of the highest quality. We came away with a few purchases, namely a new weighing scale and harness along with some replacement feed buckets but the object that most took Sheila's fancy was a beautiful sculpture of Alpacas expertly crafted by a leading artist in the field of animal sculpture. Whilst she was in deep conversation with the afore-mentioned artist, I caught up with Chris Moor from Alpaca Seller on the trade stand next door to discuss, amongst other things, the new projects that he is currently addressing.

We had a busy time last weekend when, along with a couple who will be sourcing their starter herd from us, we had a halter training session with three of our boys followed by an update of Lambivac injections for some of them. We had a good day with Gemma and Andrew and they are so looking forward to starting their own Alpaca breeding enterprise.

Another extremely worthwhile exercise we managed to complete recently was the final removal of the accumulated off-cuts of wood and general rubbish left over from the cabin build!! It was a real eyesore but couldn't be removed until the weather dried up a bit. Thank goodness it has finally gone!!

One of the projects that we have had planned for some time is the installation of some planting beds around the farm. We have always believed that a well-presented and tidy farm instills confidence in visitors and taking a leaf out of some of our fellow breeders, I have now built a number of "planters" around the cabin and barn in which we will be planting shrubs, flowers and vegetables (yes, vegetables).

The weather appears to be a little overcast today but I guess we shouldn't grumble as we have been blessed with at least a week of sunny and/or bright days.

The jobs are now calling, so I shall close for today and will be back soon but will include some photo's with my next blog.

A chance to fleece rummage!

2011-02-02T07:56:00.002Z

As I have noticed that surprisingly, another month has passed since I last updated our blog, I now put pen to paper (so to speak) to rectify what is an embarrassing period of silence!

Much of January has been designated as routine husbandry work but it also gave us an opportunity to take a detailed inspection of our youngsters fleeces. I have got to say that with the birthing success last year using Cambridge Ice Cool Lad, he has surpassed himself once more with the quality of some of the fleeces on the youngsters being absolutely superb! He is still very capable of delivering the great genetics he was always famous for!

This is Easter-Wood Latte's fleece at 6 months

Here is the little fella....a real beauty!

So this last month we have completed the A,D & E injections, administered the Lambivac and Dectomax throughout the herd and completed the toe nail trimming, albeit with a somewhat high degree of resistance!! Some of the pacas have taken to simply "kushing" when they spot me with the trimmers and trying to manoeuvre an 80kg adult so that I can gain access to their toes is a tad difficult to say the least!

Today, I have promised to install some additional perimeter fencing so I am now off to let the girls out of the barn before turning my hands to that. I will return again soon.

Looking forward to Spring?

2011-01-07T06:58:00.000Z

And now comes the rain!!!!!! This winter seems to really want to punish us for some reason. Yesterday's rain simply swamped our paddocks with the forecast being further rain! Our pacas therefore are spending some time in the barn away from the mud and water. When I open the paddock gates to let them in at night, there is an almighty stampede to the barn which demonstrates their preferences in no uncertain terms!!

The other day, whilst making up the feed in the barn, I heard a dog barking immediately outside and upon investigating this, found that someones dog had managed to climb through (two) perimeter fences and ended up on our internal track outside the barn barking at the alpacas. They had gathered in force to look at this uninvited creature and thus doing so, seemed to have intimidated the dog into simply barking (thank goodness)! I was not too pleased with this as the double external fencing was installed to prevent any animal access, so I am now focused upon tightening our security even further!

Wednesday saw the departure of two of our boys who now have a new home on a local farm and today, another two will be heading off to pastures new in Hampshire. The couple who are the new owners will be arriving at Easter-Wood to have a routine husbandry session with us before transporting them off to their new home.

I don't know if anyone else has the same problem but I am finding that we get an awful lot of hay/haylage wasted around the hay feeders in the paddocks. Whilst the hay/haylage is packed well in the feeders, the "spillage" is considerable and I have calculated that there is about two barrow loads strewn on the ground every month!

As I type this, I hear the rain pounding on the roof again and so my thoughts are turning rapidly to the promise of a warm, barmy spring??............... Ah well, off to don my waders and waterproofs again!

Wishing all a Happy and Prosperous New Year

2010-12-31T17:31:00.003Z

We would like to wish you all a very Happy and Prosperous 2011.

Looking back at 2010, we have had a fascinating year with it's challenges but in the main, an extremely positive one. Our breeding programme this year has been a great success with 13 healthy cria born and we are looking forward to an exciting 2011. We would like to thank all of those that have encouraged us and given sound practical advice during the year......no matter how much experience one achieves, there is a fountain of knowledge out there amongst breeders who are only too willing to share this and for that, we are eternally grateful.

Finally, I would like to close this short blog with a few memorable photo's captured during this past year.

Ice Diamond - born in October 2010

Navigator's first fleece award from the GWR show before we sold him!

.....and we finally secured the "Go ahead" for our Canadian Log Cabin!

This is Latte....his fleece is exemplary.. a testament to genetic improvement by mating quality with a mid range female!

Have a fabulous 2011!!

Cold, Cold and even Colder!!

2010-12-20T08:06:00.000Z

The last couple of weeks has certainly been challenging on the weather front and whilst we all conviced of our Alpaca's resilience to extreme weather conditions, one can't help wondering how they can cope! We have, like so many other breeders, felt the need to give them extra comfort in the form of a warm (ish) barn to spend the cold nights in but we are always surprised to note that they are so eager to get out the following morning. We are still experiencing seriously cold nights at the moment with little let up in sight.

The ice and snow has prevented us delivering Easter-Wood Navigator and Easter-Wood Polaris to their new home in the New Forest last weekend so we will have to review the road conditions again mid-week. We are very sad to see them go but we know that the new owners, Brian and Sue are very keen to welcome them to their new farm.

We had a visit from a family in France who are keen to set up an Alpaca breeding enterprise earlier this month. We had a long conversation about husbandry and welfare, etc over coffee and then took a tour around the farm, introducing them to both weanlings and adults, all of which generated much interest. It is so nice to see the excitement and passion of breeding Alpacas that we experienced in others.

We also had another student contact us recently with a view to gain work experience with Alpacas and so we welcomed her along with her father last weekend. This visit also coincided with our routine AD&E injections for our weanlings and therefore her help during this procedure was most welcomed. She is studying Zoology and has agreed to work along side of us, gaining experience of general husbandry skills, etc. for the next few weeks.

What, No Alpacas!

It is currently -11 degrees C but the Alpacas will need to be let out so I will be back again soon.

In the Bleak mid-Winter!

2010-12-06T13:20:00.000Z

Having survived last weeks bitter weather and fairly light snow, we had a brief respite this weekend only to be hit with freezing fog and heavy frosts again. It seems however that northern counties have fared so much worse than we have so I guess we should be thankful for that but our thoughts go out for our northerly (and easterly) colleagues!

All of our pacas have been coming into the barn at night now and until the weather improves, we shall continue to spoil them despite the mammoth task of cleaning out the barn each morning! Here is a sample of pics I have taken over the last few days:

First snow of the year for us!

Where is the grass?!!

Crowding out the hay feeder!

In the bleak mid-winter!!

The freezing fog is slowly lifting.

The boys are not enjoying this!

The boys look fawn in contrast with the snow!

I am off now to break the ice (again) on the troughs and replenish the water in the portable buckets in each of the paddocks. I will return soon.

A bit of this and a bit of that!

2010-11-24T10:46:00.001Z

Couldn't believe that it is almost a month since my last blog!.....A colleague of mine called me yesterday and mentioned this and as he gains much pleasure over reading it (sad or what Dave!), I have put together a very short blog as there is not too much to report on at the moment.

We have now had those good people from Redmire finally fix the barn which required that all of the support beams/trusses should be reinforced and bolted together and despite anxious moments when the mini acro's were removed, all stayed in place....thank goodness!!

The weather has not been too brilliant over the last week or two so the Elite girls and boys have been pampered and brought into the barn each night. This has the double benefit of keeping their fleeces a little bit cleaner and saving the paddocks from being over-grazed. What with the wet weather and the constant "poaching" of the ground, it makes sense to protect the paddocks as much as possible with the onset of winter. One of the major tasks that I have on my list this week is clearing the leaves from the peripheral paddocks which are rapidly becoming a thick carpet of yellow, reds and browns. Pretty as it seems, the oak leaves are not a good diet for the pacas!

You may have noticed that we now have an on-line shop attached to our web site and whilst this is still being constantly updated, we decided to "go live" in time for Christmas. Despite spending most of my career working within the IT sector, I still find such tasks as web development somewhat confusing so I thought it best left to the professionals!

Will be back soon.

Some Alpaca pictures

2010-10-30T16:55:00.002+01:00

Since our recent new arrival here at Easter-Wood, I have not managed to capture any "decent" images of Easter-Wood Ice Diamond so here goes...............

She is now exactly one day old and at least cleaner than yesterday!

Be back soon.

New blood and Old blood!!

2010-10-29T14:05:00.001+01:00

We knew that EP Cambridge Sunrise was due to give birth this week and at 8:50 am precisely, she did just that. No complications, a short labour and the only downside was that she delivered the pretty pure white female cria directly onto the only piece of wet mud in the paddock!! To add insult to injury, whilst conducting the routine inspection of the new born, I had crouched low over the cria and suddenly, mum came in, gave her new cria a quick check herself and then immediately raised her head which made direct contact with my nose! Ouch!! ......The next minute, blood was flowing out of my nostrils with no indication of ever stopping!!

Anyway, despite her rather muddy appearence (and occasional blood specks), we noticed that her fleece is extremely bright and so have named her Easter-Wood Ice Diamond. We are delighted that yet again, Cambridge Ice Cool Lad has performed well. We decided to try ICL with our elite girl as the former mating didn't take and we were eager to get her pregnant....and deliver before it became too late in the year. Fortunately the weather is not too bad today and so the new arrival had a fairly warm (and dry) welcome to the Easter-Wood scene.

Here is a rather muddy Easter-Wood Ice Diamond at the ripe old age of 1 hour!

The continuing saga of the barn repairs brought about a visit from the engineers on Wednesday who managed to raise the sagging roof by 10" and at least it is now level again. The supporting walls have straightened out but the guys who came to administer the aforesaid repairs, did not have the materials needed to permenantly support the roof trusses! They are due to return on 8th November to finish this work. The surprise was that apparently, the roof itself weighs 4 tons!! With a good dosing of snowfall that we had at the beginning of this year, it was even more surprising that the building didn't actually collapse!

Well that's me done for the day so better get off to bathe my nose again!!

A visit from our friends at Westhill.

