Wishing all a Happy and Prosperous New Year

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!!

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!

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!

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

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!!

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.

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.