2010-10-25T23:39:00.000+01:00

Woke up this morning with a bout of man flu which had been threatening for about a week now however, work through it I kept telling myself, work through it!! Since Rosemary and Carl from Westhill Alpacas were due to arrive later today, I just had to finish all of the routine paca chores before they arrived! :o)

We've been spoiling our elite herd just lately......bringing them into the barn at night as the temperature has been pretty damn cold here in Berkshire just lately. Anyway, we are trying to create a "clean" white alpaca again and I have to say that I am not succeeding. The problem here at Easter-Wood is that our land is primarily clay-based with a high population of worms which create masses of worm castes on the surface all of which creates the perfect mud bath for our pacas!!

With the feeding, watering and cleaning completed for the morning session, we soon welcomed the arrival of Rosemary and Carl from Westhill Alpacas whom we hadn't seen since the GWR Fleece Show. We had arranged for them to visit us a while ago but circumstances prevented that happening until today. It was really great to see them again and as ever, both bring such a wonderful sense of humour with them irrespective of any issues that they may encounter! We spent most of the afternoon talking and looking at the alpacas of course, interspersed with a huge helping of good humour!!

After a stroll around the different paddocks whilst having a close look at the various fleeces, we headed back to the cabin for coffee and cake (as you do!) whereupon, Rosemary and Sheila became grossly engaged in the knitting scene. Feeling somewhat confused by the knitting formulae/jargon, Carl and I decided to chat about such things as motorbikes (Ariels I seem to recall) and tractors (you know......man stuff!!).

Sadly, their visit seemed to end so quickly and we soon bid our farewells. It was a lovely day and we look forward to our return trip to Westhill Alpacas in the not-to-distant future.

I am starting to burn the late night oil now and my eyes are beginning to seem very heavy (don't forget I'm still suffering from the man-flu you know!!) so I will close for now and will be back soon.

Routine husbandry

2010-10-22T14:38:00.005+01:00

I can't believe that over a week has gone by since my last blog so without further ado, here is this weeks activities....

Whilst the weather deteriorates even further with the temperature dropping rapidly over the last few days, we have increased the haylage feeding for the pacas and even though we are still blessed with plenty of grass, they still love their haylage!

We have also been busy recently with the routine husbandry duties, ably assisted by a lovely couple who are planning to embark upon Alpaca breeding themselves. They had heard from our son about our Alpaca farm and armed with an abundance of enthusiasm, came to see what is involved last Sunday. It was a full-on day but we got a lot done!

Our new cria (Chestnut), continues to gain weight and is looking very strong (I suspect it is Ice Cool Lad's genetics in there).

The on-line shop is taking shape nicely now and we are hoping to have this in place in a weeks time providing I am able to fully master the technicalities! Actually, it gave me a good excuse to dig out and test my lighting equipment for the camera. I used to use a combination of flash heads and slave units during another life when I was very much into portrait photography so given that the equipment should provide "professional" lighting effects, I hope to be able to capture some good images of the garments that will be up for sale (given that my camera skills are not too rusty)!

Going back to an earlier comment about the weather getting a colder, we have had our wood burning stove on a couple of times now and have to say that it doesn't take long for it to heat the whole of the cabin! We are well pleased with the insulation properties of the cabin and couldn't believe how warm it stays during cold spells. Bring on the snow!!! :o)

Will be back again soon.

A New Arrival

2010-10-12T22:36:00.001+01:00

The first of our last three crias due this month made it's entrance onto the Easter-Wood farm today. She is a beautiful light brown female out of the liason between Cambridge Ice Cool Lad and Longfield Black Magic. She has an attractive brown coloured fleece and a delightful phenotype with a strong similarity to her Dam's confirmation. We have not yet decided on a name for her yet but will reflect on this over the next few days!

First attempt at getting up!

A brief introduction.....

Hello world!!

Another two are due this month and so we have placed the three girls into the "birthing" paddock so that we can keep a watchful eye on them.

This is only a short blog to announce the new arrival but will be back shortly.

On-Line shop

2010-10-10T11:19:00.000+01:00

The next stage of our development at Easter-Wood is now imminent as over the next few days, we are adding a further page on our web site which will be our on-line shop. It has been a long time coming as we didn't want to add this in until we had products to sell. Without this however, Sheila has still managed to sell the finished garments she has been so busy making and now that we have a partnership going at a local knitting club, we are eager to get things moving on the "product" front.

Now that the fleece on our alpacas has a good 5 months growth, we are delighted at the developing quality from the elite herd. We are hoping that next year's fleeces match this years in terms of fineness, crimp and staple definition.

Last week, I completed the work on the CCTV installation so that we now have a camera at each end of the cabin. To many, this would seem like an over-kill but it gives us peace of mind and in today's uncertain society, we feel that good security is a sound investment.

We are now experiencing another bout of warm weather and following on from a rather damp couple of weeks, we have a great deal of grass growth again. This is obviously good but we have noticed that along with the grass, the weather has encouraged the weeds as well, particularly Ragwort which poses a real challenge. Each day, we are digging up at least 20 roots from all of the paddocks.......must get a proper Ragwort tool! Whilst we have plenty of grass, we decided to supplement this with haylage and have now started to feed this to the pacas which they are enjoying immensely but they certainly get through it rapidly!

Last week, we gave the crias born this year their first dose of vitamin AD&E which we enjoy doing as it gives us a chance to inspect their fleeces in detail. This coming week is a busy one as the half yearly Lambivac and Dectomax sessions are now due.

That's all to report at the moment as the sun is now out and the grass around the cabin needs a bit of a tidy up! Be back soon.

A slight panic!!

2010-09-29T15:11:00.001+01:00

Whilst I was conducting my daily feeding regime along with the routine herd inspection last night, I noticed that we had two seperate groups of our Aussies, each appearing to cast a cautious eye on one another! I found this behaviour somewhat baffling, so with the evening light beginning to rapidly fade, I approached the group who were particularly busy feeding from the new hay feeder we purchased the other week. I then saw what the alpacas were alarmed at..................one of the girls had an adorment around her neck which was not initially visible in the twilight....................a bucket was hanging around Memory's neck like an over-sized medallion!

I had been using water buckets, hanging from fence posts which had always been a convenient means of providing water as we do not currently have it piped for some of the paddocks! Anyway, we quickly rounded them up onto the adjacent track and managed to remove the offending item from the poor girl's neck.The next trip to our farm supplier will mean purchasing some additional water troughs! It just goes to show how important it is to always observe your Alpacas on a regular basis as I shudder to think what damage it could have done if I hadn't spotted the problem!!

Sheila has been busy labouring over the production of garments each day and with the sound of clicking needles ringing throughout the Easter household, I have found solace in immersing myself in designing and installing our modified CCTV security system! It works a treat even though it intitially had a habit of recording every movement from a busy spider creating it's web across the field of view!!!

This past week has seen a lot of husbandry work including vitamins ADE injections for the crias, toenail cutting, spit offs and three matings. The collapsing barn solution has commenced with the delivery and installation of accro props which will be followed up with the replacement of trusses and supporting timbers during October. At least with the accro's in place, we will not have to fear the roof falling in!!

With the recent Autumnal weather decending on Berkshire, we have had a fair bit of rain of late which always brings up the worm casts on our fields; the result of which is a bunch of very muddy Alpacas who seem to delight in covering themselves in this unsightly mess!! I am in awe of all those breeders who manage to have only "clean" Alpacas. How do you do it??

Sheila will be making her way to the Natural Fibre Company in Cornwall on Friday to deliver some fleeces for processing and as the garment production line is in full swing here at Easter-Wood, she is rapidly running out of yarn! This trip actually coincides with a visit to her mother who lives in Tavistock so it is a fairly short hop to Launceston.

Well, the rain is upon us again today and I have just discovered that The Ryder Cup is only shown on Sky Sports channel, which we don't have so that makes me a very unhappy chappy!!! :0((

Highs and Lows

2010-09-19T23:40:00.000+01:00

Its been an extraordinary week with some highs and lows but most importantly, finishing on Saturday with a particular "high" in the shape of the successful GWR fleece and Fibre show held in Frome, Somerset. As it has been covered by so many other breeders, I will not go into any detail suffice as to say that it was a "smash" hit and a memorable day out for Sheila and I! We met a number of our friends and managed to catch up with all things Alpaca.

A particular "low" we experienced came early in the week with our barn which had taken on a very noticeable dip in the roof line and somewhat "bow-shaped" supporting walls! Upon inspection, it appeared that the roof trusses are not up to the job of supporting the roof!! A series of calls to the manufacturer revealed that the company had been acquired by another supplier of barns and stables which obviously sounded warning bells to us. Anyway, to cut a long story short, the new company came out subsequent to me taking a series of photos of the "structure" and they have promised to rectify the problem albeit at our expense as the guarantee is no longer valid! Ah well, it could have been worse.

Today has been a busy husbandry day with toe nail cutting and injecting Lambivac. Tomorrow, I have promised myself to get on top of the "Poovering" and despite having a bad case of "Man-Flu", it just has to be done!!

Whilst I did say that the GWR Fleece show had been well covered by other breeders who attended and thus, didn't need to go into any detail, I cannot sign off without showing our modest success on Saturday:......................

A rosette, (our first) for Easter-Wood Navigator's fleece!

Be back soon.

A vet visit, A new purchase and more DIY.

2010-09-11T10:56:00.001+01:00

I am sad!! Easter-Wood Polaris will not succeed as one of our herd sires. Despite having a terrific phenotype, fineness of fleece and a great Sire, the crimping is simply not good enough to pass on to his progeny so we have decided to give him the proverbial chop! This decision was based purely on our breeding programme and the ability to produce exemplary, elite cria. Our focus is to create the best that we can and whilst it seems a rash decision, his cria would not be up there with the best!

Whilst our vet was here, we asked him to do the honours with the ear tagging and microchipping on our 2010 crias as well. I did attempt to do the microchipping myself last year but frankly struggled with the size of the needle so as the vet was here....!!

Of late, we have had a fair amount of success in using eBay and since we were in need of another mobile Hay Feeder, we conducted a search and found one that appeared to be fairly new in Sussex. It is always an entertaining exercise with these auctions and managed to secure this feeder at a very competitive price. This week, we hitched up the trailer and took a ride out to Heathfield in Sussex to collect it. It is now sitting proudly in our Elite Australian's paddock!

For some reason, we are prone to a few power interruptions/surges here at Easter-Wood and every time this happens, the RCD's in the power distribution panel trips off and subsequently seems to damage the individual power circuits for the CCTV camera's. This happened again last week and the net result is a need to purchase another power supply!! So annoying (and costly)!! I am re-positioning the cameras along with their controls this week so I am hoping that this will make a difference!

We also finally managed to fit the guttering onto the cabin last week. The amount of rain water that had been cascading off the roof was amazing and presented us with a constant challenge having to face a "curtain" of water when trying to get in or out of the cabin. So, the guttering couldn't be put off any longer and I owe Barry, my brother-in-law a big thank you for helping me out (in fairness, he did most of it!). Anyway, allowing the rain water to drain off the roof was only the first part of the solution, the next was; where to pipe it? We decided that as there is a water ditch around our farm, the most sensible solution was to direct the rain water into the ditch. The problem with this however is that between the cabin and the ditch, there is a steep mound which would require a substantial amount of digging.......hand tools were certainly out of the question! We hired a man and a digger for this exercise and once we had accurately calculated the "fall" of the drainage pipe and excavated the trench, we laid the pipe and back-filled it.......Great job. The following day, it bucketed down and hey presto, it worked!!

We are looking forward to a fun day out at next weeks GWR fleece show. It will be good to meet up with old friends again and no doubt, catch up with news, etc. Sheila has spent the last few months really focusing on garment production and so plans to have many "knitting-related" conversations with a few of our friends.

Off to feed the pacas now, so will be back.

D I Y work

2010-08-29T23:53:00.001+01:00

Since I have taken a few weeks off from finishing some of the outstanding jobs around the cabin, Sheila felt that I had had too much of a rest and so "suggested" that I should get cracking on finishing these jobs before the winter gets here! I agreed that other work around the farm had taken much of my time so with no further ado, I set to work on the floor tiling, ably assisted by my brother-in-law. It is still on-going and whilst we managed to lay down a lot more tiles, I still have many more to do.....This weekend, I also managed to get some of the window frames stained and even avoided some of the rain showers.

This evening, we wandered down amongst some of our Alpacas to give them their daily routine inspection and once again, became smitten by the antics of the youngsters as they "pronked" around their paddocks. A fleece inspection confirmed that a few of them are showing excellent crimp developing, a legacy of their Sire, Cambridge Ice Cool Lad.

Having used all of our hay from last years cut, we will be starting to use the haylage we bought in some time this week. This is earlier than we normally start but what with the lack of rain during this summer, we have now used all of the hay.

Will be back soon.

New Forest visits Easter-Wood

2010-08-23T07:57:00.002+01:00

Following a visit from Sue and Brian last week, they returned to Easter-Wood yesterday to select their future Herd Sire. It was good to see them again and we had a wander through the "coloured" paddock to view some of our females which they had an interest in adding to their new herd back in the New Forest. I remember only too well how difficult it is in choosing a core herd and both Sue and Brian exhibited the exact same emotions as we did when first deciding upon the Alpacas we should begin with! We wish them all the very best and look forward to visiting their farm very shortly.

Today will be somewhat of a busy one as we have to Lambivac our Elite herd which have been kept in from the rain last night. We also have to complete the routine "poovering". The rain, which literally "hammered" down last night, may prevent me being that successful with the "poover" however it's got to be done as there are a few days of manure out there in the paddocks!

Finally, this picture did make me laugh as these two youngsters were engaged in (fore)play at a few weeks old however, the one on the back of the other is a female and the "recipient" is a male......think there is a gender issue here!!

Familiar faces

2010-08-19T16:32:00.002+01:00

Now with Summer slowly slipping by (that sounds terribly depressing!), we will soon be saying farewell and bon voyage to our family of swallows who annually nest in our stables. The parents have, I believe had two sets of youngsters this year and the current occupants of their nest are well and truly on their way to making that momentous journey south................see pictures below;

Another non-alpaca story is that since we have had our chickens decimated by that scoundral of a fox, we have been constantly keeping a watchful eye on the remaining two chickens which are permitted to roam, free around the farm only during daylight hours. The other day, I was surprised to see that one of them had bagged itself a very large frog!! There it was, trying its best to swallow the poor creature with, not surprisingly, little success! The very next day however, the same chicken had taken a fancy to a sloworm which it had disturbed from the undergrowth. I made an attempt at rescuing the aforementioned reptile but this time, the chicken made off at full gallop running away from me with the sloworm wrapped around it's neck like a college scarf. I did however manage to catch up and am pleased to say that the creature was relatively unharmed apart from a shortened tail! I guess if I had not rescued the poor chap, we would have had to put up with slow-boiled eggs for a while!! :o)

We had a visit from a lovely couple from the New Forest last week who are investigating the possibility of setting up their own Alpaca business. They are due back again this Friday to have further discussions so we are looking forward to meeting them again and having more "Alpaca chat", along with the customary coffee and cake of course!

Since we now have Cambridge Ice Cool Lad back at Easter-Wood, he has been busy mating our girls for next years stock and to date, he has had 4 "interviews" with another 11 to go including the 3 girls we sold recently as they are on agistment with us.

Our farm is adjacent to a public footpath and as I was closing the entrance gate the day before yesterday, I was approached by three walkers/ramblers who commented that they could not see our Alpacas and so I duly invited them in to take a look at our new crias. After the regulation footbath, we walked across the paddock to introduce them to the youngsters. If they could, I am certain that they would have secreted a couple of the cria in their rucksacks as much "oohing and ahhing" took place with some of the youngsters even bold enough to allow the occassional stroke!! How can anyone not fall for these adorable animals?

As it is harvesting time, I managed to spend half an hour today picking blackberries. We have an abundance of these growing all around the perimeter fences so it would be a waste not to collect them. Looking forward to a nice Blackberry pie Sheila!! Yet again, we also have had a bumper harvest of mushrooms this year so what with fresh eggs and mushrooms, we have been spoilt for hearty breakfasts!!

Finally, whilst out with the camera today, I took a few pictures of our girls and boys.......

This one of our "mature" ladies; Torn Ear

Easter-Wood Leia out of Wellground Close Encounter

Here we have (from left to right) Easter-Wood Leia from Wellground Close Encounter, Easter-Wood Diego from Cambridge Samson and Easter-Wood Metisha from Cambridge Neptune

A mixed bag of news!

2010-08-11T12:42:00.002+01:00

This week saw the return of Cambridge Ice Cool Lad from his co-owner, Joe and Ann at Chase End Alpacas and we set him to work almost immediately. He was due for an "interview" with one of our coloured girls and no sooner had he been introduced to her, half a dozen of the other girls all sat down as though they were in a doctors waiting room!! They also will be "serviced" during this coming week. One surprise came about on this occassion when one of the girls, who is due in October, kushed down and refused to budge!! It looks as though, despite her bulging tummy, that she has not held!!

My grandaughter, Emma also came to stay again with us and it was a joy to have her here at Easter-Wood. She was very enthusiastic about feeding the Alpacas and cleaning up the barn and she would regularly ask "What else can we do Grandad?" She kept enquiring about Cambridge Ice Cool Lad's forthcoming mating and wished to observe but on the day, she decided that the book she was reading was of far more interest.......bless! Anyway, it was lovely to spend some time with her.

We also administered Dectomax injections for 9 of our cria and conducted the customary toenail inspections on the whole herd this week. Surprisingly, some of them displayed extremely rapid growth and so a quick snip with the clippers was the course of action.

Yesterday, we took delivery of 35 bales of haylage from our regular supplier, Phil who is a great bloke (literally) unloaded them and stored them at the back of our barn. He always arrives here with an exceptionally large John Deere tractor towing a 30 foot trailer and just manages to squeeze it through our gates. He seems to be able to manouvre this monster rig with uncanny precision!!

With the dry weather we have been having of late, it is likely that we will have to break into the haylage pretty soon. Another load of haylage, hay and straw is due for delivery later this month.....it's going to be an expensive month!!

Well, I am off to pick up some new glasses now but will be back soon.

Fox Attack!!

2010-08-06T11:46:00.005+01:00

Back again and the bad news is that we lost another chicken..................that damn fox!! The real culprit however was me.............We had put a number of our Alpacas in the same paddock as the chicken coup, knowing that the fox would never dare to venture into the paddock when the Alpacas were present. We had however decided to move the herd around, thus resting this particular paddock and I had totally forgot the chickens.....That same night, the fox despatched another one!! I will have to be more vigilant in future.

Yesterday, we welcomed a visit from Jo and Anne Hempsey of Chase End Alpacas. It was really good to see them again and we were treated to some very fine home cooking in the shape of a Quiche and a delicious Coffee cake that Anne had baked! After having a coffee and exchanging some Alpaca chat, we headed off for a trip around our farm showing them some of our new crias from Cambridge Ice Cool Lad. He has produced, yet again, some astounding youngsters and we are particularly pleased with the results on some of the coloured Alpacas.

Afterwards, we headed back and had another coffee and sampled that delicious Coffee cake!! We had a very pleasant day with Jo and Anne and look forward to returning a visit to Chase End Alpacas later this year.

With the dry weather, we are like most, suffering from a shortage of grass this year but despite this, we have had significant growth in one of the paddocks which has remained untouched by any grazing for the last 4 months! It just goes to show how resilient grass is!!

Cambridge Ice Cool Lad is to be put to work again today, so I will close but will be back later.

A visit to Westhill Alpacas

2010-07-30T21:13:00.001+01:00

After many attempts at meeting up with Rosemary, Carl and Sam at Westhill Alpacas, we finally made it! Following a somewhat lengthy drive (exacerbated by far too much traffic!!), we arrived at Ibberton Hill in Blandford despite some dodgy instructions from the Sat Nav!! What greeted us (apart from Sam standing in the road to ensure that we didn't drive past) was a view from Westhill Alpacas across to Ibberton which can only be descibed as "stupendous"!

Rosemary and Carl made us feel very welcomed and before we had a walk around their farm, we sat down for a general chat around Alpacas accompanied by coffee, biscuits and cake. We then had a wonderful tour around their Alpaca farm and both Sheila and I were so impressed with the layout and the work that had clearly gone into it! (great fencing Carl!). This was followed by introductions to the Alpacas and what struck us was that they were so friendly!!

Afterwards, we sat down for another coffee and biscuits and Sheila and Rosemary had a chat about Alpaca fibre and knitting garments. Sadly, our visit came to an end and we were soon back on the road to Easter-Wood. Thank you again Rosemary, Carl and Sam for a lovely afternoon.

The WestHill and Easter-Wood teams

This weekend, we have a busy schedule of Dectomax injections for the youngsters. As they are much easier to handle than their adult counterparts, we should be able to complete this job fairly quickly (famous last words I hear you say!!).

Next week, we are looking forward to having my Grandaughter, Emma over for a few days. Last time Emma was here she was at the birth of Easter-Wood Moon Dance whom she subsequently named and we are looking forward to showing her how she has grown!

I had better close now as I have just remembered that I haven't given some of our Alpacas their daily ration of hay and I had better do this before it gets too dark!!

Catch up time at Wellground

2010-07-21T23:38:00.000+01:00

With a hasty clean up of the barn and a check of our Alpacas this morning, we set off for a visit to the Wellground Stud to catch up with Rob and Les. With their (relatively) recent purchase of a wood burning stove, we had promised them some kindling wood left over from our Cabin build so armed with a couple of sacks, we duly delivered the aforementioned items!

It was great to catch up with Rob & Les again and no sooner had we arrived, the traditional "kenco" had been offered and greatfully accepted. Following a general chat about all things Alpaca, we set off for a good "fleece rummage". All I can say is.......Fantastic quality!! But how do you keep the Alpacas so clean Rob??

To cap off a thoroughly enjoyable visit, Rob & Les then provided us with a "home made" pizza and chips.....we were so spoilt.

First thing tomorrow, I will have to get the shampoo out to give our herd the "Wellground look".

See you again soon.

Fleece test results

2010-07-17T19:00:00.001+01:00

Just a short blog tonight as I am cooking dinner!............ We finally received our test results back from Yocom McColl and are delighted with the figures. We sent off samples from the first cut of our Elite yearlings in May and we are really pleased that we had two at 15 micron and two at 17 micron.

Since the weather had improved drastically today, my first priority was to do a major poo-picking exercise on all of the paddocks but before I started, I went out early this morning with the camera to capture a few more images of the youngsters so here are a few, which I hope you will enjoy:

This is Pandora, a female from Cambridge Ice Cool Lad

This is Champagne Charlie on the left (a light fawn) and Cadbury on the right, both from Cambridge Ice Cool Lad

This is another of Leia at 7 weeks from Wellground Close Encounter

This is Diego at 2 months from EP Cambridge Samson

Be back soon.

The latest at Easter-Wood...

2010-07-15T10:46:00.001+01:00

Over the last two weeks, a lot has happened and here's a summary:

We've had five new cria
Dismantled and re-assembled our shed
Had a golfing break.
Employed the last of our agricultural students for a two week work experience
Entertained half a dozen visitors
Managed to remove a vast amount of Ragwort
Reluctantly removed our beloved shipping container

Cambridge Ice Cool Lad continues to produce great quality cria and we have now had another 5 of his progeny of which a couple are shown below:

This is Caspar, a solid white male at 70 minutes old!

A new-born, light brown female called Cadbury with mum, Sheila and our work experience student looking on

Both of these cria were born within 45 minutes of each other giving Sheila and Kym (our work experience student) a real treat.

Neil, my son came down last week to help me dismantle a storage shed which for some reason was not approved by the local council when we applied for planning! Anyway it was a job that had been delayed because of the time it has taken to finish the log cabin and now that is out of the way, it is another job that I can tick off my ever-growing list of priorities!

Last weekend, I had a break from the building project that has been going on since early March and went off to Devon with a few colleagues to indulge in golf! It was great to get back to playing again after a break of nearly two years bringing about a real mix of good and bad golf. We had a fabulous time with pretty good weather except Sunday afternoon when it "lashed down (see picture!!)

Yours truly in the middle and despite the weather, we don't look too unhappy!

The local Agricultural College asked us earlier this year if we could provide work experience for some of their students during the summer and as a result, we have had two very helpful girls working with us throughout June and July. I've got to say that help with poo picking is really useful!!

Running our Alpaca farm here in Wokingham has generated much interest and as a result, we have entertained a number of visitors during the last couple of months. It is always a delight to see the effect that Alpacas have on people who have never seen them up close! What with the number of youngsters we have had this year, it is no surprise that people fall in love with them.

It never ceases to amaze me why Ragwort appears to grow overnight!! No sooner than I have cleared a paddock of this weed, that it appears the following day!! Anyway, armed with my weed-removing tool, I had a "blitz" on all of the paddocks last week. As the weather has been very dry for some time now (except today however!!) it remains to be seen if this was effective or not!

Yesterday saw our beloved shipping container leaving us. As a result of the local council's demands (again), we have had it shipped off our farm. It was housing much of our furniture, so now we have now finally moved into the cabin, it had to go!

I will post some pictures of our recent "batch" of cria on the next blog in the meantime, bye for now.

And the weather continues to be warm......................

2010-06-29T09:56:00.001+01:00

With the weather unfolding in a way which leads you to believe it is is summer at last, we have had another Ice Cool Lad cria last Saturday making his total to date of five for us so far. The latest is a boy with a lovely Dark Fawn fleece. This is our third cria with almost identical colouring despite the fact that each of the mums are different colours! Ice Cool Lad has now given us two girls and three boys this year with another seven to go!

At 30 minutes old, we haven't decided what to call him yet!

Last week saw the end of the first of our BCA students on work experience with us and this week, we have another young lady who, I am sure will have a satisfactory 2 week stay with us working with and learning about Alpacas. Fortunately for them, the weather has been kind, making such duties as feeding and poo picking a much more pleasant task!

Well, I am off to do some of these duties myself now but will be back soon.

Time slips by!!

2010-06-22T13:44:00.001+01:00

I can't believe it has been over a week since my last blog!! There is so much happening here that time has simply slipped away!

We have had the company of Scarlett, a work-experience student from Berkshire College of Agriculture since the beginning of last week and she has settled in well to the day to day duties of Alpaca farming. It has been a good experience for her as during this time, we have had three cria born in her first week here. We have now seperated our 5 most pregnant girls into the front paddock so as to keep a closer eye on them as all are due during the next three weeks with the earliest being today! They are all humming constantly so I wouldn't be surprised if all of them decided to give birth this week!!

Our farm cat has, yet again taken to catching rabbits and last week she caught a second baby rabbit who, like the earlier one, escaped from her clutches and took refuge in an adjacent field! I feel that she really couldn't be bothered to chase after it again!

We are slowly getting rid of the waste/rubbish from the cabin build and it is begining to look less like a builders yard now. The decking is now complete and although having moved in some three weeks ago, I am still frantically trying to complete the floor tiling along with staining the window surrounds.

Gemma, our daughter in front of the cabin

Since the weatehr is superb currently, I will be out this afternoon with my camera to update some of the early cria photo's. Will be back soon.

Ice Cool Lad's hat trick!!

2010-06-11T08:12:00.000+01:00

Yesterday saw the arrival of another of Ice Cool Lad's mating result! This time to a medium brown female called Miracle. She produced this lovely coloured female whom we have named "Biscuit" . This seemed appropriate as she has the hue of a digestive!!

Mother and cria doing well

Biscuit at 50 minutes old

Yesterday's husbandry duties also included treating the herd to their 6 monthly Dectomax injections which for some reason appeared to be less stressful than before. It could be the fact that we have improved the routine or that we are getting used to it.............who knows! One thing is clear however and that is the boys are much happier about being caught than the girls!!

Anyway, I thought I would post this short blog before we got too busy with today's duties. Will be back soon.

Another arrival!

2010-06-08T15:55:00.002+01:00

We have now had another Cambridge Ice Cool Lad cria. We decided to call her "Truffle" as she has the most beautiful caramel-coloured fleece. I guess that this is the White on Black mating!

At 10:00 am yesterday, "Truffle" was born and within 15 minutes was standing and a further 10 minutes later, saw her feeding on the milk bar, much to our relief! She has inherited the most striking facial characteristics of Ice Cool Lad as has the previous cria born to Marmite two weeks ago. She is an absolute stunner and Sheila and I are very pleased that Ice Cool Lad has been successful in producing excellent progeny for us so far.

Truffle's first "go" at the milk bar!

Being "sussed" out

The colouring of her fleece in sharp contrast to a Medium Brown!

The youngsters have now all experienced their first rain last night and whilst the Sun has disappeared for a while, we certainly need the water for the grass.

I will finish on a rather bizarre note...................our farm cat, who is probably the size of a young rabbit, decided to switch from hunting mice to rabbit and was caught sight running off to the barn with a young rabbit in her jaws. Before she could reach it however, the rabbit put in a final desperate attempt at escape and managed to get away and promptly ran into the nearest paddock, only to be chased by about 10 Alpacas!!.... It survived and I extracted it out of some thick grass and let her go in an adjacent field.

Be back soon

Getting there..........

2010-06-05T20:11:00.001+01:00

Following the "build completion" of the cabin, it was time to rid ourselves of the wood waste that had accumulated since the start and so with a focused determination, we eagerly loaded up our trailer with wood off-cuts and unwanted pallets and ferried them down to the bottom paddock where we had a bonfire to rival the largest built on Novembver 5th! It was most rewarding and thoroughly cleaned up the appearence around the cabin.

Looks so much tidier!

Whilst out with the camera, I thought I would take a couple more pictures of the youngsters.

Here is one of Leia who is from Wellground Close Encounter

Leia looking particularly "cute"

Here is a full face shot of Samson's Diego from EP Cambridge Samson

We are currently still awaiting a cria from Blackie who is now a week overdue and every day seems to add a further pound or two from her appearence and during the month of June, we are expecting another 5! With the fine weather we are experiencing though, the Alpacas are really enjoying both the lush grass and the abundance of vitamin D!

Will be back soon.

Welcome to the new world!!

2010-05-30T18:42:00.000+01:00

Our Yuralee Daisy of Cambridge produced a lovely female this morning out of Wellground Close Encounter. No sooner had she found her rock-steady legs (within the hour), she was on the milk bar and feeding as though there was no tomorrow! Even though she was about 10 days early, we examined her fleece and it appears to be very good even after only a few hours.

This is a short blog to announce her birth and have included a few photo's:

Whoops.......Missed the milk bar

Look at me.....Aren't I cute!

Will be back with more pics soon.

How time flies.........

2010-05-27T07:59:00.001+01:00

It has been a whirlwind of activity here at Easter-Wood over the last two weeks and I seem to have lost track of the days! Our birthing programme has started in earnest with a wonderful male from Cambridge Sara's mating with EP Cambridge Samson whom we call Samson's Diego. This was closely followed by one of Cambridge Ice Cool Lad's matings last year to produce Moon Dance, a very pretty light brown female from one of our black girls, Marmite. We have used Cambridge Ice Cool Lad for all of our matings on our coloured alpacas last year and we are awaiting the imminent arrival of the next cria today! During the next two weeks, we are also expecting another 6 cria, one of which is the eargerly awaited Wellground Close Encounter mating with our Yuralee Daisy of Cambridge.

We have finally moved into the cabin even though it is not quite finished. We couldn't wait as the thought of staying in the caravan any longer further filled me with a sense of despair!! Anyway, I am working frantically on the floor tiling and with about 70% of it completed, the end of this project is in sight. After this, I will fit the skirting followed by the ridge tiles on the roof. With all of this activity, I seem to have lost 1.5 stone so if anyone is thinking of going on a diet, forget it: Just build your own cabin!!

Today, the rain has returned and with the last few weeks being really dry, it is a welcomed boost to the growing grass. To finish this blog today, I have posted a few more pictures of our new youngsters:

Here's Samson's Diego

Here's one with a tired looking mum!

The above are of Moon Dance

Now I am off to prepare for another attack on the floor tiling!

More photos and yet another arrival

2010-05-15T22:55:00.000+01:00

Following the delivery of EP Cambridge Samson's cria on Tuesday, I have posted a couple more photo's of him.

Today, we were surprised to welcome an early delivery for Branson Marmite who, following her mating with Cambridge Ice Cool Lad, gave birth to a healthy, strong female cria and as my Grandaughter was present, asked her to suggest a name for her. Our new member of the Easter-Wood herd is now called Easter-Wood Moon Dance.

I will post some more photo's of her tomorrow.

The annual shearing followed by a late delivery!

2010-05-10T22:45:00.001+01:00

Yesterday was a very hectic day and as every Alpaca breeder knows, shearing is a "full on" exercise. Mike Banks arrived at Easter-Wood late afternoon and we immediately set to work laying out a double mat to speed up the process. With Mike and his team demanding full involvement from us, it was fortunate that we had pre-empted this and employed the services of some of our friends and family whom without them, would have been shearing into the very late hours of the night! Even then, we still didn't finish until gone 9 pm at which time, we settled down to a wonderful Chilli and "nibbles" which went down particularly well!.

This morning, Sheila and I made the routine check on the now "bald" girls and boys and immediately noticed that Cambridge Sara was more restless than normal (she was due to have her cria last week) and within minutes, saw the head of her cria appearing. One hour later, she gave birth to a healthy male out of EP Cambridge Samson. He is a wonderful, strong boy and on his feet within an hour.

"Look at me, I can stand and I am only 1 hour old!"

Mum and cria settle down for the night.

Our forthcoming events

2010-05-03T23:27:00.000+01:00

Hi folks. It has been yet another long break since my last blog and the reason is simply that I am trying to cram in the final stages of the Log Cabin build along with the busy time we are having with ourAlpaca business.

All of our girls are now pregnant with the first cria due at any day now. This will be from EP Cambridge Samson's mating to EP Cambridge Sara last year, courtesy of Rob Rawlins at Wellground Alpaca Stud. We are so looking forward to what we believe will be a spectacular result and further complimenting her first born cria last year (Easter-Wood Navigator) from EP Cambridge Neptune. Next up will be a long awaited cria from Yuralee Daisy of Cambridge from her mating with Wellground Close Encounter. The end of June sees another potential success story with our first cria out of EP Cambridge Buckingham also courtesy of Rob at Wellground Alpaca Stud. Our fingers are crossed for the successful delivery of such quality cria!
It is always a testing time and whilst we had a relatively trouble-free (with a couple of exceptions) birthing sessions last year, we never take it for granted!

With the finishing touches currently being applied to our Log Cabin, we will be finally moving in by Thursday this week whilst the decking structure will commence this coming weekend. The following pictures shows the latest development.

External walls are stained

Start of the floor tiling in the lounge

View from the bedroom through to the lounge

Signing off for the night now but will be back soon.

Steady progress and return to blogging!

2010-04-12T23:58:00.000+01:00

It has been an extremely busy period of late and sadly, I have had little time to post any blogs. The log cabin is really progressing well now and despite a few niggling problems, we are so looking forward to moving in (finally). Our latest estimate is around a couple of weeks time!

Here are a few pictures showing the latest progress............

The kitchen is being assembled

The lounge/dining area is taking shape

Now onto things Alpaca.....................our young Australian Elite boys and girl have now completed their weaning period and the boys have been placed in their own paddock with the "Metisha", out of Cambridge Neptune, is now back with the rest of the Australian girls.

With improving weather now, the grass is rapidly growing again and we are finally enjoying the approaching spring here at Easter-Wood. Confirmation of this was in the form of a Kite flying over one of the paddocks today!

Signing off for the night now but will be back soon.

A mixed bag.....

2010-03-25T22:09:00.001Z

It has been some days since I last blogged as it has been extremely hectic here at Easter-Wood for a while now and with the latest changes in the weather conditions, it has put even more challenges in place for us.

Quite honestly though, we have been blessed with good weather for the initial stages of the cabin assembly and now the shell is complete, it only leaves the inside to finish off and as the weather has turned somewhat wet, we are at least dry now!

This afternoon however, during my twice-daily feeding session for the alpacas, I was caught unexpectantly in the middle of an intense downpour. It not only completely soaked me right through but was so heavy it really spooked our young elites who were displying signs of fear as the rain and hail lashed down, turning their little paddock into an instant lake!! In stark contrast, Cambridge Ice Cool Lad, who occupies the paddock adjacent to the weanlings, simply sat down and chewed contently on his haylage.

At this point I decided to bring the poor things into the barn for the night where they would be dry, warm and out of the fearsome wind, hail and rain! Such is our British weather!!!

Yesterday, I learnt another trick that our farm cat had got up to................not content with stalking and eventually catching a mouse, she decided that her prey had to finish it's days by dumping it into the disinfectant foot bath sitting outside the barn!! Never seen that before!

We also have a very busy weekend approaching as the alpacas are scheduled for their 3 monthly toenail trimming exercise. Hope the weather is not too wet as they are so much more difficult to hold!

Signing off now but will be back soon.

A vet visit

2010-03-18T21:06:00.001Z

Following some difficulty with the matings of a couple of our Elite girls earlier this year, we decided to seek professional intervention and called in our vet to conduct a uterine flush on one of them and scan the other to check her pregnancy. We first ushered EP Cambridge Olympus into the barn and Graham, our vet gave her a mild sedative before administering the uterine flush process. She was an absolute gem and after this was finished we gave her an antibiotic with the hope that she will be ready for mating again with Cambridge Ice Cool Lad in a weeks time. We are hoping that this time we obtain a positive result! The really good news was that after scanning Yuralee Sunrise of EPC, we saw that she was indeed pregnant and that Cambridge Ice Cool Lad had done his job well!

With the weather being mild for a change, the alpacas are enjoying the grass which is already showing signs of growth again. The weanling males are really looking good and have grown so quickly over the past two months so I must try and capture a good photo of them!

The cabin is progressing well with the underfloor heating being laid tomorrow and the roof tiles should be finished by the weekend.

As I write this blog, the weather has decided to take a turn for the worst and I can now hear the rain pounding on the roof of the caravan so I will turn in for the night and will be back soon.

.....and yet another fine day!

2010-03-16T22:41:00.001Z

This morning greeted us with a fine, warm, sunny day and it was certainly an uplifting feeling. This weather evokes memories of Spring and it was with this in mind that we approached the next phase of the cabin assembly. Today, we are focused upon installing the cedar roof shingles and as can be seen from the photos below, the first half of the roof has almost now been completed.

The first two rows are installed

The finished south-facing roof

Throughout all of this activity of course, we are also getting on with our Alpaca business and tomorrow, we are having our vet visit us to scan a couple of our Elite girls which are proving a little difficult to ascertain their pregnancy status. It is always a challenge to accurately determine the "spit-off" results and so we are turning to our vet for some expert prognosis.

The Easter-Wood farm cat, that we purchased at a recent farm auction is really well at home now and is not only extemely cute, she is most effective as a "mouser". Her appearence whilst receiving visitors however generates much engineered attention and she simply adores being fussed over, bringing about a welcomed diversion to the ever present graft with the cabin assembly.

We have decided to take a break tomorrow so as to re-charge our aching limbs, so will be back with more photo coverage later this week.

The latest at Easter-Wood...

2010-03-13T23:07:00.001Z

With apologies for being absent from our blog for almost a week now, I can now give you an update to our cabin build. After just 10 days, we are now in the final stages of completing the "shell" with possibly a further 3 weeks to complete the internal construction. The following photo's gives you an idea of our current progress and we are so looking forward to finally running our business from a proper "base"!

End of the 6th day of build with part of the roof installed

This is the cabin this morning..

......and this is this evening.

Installing the windows

The "Team" taking a well-earned break

Our cabin assembly is a remarkable experience for us, not least of which has demonstrated that for all those that have a passion to develop their own Alpaca breeding business, it can be achieved and my aches and pains are certainly testament to that comittment!!

Back to Alpaca business............with the dry spell we are experiencing currently, it is good to see our Alpacas enjoying the sunshine at last. Temperatures are climbing and as a result, they are finally getting to graze on grass once more. Our girls are all looking well pregnant with the first of our Elite females due to deliver in early May. EPC Cambridge Sara, having produced an excellent male from EPC Cambridge Neptune last year is due to give birth from a mating with EPC Cambridge Samson. We are really looking forward to seeing what she will produce!

Thats all for tonight but will be back soon.

Cabin Progress

2010-03-07T21:59:00.000Z

I apologise for the fact that our blog these days seems to be nothing but a diary of our Cabin assembly but it is currently a major focus for us and that which is in fact, the corner stone of our business! Today's continued fine weather brought about further rapid progress and as shown, the photo below depicts the days final work on the roof beams:

The work tomorrow will be to install the final roof beam, made of Douglas Fir, completion of the end gables and installation of the ceiling which makes up the structural basis of the roof. I am still quite amazed at the rapid progress we are making and all of this within a week of starting!

More progress report tomorrow......

Good weather, Good progress!

2010-03-06T22:40:00.001Z

Since our cabin assembly commenced last week, we have been amazed at the rapid progress that can be made and what with the good weather we are currently experiencing, we are set to have the cabin shell completed by the end of next week.

Yesterday and today, we have made great progress in assembling the log walls as can be seen from the photo's.

Yesterday's progress on the log walls

The speed of assembly is very clear by todays' progress

Our "Team"

Tomorrow will be spent on preparing the assembly of the roof and since the timbers for this part of the cabin are even more heavier than the log walls, I am sure that I will end up exacerbating my already aching limbs so I will now close to have a good nights sleep!!

A short blog tonight

2010-03-04T20:28:00.001Z

Weather today was great and so we took the opportunity to wean off our little Miss Moneypenny. As she seems a regular "independant", we decided to place in the paddock with the elite youngsters and as we expected, once the little introductions were over, she settled in very well and was soon tucking into the haylage with the others.

As I have promised to keep up to date with the progress of the cabin assembly, here are the lastest photo's taken today. The photo below shows the final touches to the floor joists;

This photo shows the start of the log walls going in with some of them in the foreground;

With the promise of fine weather for the next few days, we should be able to really crack on with cabin. We are hoping that the complete shell will be up within one more week (weather permitting)!

I am now off to get some well-earned rest!

Canada comes delivering!

2010-03-03T21:43:00.001Z

What a busy last two days we have experienced! Yesterday was the scheduled delivery of the component parts of our Log Cabin. It finally arrived in a 40 foot shipping container and as the access to our farm is somewhat "tight", the driver decided to reverse down the full length of Longwater Lane.....not a good idea! It became evident that his ability to accurately control the direction of his vehicle in reverse was not particularly great and once he started his way down the unmade section, his driving skills became even more erratic and at about 100 metres from our farm gate, he ran off the road into extremely soft verge. Yep, you got it, he got stuck!! After trying to ease out of the deepening trough for approximately 1 hour, we decided to unload the container by hand from this spot. Fortunately however, I had the good fortune that my son, Neil and a number of my colleagues had very kindly agreed to help me unload. The most weird activity throughout the struggle to release the vehicle was that a group of the locals (you know the ones) had decided to gather and photograph our plight!! How bizarre!!

Unloading a 50 ton shipping container full of pine logs by hand is not for the faint-hearted and after a further hour or so, we managed to hire a telescopic fork lift vehicle and this made the job so much easier but despite that, we were still hard at it until 7:30 that evening!

Today, after nursing the many bruises and aching limbs, we started assembling and as can be seen from the photo's, good progress is being made. By close of play, we had laid down floor joists covering almost threequarters of the base.

That's all for now but will be back soon and I promise not to become to much of an anorak about the Log Cabin. (It's just that we have waited so long for it!!)

Closer and closer!

2010-02-28T22:10:00.001Z

First I would like to congratulate Rob and Les at Wellground Alpaca Stud for their first cria born this year! He looks a real "cracker".

We moved another step towards our goal today as I went to pick up Charles, our Canadian "Cabin Assembler" from Heathrow this morning. Whilst the weather is still pretty dismal, it looks promising for the week ahead and it will obviously give him and our "team" a real good chance to crack on with the build without too much hassle from the weather (I will regret saying that I am sure!). The "kit" arrives on Tuesday so I will spend tomorrow ensuring that all is in place and we have all the necessary tools/materials, etc.

Since this dreary time of year has an adverse effect on our wellbeing, I have decided to cheer myself up, and hopefully you, by posting a couple of earlier pictures of our farm and Alpacas taken during the summer months and also to serve as a reminder of how much drier and warmer our weather can be!!

These two are our first Easter-Wood Elite males. "Navigator" on the right and "Polaris" on the left.

This is Sheila enjoying a playfull moment with our last cria born in 2009

On this note I will bid you farewell until next time.

Today's Progress

2010-02-26T21:19:00.000Z

Following yesterday's brief respite from the weather, we were blessed with a fine day today and we took full advantage of both of these days to complete the initial work on putting in the concrete piers for the cabin. The finished base is seen below.

The floor joists, supporting the cabin will simply "sit" on the concrete piers shown.

Like many of you, we have taken to keeping our Alpacas in the barn until the sodden paddocks drain away and whilst I am sure they appreciate the shelter, they would rather be out grazing! It will be a while before we are able to build permenant pens but in the meantime, we have been using Alpaca hurdles and I have to say that they are absolutely brilliant. We purchased these as a pack of 12 last year and they have been worth their weight in gold!

Only a short blog tonight but following many very early mornings this week, I will be hitting the "sack" very soon.

Rain stopped play.....................again!!

2010-02-24T22:43:00.001Z

Well it has been 4 days since we were able to continue with putting in the support blocks for the cabin due to the dismal weather. Our builder, Stuart has had the patience to turn up here at Easter-Wood every day since last Saturday only to take a bleak look at the weather conditions before making a decision to call it a day! However, we had a bit of a respite today at around lunchtime when the rain stopped for a good couple of hours, so Stuart came down again and no sooner did he open the gate to our farm, the heavens opened up yet again. Bugger!!!

We have just over one more days work to go before the completion of the blocks and tomorrow is slightly promising (hope I haven't jinxed it by saying this) so we will have another crack at it again. I was notified that our cabin (in the container) had docked early this morning and we should expect it on Monday.

All of the Alpacas have been tucked up in the barn for the last few days now and it has given them a chance to eradicate the vast build up of mud on their fleeces. It is nice to see them less stressed.

Today we had a little excitement as we were suddenly buzzed by a helicopter which began circling around the bottom paddock, or so it seemed! We then saw it slowly descend into the field beyond and it was at this point I realised that it was an air ambulance. Sadly, it seems as though there was an accident of some sorts and I noticed that other emergency vehicles were also in attendance. An hour later and the helicopter ascended and flew off to the hospital. I hope that all was well with the poor unfortunate soul.

I am signing off for the evening now and will be back soon.

Finally we start!

2010-02-20T23:09:00.000Z

Having successfully removed the "static" off site, we have now commenced building the support pillars for the cabin now. Our man, Stuart along with his partner, Viv arrived at 8 am this morning and immediately got stuck into the work. As I promised to record the assembly of the cabin, this is the first of a series of pictures which I hope will culminate in the finished product in a few weeks time. We have to assemble the cabin on site as there isn't a great deal of space on the approach road to our farm and the very thought of transporting a semi-assembled cabin along the road outside our place fills me with visions of destruction of biblical proportions!

The cabin will rest upon the concrete pillars shown

Being a fine day today, I took advantage of this and moved around some of our alpacas from some of the paddocks most effected by the wet weather we have been experiencing here. Our weanlings have what appears to be a coat of pure mud around them. We know from experience however that once they have a chance to dry off, the bedraggled look soon disappears! From the reports on the radio, it would seem that the next couple of days should also be fine....hurrah!

Will be back soon to give you another progress report.

Next Phase

2010-02-19T21:51:00.000Z

Yesterday saw the end to the Static Caravan occupation as it was collected to make way for the Cabin. It was a kind of bitter/sweet experience however as on the one hand it marked the fact that the cabin build is getting closer but secondly, it meant that a further period of touring caravan occupation is now necessary! Mind you, the removal of the static was not without it's moments...........once the caravan was winched up onto the back of the truck, the driver attempted to reverse out but started to rapidly sink into the wet ground until the rear wheels were just about half covered! Anyway, we managed to fill the resultant hole with scalpings and hey presto, the truck finally freed itself!

The news on the cabin delivery however isnot so good as there is a further delay due to storms on the east coast of Canada. We are now looking at a delivery on 1st March! There is nothing we can do so we just have to be a bit more patient.

Today, we went over to Wellground Alpaca Stud to visit our friends, Rob and Les. It was great to see them again and upon arrival, we spent time looking at some of their youngster's fleeces and chatting about their improved bio security precautions. They have a really wonderful Alpaca business and following a look at the improvements they have made to their barns, we adjourned to their local for lunch which was, as usual, lovely.

The photo above shows us looking at the youngsters fleeces.

Signing off for the night now and will be back soon.

Moving towards our goal!

2010-02-12T17:36:00.002Z

I have just realised that it has been over a week since my last blog and so here is an update to our cabin build.........as a condition of our planning permission (and it was a long time coming), we have had to agree to the removal of our much-loved 20 foot shipping container and whilst it is an absolute god-send for secure, vermin-proof storage, we have no option but to sell it, so if there is anybody who has an interest for it at a reasonable price then please let me know. I have included a picture of it below.

This week has been a rather interesting one as it appears that the general caution which has inhibited financial investment over the last year has improved. We have had a few enquiries from potential Alpaca breeders and whilst these have not yet concuded in a sale, the suggestion is that more people in this area are taking more of a look to seek alternative lifestyles.
The weather here has not been too bad over the last week however, today was rather wet but fortunately, it hasn't affected the ground too much and is still fairly dry.

Finally, I mentioned in an earlier blog that I would struggle to keep our telephone/broadband active since we will be having our static caravan collected next Thursday and all of the services of course would be disconnected. The good news is that a friend of my Brother in Law has offered to provide me with extension cables for our existing telephone line so that I can use the telephone from the temporary touring caravan that we first lived in when we started the business. We will be installing this tomorrow in preparation.

I will be back soon.

Preparing for the Cabin Build

2010-02-04T18:33:00.000Z

A busy day for us today.....First thing was to give our alpacas their dose of A, D &E injections and then a good clear out of the barn was conducted as we have to re-distribute the haylage for the horses, straw and hay for the alpacas and move the pens around to make way for some of the internal elements of the cabin to be stored. Whilst the weather currently is rather dismal, at least it is much warmer than we have experienced lately and our alpacas seem to enjoy what is left of the grass.

We have finalised the details of the cabin build now, having selected the relevant tradesmen with a commencement date of 18th of this month. As we will be vacating our static caravan as from next week, we will obviously have to disconnect all of the services we currently enjoy, including the telephone. This of course will create some problems in the sense that communication will have to be through our mobile telephones but at least I should be able to occasionally gain access to our blog via a mobile broadband "dongle". Having used it for a while early last year, it proved to be extremely useful, albeit a little slow.

I will attempt to photograph our progress over the next two months and publish this on our blog as I have promised to do so but please forgive any "gaps" as I will be actively employed as a member of the "team" employed to carry out the build! Sheila and I cannot wait for it to be finished and will give us a much better base for our business. The photograph below shows what we are currently living in but in a couple of months time, it will be a different story!

Signing out for now but will return soon.

A visit from Willowbank Alpacas

2010-01-30T17:49:00.000Z

We awoke to a lovely day today and after the dull, wet weather of late, it was a very welcomed treat! Our work on the farm recently has included upgrading our bio-security precautions and taking delivery of additional hay, haylage and straw which we have now re-stacked in the barn.

Today, we welcomed Carl and Lisa from Willowbank Alpaca Stud who, over the last several months, had been discussing with us the purchase of some of our Alpacas in order to complete their plans to develop their own Alpaca breeding enterprise. Today, after an in-depth inspection and detailed discussions about the various blood lines and phenotype, they finally selected 5 of them.

Afterwards, we retired for a bite to eat and a general chat about Alpacas and their progress with Willowbank. Sheila and I are very happy that they will be going to a very dedicated and enthusiastic couple who will, I am sure, make a resounding success of their business.

Today's blog is rather short but I have just been informed that dinner is ready!!

A busy husbandry day!

2010-01-24T13:01:00.001Z

As announced earlier, yesterday we completed our 6 monthly Lambivac session for our alpacas and I also took advantage of the dry weather to kick the poo cleaner into action. Whilst it always performs well, the pipe began to clog quite quickly as the wet poo is not ideal for the machine however, the job was eventually completed and I moved on to install a rather nifty hay feeder which fitted rather nicely on the side of Ice Cool Lad's field shelter. He must have approved as he dispensed with caution and immediately started feeding from it.

During a routine inspection of our paddocks later revealed an interesting observation and whilst it is pretty obvious, I guess I hadn't really acknowledged it before.... It amazes me that where the grass is particularly good with respect to growth and free from excess laying water, the alpacas prefer to use these areas as their latrines thus making do with the poorer quality grass elsewhere to graze on!! Strange!

With the building of our log cabin commencing from mid February, we have now re-located some of the alpaca pens in the barn to allow us to store some of the internal structures of the cabin out of the weather. It did give me a good excuse however to have a thorough clean up (it is surprising how much one tends to keep hold of "in case it could be of use later")!!

Well, today is looking pretty good here with a fair amount of sunshine, so it's off now to make full use of this while it lasts. Be back again soon.

A warm welcome for a great couple!

2010-01-22T22:45:00.000Z

I will write a brief "welcome" blog for our good friends in Leicester tonight. Karl, Lisa and their daughter, little Lilly are the new alpaca breeders who have commited to develop an alpaca breeding enterprise called WillowBank Alpacas and with their recent "elite" purchases from Wellground Alpaca Stud, they are set to commence a great start to their core herd.

We wish them every success and like many other breeders who have taken this journey, we heartily welcome them into a most rewarding business. It is thanks to people like Rob & Les at Wellground Alpaca Stud that many breeders, including ourselves have had the benefit of the wisdom and guidance of them both to provide a great kick-start to their alpaca businesses.

Turning (yet again) to mundane things like the weather, we have had a rotten day of constant rain here and as a result, our alpacas are again tucked up in the barn for the night! Tomorrow will be a busy one for us as we will be administering Lambivac to all of our herd and that is always a great way to lose some weight!!

I am off to get some shut eye now so goodnight all.

Re-housing the hens!

2010-01-21T22:34:00.000Z

Following the loss of several of our chickens to Mr Fox, we have come up (or rather Sheila has) with a stop-gap solution to our chicken housing issue. Since our chickens had become breakfast, lunch and tea for that "bloody" Fox, we had been keeping them locked up in their coop during the day for the time being and until I could build a more permanent run for them! This morning, Sheila suggested that we utilise one of the stables for them and so off we went to remove them from the coop and with a chicken under each arm, Sheila shipped them to the newly prepared stable, all kitted out with a deep spread of fresh straw, a refilled drink dispenser and a topped-up feeder. They were most appreciative of their new, spacious home and to give thanks for this, one of them duly delivered an egg in a straw-filled cardboard box, converted into a nesting box! That's breakfast taken care of then!

We have also been having a spot of bother with a few mice which have taken up residence in the small barn. This is the main reason we purchased our little kitten but since she appeared not to be doing her job, I had planted a couple of mouse traps around the barn and "hey presto", I got a result with two mice which had decided that a piece of carrot was too tempting a morsel to ignore! It will be the role of kitten to catch the next one, I hope!

As the weather looks to be dry on Saturday, we will be conducting the 6-monthly Lambivac session for the alpacas with the toenail cutting exercise to follow.....a busy day ahead!

I thought you might like to have a look at the latest photograph of Ice Cool Lad in the snow. He is a real "smasher" and has certainly left a great impression on a number of our alpacas here!

Well, that's all for today so goodnight all and will return soon.

A trip to Lyndhurst.

2010-01-17T16:08:00.000Z

I will write a brief blog today as I have a huge workload but wanted to acknowledge yesterday's venture! Yesterday we went to Lyndhurst to attend the bTB talk by Gina Bromage. It was a real eye-opener as she covered so many issues surrounding bio-security and the quest to avoid contracting bTB. Gina gave a great deal of credit to Di Summers hard work in co-ordinating information and disseminating this to everybody expressing an interest along with managing the support group. It was good also to meet some of our friends again. We most certainly learnt a great deal from this talk and as a result, we shall be making a few modifications to our bio-security from now on.

Like many of you, we are now enjoying an incredibly warm day today, Gone is the snow and at long last, our alpacas have some grass to graze on! We are so much looking forward to the return of warmer and drier weather!

Well I must get off to feed the alpacas now but will be back soon.

Getting there!

2010-01-15T14:08:00.000Z

Our program of rallying the tradesmen for our cabin build is progressing well and we have now had a number of in-depth meetings with the carpenter, electrician and plumber. This Sunday, we will be meeting the heating engineer who, we hope will be able to implement a solution for the wood burning stove to be connected to under-floor heating and domestic hot water. He has also suggested solar panels for the domestic hot water during the summer months but I am not sure that the capital outlay will be economical enough. In the longer term, it has to be the ideal solution but with our limited budget, I believe it will be a tad too expensive!

Turning to the weather once more, it looks as though we have seen the worst of it now and we are now basking in a relative "heat wave" of +6 degrees C!! I have to say, I am not sorry one little bit that the snow and ice is thawing! Our alpacas have been very cosy in their barn each night of late but they are certainly missing the warmth of the sun! (As we are!).

We have now finished off all of the haylage we initially brought and whilst it is treated as a "delicacy" for the alpacas, they would, I am sure eat only this and not hay. It is full of goodness but they can easily over-indulge on it so although we have ordered more, we will ration it in future!

The fox has not shown himself for a while now. The reason is of course that we have now locked the 3 remaining hens in the coop until I get the chance to build a run for them. Needless to say that the supply of eggs is seriously down but at least we still get 3 eggs a day and that will do for us o:)!

I am off to the bTB talk in Lyndhurst by Gina Bromage on Saturday and looking forward to what has been described as an extremely informative talk. Sadly, I will be leaving Sheila to farm sit but I am sure that she will get to another venue in the fullness of time.

Signing off now and will return soon.

Yet more snow!

2010-01-09T18:07:00.003Z

The snow came thick and fast (10 inches so far) and it appears that the worst has yet to come but we are quite happy about the way life is treating us right now! Maybe it's the British "stiff upper lip" syndrome but we are quite enjoying the challenge. Our daily routine of feeding, watering, mucking out and letting the alpacas out for the day has taken a new meaning as we are now taking bets about which of the alpacas reaches the paddocks first! The same applies for when they make a dash for the barn when we bring them in for the evening!

I am quite surprised about how quickly they learn where to go......they have now developed an incredible homing attitude, knowing exactly which pen they came out of when leaving the barn in the morning. The exercise of thawing the water buckets and refilling them in this weather is a real challenge however it certainly keeps one fit!

I have posted a few photographs of the farm showing different paddocks. See if you can see any of the alpacas!

This is a view from the west of our farm

This view shows "Ice Cool Lad's" Paddock with our Barn in background

This shows our "wood" with a field shelter shared between two of the paddocks.

Here's our coloured group who have just been put out for the day.

Hope you enjoyed some of the Easter-Wood scenes.

Just when you thought things were improving?

2010-01-05T18:14:00.000Z

Good evening folks. I shall only write a brief blog tonight as we are due to have a meal cooked by my Sister-in Law later so I will have to get a move on! Today however, was a reminder that one shouldn't get too complacent! We lost another 2 chickens today and I would love to get hold of the perpetrator of this crime! This damn fox has now dispatched 6 of our hens now, most of which were taken during daylight hours so we will have to build a chicken run and forget the idea of "free range" hens. Sad, as we were really enjoying their gentle clucking whilst wandering around the farm pecking at the ground and picking up the occasional grub/insect.

The weather continues to be below freezing for us here in Berkshire with us waking to frozen pipes yet again today! If it wasn't for our friendly neighbour, Patrick, we would have struggled with water during the day. As the weather has been forecast with a lot of snow this evening, we have now brought the alpacas into our barn again. Mind you, they seem to enjoy the race to the barn each time and a couple of them have established superiority as exceptional runners!

Signing off for now.

A welcome respite!

2010-01-02T17:10:00.001Z

This morning, the second day of 2010, we woke to another clear, bright and sunny day.....see picture below! It's only the second time for many weeks that we have experienced the warmth of the sun even though the air temperature is hovering around zero. Today, after a second night in the barn, we brought out the alpacas again first thing this morning and they appeared to be absolutely delighted to feel the warmth of the sun again, even though the ground was rock hard. According to the weather forecast, we could be enjoying several days of dry, bright days....hurray!

The year ahead for us is full of promise and as we get closer to the day when our log cabin is to be built, which is only 5 weeks away, we are very enthusiastic about what the future holds for us. Despite the issues of bTB affecting our original plans to exhibit this year, we will most certainly be attending some local country and alpaca shows with the intention of simply raising our profile. Like a number of our colleagues, we are very optimistic about the future of alpaca breeding and since I have personally become much more involved in the day to day running of our business here at Easter-Wood since my IT recruitment company went bust early in 2009, I cannot help but believe in a successful outcome.

We have now received the list of venues for the Gina Bromage talks about bTB in Camelids and so we have booked our place for later this month. Dealt with in a sensible and responsible manner, I am convinced that most alpaca breeders will overcome what will be a somewhat testing time for all. Not only have we stopped any animal movement but we now have hand sanitizer dispensers located strategically around the farm. It may be a small thing but we feel it is an essential approach to improving bio security.

Finally, I have to report that we have not lost any more chickens this past week so perhaps our improved vigilance is paying off!

Signing off now but to those of you who read our blog, may we wish you a very Happy New Year.

Where did it all go?

2009-12-29T10:42:00.002Z

Good morning all. Today was a reflection on the Christmas festivities and whilst we all had our challenges, the holiday break was most enjoyed. Our son bless him, treated us to a sumptuous meal on Christmas day and since Sheila had volunteered to drive, I had the opportunity to indulge in a couple of bevvies! The festivities also embraced the obligatory TV viewing and we had the luxurious "feet-up" experience which comes with every Christmas time.

Now of course, we are several days from the Christmas break and we don't know where the time went.....talking of disappearing acts; our resident "Reynard" despatched yet another two chickens again. We are now down from 9 to 5 chickens. Despite what they say about alpacas protecting sheep, chickens, etc,.......they don't!! We have had three taken from within the alpaca paddocks and all within spitting distance from them. I have resigned nyself to building a "run" so they will have to forego the experience of being free range but at least they will be safe!

We are currently spending a fair amount of time sourcing tradesmen for the cabin build and whilst this has become a priority, we are still battling with the inclement weather which poses the constant quetion of "do we bring in the alpacas tonight or not"? The snow has almost disappeared from the paddocks now but in it's place, we are having a fair amount of rain and the poor alpacas really look sorry for themselves having now to "weather" the rain and mud after the snow!

Well I am off to do a bit of poo picking inside the barn now.

Winter challenges!

2009-12-24T14:00:00.000Z

Good morning all and may we wish you festive greetings!

Things have been a little challenging for us here at Easter-Wood just lately as we have suffered the fate of frozen water pipes, loosing another two hens and struggling to keep warm......We are however still very bouyant as the temporary "living in a caravan" will soon come to an end and our Log Cabin will occupy the space of our static in February. Another "Cold" view of our farm below.

We are still bringing in our alpacas at night during this cold and snowy weather and it is very satisfying to almost hear their sigh of relief upon entering the barn! The frozen pipes however are not just resigned to the static, our two exterior taps on the barns are equally prone to freezing up and we have to be inventive to ensure that our alpacas get their water.

Since the loss of our last chicken (we are now down to 6), we experienced a strange thing this morning.........upon letting them out of their coop, we collected 8 eggs!! We are certain that there were none in the nesting boxes when we put them away last night so we either have chickens laying more than 1 egg or maybe the "lost" chickens are coming back to lay their eggs in the coop before wandering off again.......strange!!

Over the last few months we had received emails from Dianne Summers alerting us all about the bTB disease in alpacas and this has now been supported by BAS who have advised us to attend the bTB meetings that Gina Bromage will be talking at. Easter-Wood will certainly be attending the nearest venue in January next year.

Another day, another loss and more snow!!

2009-12-19T17:01:00.001Z

Following in the wake of a snowstorm yesterday, we decided to bring in the alpacas for the night. As we had lost one of the hens the previous day, we also made a point of doing a role call prior to putting them in for the night and would you believe it.......... another one was missing!! I made the usual searches in and around the field shelters, etc but could find no sight nor sound of her. If it was the old fox up to his tricks again, I would of thought that we would see some evidence of a struggle (feathers, etc) but nothing was found. Maybe the culprit was one of the Buzzards we have nesting locally! We shall see what tomorrow brings!

As the day started with a clear, sunny sky, we turned out the alpacas who welcomed the chance to frolic in the virgin snow (that is apart from the foxes footprints!). With the temperature staying below freezing for most of the day, it was a good day to be active outside. Interestingly, no sooner had I re-filled the water buckets they started to freeze over again. In this weather, they most certainly welcome the haylage which they devour with relish!

Signing off for today to have a shower and clean up!

A loss at Easter-Wood!

2009-12-17T18:11:00.001Z

Having spent most of this afternoon rounding up the alpacas into the barn for the night as the weather is set to be pretty apalling, I had delayed putting the hens away and with the light fading quickly, I approached the chicken coop only to find a couple of them still wandering aimlessly around in a somewhat dazed state. I soon realised why! My eyes detected a brighter patch on the track running alongside the paddock and upon inspection, found it to be a pile of feathers. As it was almost pitch black, I immediately fetched the torch and subsequently found a trial of feathers which led me to the decapitated body of one of our lovely hens. It was quite clear that the nasty old fox had dragged the body away but couldn't get it out through the stock fencing. It is a lesson well learnt.....don't delay in putting the chickens away for the night!

Back to happier topics and we have an appointment with our roofer tomorrow in preparations for the cabin build. We have also taken another decision about the cabin..............We had discovered that builders seem to be quoting us incredibly high quotes to finish and project manage the team required to complete the internals of the cabin, so I will now be finishing off the internal elements myself with the help of my brother in law who is a competent builder himself. We will source our own plumber and electrician and I am sure that we can save a considerable amount by going about it in this way (I hope!).

Signing off for now and will be back soon.

Another spit-off day

2009-12-14T17:23:00.001Z

What with our on/off mating programme of late, we checked our recently mated girls with Cambridge Ice Cool Lad today (EP Cambridge Olympus and Yuralee Sunrise of EPC) with another spit-off and we had a great result!.... It looks as though they are both holding their pregnancies (thank goodness) and so we now have all of the elite girls pregnant. Later this week we will conduct the final couple of spit-offs for the other group and finish with a Lambivac session!!

Our male elites have now been seperated off and Easter-Wood Metisha, out of EP Cambridge Neptune has been put back with the other elite females. I keep promising to post some photo's of this group and once we have a day which is dry and bright, I will do so.

We had the final meeting with our Log Cabin man today and completed the signing off process with the necessary manufacturing deposit so it's full steam ahead with a build date commencing February 2010........Can't wait!

Be back again soon.

The start of a production line!

2009-12-11T17:19:00.000Z

Today was a bit of a milestone for us as we have now purchased a Spinning Wheel and as we had always intended to produce our own alpaca garments, this will enable us to get started. Sheila had been talking about sourcing one from ebay and a couple of days ago, she found one for sale and we duly put in a bid. Some couple of days later, we found that her offer was indeed the winning bid so today, we trekked over to Thornton Heath to pick it up. After a welcomed cup of coffee and a general chat with the lovely couple who sold it to us, we headed back to rural sanity. I had totally forgotten how congested the roads around London are and how frustrating it is to drive in amongst so many vehicles without moving very far!

We now need to source a drum carder to complete the mechanics of fleece processing on a small scale!

Since the weather appears to have dryed up now, the alpacas have been released from the barn and are now back on the grass day and night. I hope that the rain keeps away for a while now as the paddocks have suffered over the last couple of weeks.

The haylage we purchased in the summer has been well received by the alpacas and they simply cannot get enough of it.

Our elite youngsters, Navigator, Polaris, Sundown and Metisha have now been away from their mums for 4 weeks now and this weekend, we will be seperating the boys into their own paddock with Metisha going back with the remainder of the Elite Australians. We had a chance to examine all of their fleeces during this seperation period and we are simply delighted about the superb fleece they are exhibiting. When we next get a bright day, I will take some photo's of them and put them in the Blog.

We also have some Lambivac injections to do this weekend so it will be a busy Saturday and Sunday methinks!!

Signing off now but will return soon.

More mating and plans for 2010!

2009-12-05T16:29:00.008Z

With our continuing program of mating throughout the winter, we set "Cambridge Ice Cool Lad" to work again today, this time with a Spit-off on "Black Magic" followed by a mating with "Snowflake". She has always presented a bit of a problem with us in the same way that "EP Cambridge Olympus" has. A boost with "Receptal" soon after mating seems to be the answer! A sound bit of advice from Rob at Wellground, so thanks Rob!

Our herd has now managed to get into a good routine of coming in for the night whilst the wet weather is continuing. We don't really want this to go on for too long however as they most certainly miss the grass even though there is not much of it around now.

We have now "broken" into the haylage we purchased earlier this year and the Alpacas most certainly love it. Mind you, I can fully understand this as the aroma is simply wonderful! As the amount of hay we normally feed them on is almost twice the volume of haylage, it is well worth the added work in trying to break up the compacted haylage in order to feed them!

The one thing that we have learnt during our relatively short time as Alpaca breeders is the constant need to update and modify our farm through simple, pure experience. As a result of the need for herd movement recently within the farm, we have decided that a number of fences we erected could have been better positioned and certain gates could have offered a better access! The work that we have planned for 2010 therefore will include a slight re-design of the paddocks.

Talking of 2010 and since we have now received the "Green Light" from the Local Planning Authority, we will be making a presence at a couple of local agricultural shows during the year in order "raise our profile". We do not however plan to take any of the Alpacas as we are still very cautious of the bTB and until this is satisfactorly addressed, we will only be marketing Easter-Wood through showing fleeces and introducing Alpaca breeding by photo's and discussions. My previous experience as a Sales Director should help in this case! :o))
Well, I am off to put the hens away for the night but will return soon.

Warm comfort again

2009-12-02T09:43:00.001Z

Because of the most appalling weather we are having, we have taken the decision to move all the alpacas into the barn for the time being. It at least gives the poor things a chance to dry out and warm up! Our furthermost paddock on the farm was almost completely underwater on Monday and the remaining paddocks also had a considerable amount of surface water.

The task of designing the sectioning off the various pens inside the barn was conducted by Sheila who I have to say has incredible "vision" of how practical it will be! Once this was agreed (actually, I didn't dispute any of Sheila's suggestions!), we brought each of the alpacas in, group by group. I can honestly say that you could sense the relief from the alpacas once they were comfortably settled in.

Our plans are to keep them in until the paddocks drain off and we are hoping that we do not have a repeat of the atrocious weather for a while yet! Whilst we couldn't bring Cambridge Ice Cool Lad into the barn, we cleared out one of our stables, put a nice bed of straw down and brought him in as well. He looks more than happy to be in, away from the poor weather.

Despite the temperature drop and the constant rain of late, our hens are still laying their regular quota so at least we are never short of eggs.

On a final note, we have now committed to our Canadian Log Cabin as we have paid the first deposit!! The build is expected to commence at the end of January and be completed (we hope) by late March. Can't wait!!! As promised, there will be a pictorial record of progress.

Drainage issues, Husbandry and the Build!

2009-11-29T13:48:00.001Z

The rain hasn't ceased throughout the week and into this weekend apart from a brief respite during Saturday. Our ditches which surround our farm are beginning to steadily fill which is a cause for some concern. Both the north and south ditches actually merge in one corner of the farm and then are supposed to drain out into one of the abundant streams that criss-cross this part of the countryside however, a large supplier of aggregates and cement are currently excavating shingle from the land almost adjacent to our farm. In their wisdom, they decided to install a very small pipe to take this water under a road that they have built for their earth moving trucks and as aresult, have considerably reduced the flow of water from our ditches. Needless to say, I have spoken to their team and I expect to see them installing a larger pipe! We will see if this happens as we do not wish to see our alpacas knee deep in water!

During the brief respite from the rain yesterday, we managed to vaccinate our elite herd with Dectomax and release them from their 3 day break in the comfort of the barn. We did however conduct a couple of spit-offs first. Olympus has had some trouble in getting pregnant and we mated her again with Cambridge Ice Cool Lad and gave her a dose of Receptal this time which we hope will get her "going".

Once the elite alpacas had left the comfort of the barn, we then moved the rest of the herd, minus the weanlings into the barn for their relief from the foul weather. They too will receive their Dectomax jabs this coming week and then it is the turn of the weanlings.

Yesterday morning, we met up with our builder who will be responsible for the internal fitting out of the Cabin build and chatted about the various options open to us. As we have seen the strengthening of the Euro against the pound over the last 18 months, we have been forced to work with a Canadian Log Cabin company now who will build our log cabin to the same spec as the other company. We are so looking forward to work commencing within the next couple of months.

Well it is almost time to brave the weather once more and feed the alpacas so I bid you farewell and will return soon.

Getting closer to our Log Cabin build!

2009-11-25T08:56:00.006Z

Having had what we thought was a fairly reasonable weather forecast on Countryfile last Sunday, we have had nothing but wet and windy weather so far this week however, our spirits are somewhat lifted by the thought of our approaching log cabin build date. We will be meeting with our supplier tomorrow to finalise the details and agree a delivery and construction date. Frankly, we can't wait as it seems years since we have had the comfort of a "proper" home!

One of the jobs that we have to get on with very soon is the clearing of the leaves from a couple of the paddocks. As I use a blower to do this. it is always difficult when they are wet but it has to be done. All of the alpacas are also now due for their Dectomax shots and this is scheduled for this week but with the wet weather, we will bring them into the barn the previous night so they can dry out first.

We are still conducting spit-offs and whilst it looks as though most of the herd has held their pregnancies, we are not taking any chances and if this means winter cria, then we have to accept this. At least, this year we now have the barn!

My interest in the use of alpaca poo briquettes for fuel has been rekindled (like the pun?) following Rosemary and Carl's experimentations published recently on their blog www.westhillalpacas.co.uk. Although we have plenty of wood for our stove which will be installed in the cabin, it makes so much sense in being able use "natural waste" to use as a heating source. Will let you know the outcome.

Signing off now and will be back soon.