A day trip to Wellground!

Today was our much awaited and overdue trip to see our old friends Rob & Les at Wellground Alpaca Stud. It was good to meet up with them and to catch up on some news over a smashing lunch at their village pub. It is a while since Sheila and I have been out together as our public inquiry is still going on but we took the opportunity whilst our daughter, Gemma looked after the Easter-Wood farm.

Our lunch however, actually became a bit of a banquet as both Rob & I decided that three courses were the order of the day for us two but Les & Sheila were the sensible ones and resisted the starters!! Actually, it was a lovely meal and I am pleased to announce that Rob appears to be back to his old perky self with plenty of humour coming to the surface until that is, upon our arrival back at Wellground. We were greeted by the sight of their living room being totally awash with tiny white polystyrene balls which used to be the filling for one of Rob's (bean bag) cushions, curteousy of one, very guilty boxer dog!! Poor Les spent alot of time vacuuming them up.

We did manage however to get a good look at their new cria and wow, what results they have had this year!! Sheila and I were really impressed with the quality of the cria's fleece in terms of definition, frequency of crimp and density even though they are still only a few weeks old. We are hoping for similar results from some of our girls who have had earlier matings with Samson, Buckingham and Close Encounter this year.

After a cup of "Kenco" on the decking and some previously cut fleece inspection, we headed back to Berkshire. It was a lovely day and it is always a real pleasure to meet up with them.

Well I am feeling tired now so will turn in for the night but will be back again soon.

A late Blog!!

Well it's been a week since my last blog!! Can't believe time has gone by so fast.

We have been busy this week in getting prepared for the Autumn/Winter! Frightening isn't it! All the winter feed is in and stored, machinery has been cleaned and we have even moved the chicken coop to a spot in the paddock which is always dry! We are still only getting a single egg a day.... Just have to be patient I guess! The Alpacas have now got used to sharing their field shelters with the hens who are really inquisitive and spend ages just scratching around looking for "tit-bits" including a couple of small toads which two of them managed to find under the coop.

With the recent cold nights, it won't be long now before we will have to supplement the Alpacas diet of grass with hard feed and we shall be also trying haylage this year. This week saw a particularly heavy bout of rain and whilst the fields are certainly in need of it, it also seems to herald the approaching winter and until we get our log cabin built, we will again, be exposed to the cold weather with it's consequences!

With respect to our Public Inquiry, the date of 21st October has been set for the final "summing-up" day and as you may well expect, we are very keen to get this over with!

We are both looking forward to this Sunday when we will be visiting Meon Valley Alpacas where the Southern Region Group have arranged for a "Fibre Day". I know that Sheila will almost certainly want to start spinning the fleece that we have from this years shearing so with a bit of luck, we should be able to start offering our own Easter-Wood garments in our product line in due course.

We are also looking forward to seeing Rob & Les at Wellground Alpaca Stud next Tuesday as we have not had the opportunity to see them since Rob had his unfortunate "encounter" with one of his Studs. Still, he sounds in "fine fettle". Eventually, we will also be visiting Karl & Lisa from Willow Bank Alpacas following a number of aborted attempts to do so!

Oh well, I am off to do some "poo-picking" again so will be back soon.

Another day of Paddock maintenence

Yesterday was a busy day with the routine "poo picking" again. This time it was the paddock where we have been keeping the largest part of the Easter-Wood herd and with 15 Alpacas doing what they do, there was a fair amount of "poo" to clear and after 3 hours, I was finally finished. If I had to use a bucket and spade, it would have taken me a month at least. It is always a pleasure however to look out at a clean and tidy paddock, even though it is fairly short-lived!

The chickens are getting used to their new home now but there is still only one of them that is currently laying! Interestingly enough, she produced an egg the other day that was twice the size of her regular egg and because of it's size, she decided that we would have to wait a couple of days for her next egg!

Our grass has almost ceased growing now and the paddocks are looking decidedly sparse and with the recent delivery of our hay for this year, we will soon be supplementing their feed with the occassional hay.

We are also planning on picking up Cambridge Ice Cool Lad again soon as we are looking to have him mate a few more of our Alpacas as it appears that some of them have not taken during their previous mating. The worry is of course that late matings will produce late cria and therefore we are hoping that our friends, Jo and Ann Hempsey of Chase End Alpacas and co-owner of Ice Cool Lad will have finished with him for their matings this year.

With the main birthing/mating activities all but over for us this year, we are trying to arrange a day to visit both Karl & Lisa at Willowbank Alpacas and Rob & Les at Wellground Alpacas. We have previously attempted to visit them but something has cropped up and we have had to postpone our trip. Must do this during the next couple of weeks!

Well, it is a fairly uneventful blog this time round so hope to have more interesting news for you next time.

A new day and new chickens!

Good morning all. Well, after the previous trauma, we have now purchased three new hens and hopefully, the resultant acquisition will culminate in a regular supply of eggs! We are obviously all too aware of what can go wrong with any livestock one keeps or breeds!

Whilst conducting routine maintenance, I had a need to access the top of the barn and whilst up there, I had a completely different view of the farm (of course I would, I hear you say!). We have worked hard over the last year in making sure that the paddocks are in as good a condition as possible for the Alpacas and viewing them from above (so to speak), drove this point home.

Here is one of the "aerial" views:

One of the advantages of having a woodland border around your farm, is the abundance of wildlife that we encounter. I have spoken about this before but it is always a real pleasure in encountering new species. Today was no exception when I found a snake skin which had been shed by its owner and almost within a meter, I noticed a fairly young grass snake basking in the sunshine. I tried to get a picture of it with my mobile camera but as soon as I ventured closer, it smartly disappeared into the undergrowth.

Anyway, nothing noteworthy to report on our Alpacas today so I will bid you all farewell and will be back soon.

A bad day at Easter-Wood!!

Yesterday was a bad day for us as one of our dogs, a small rescue dog that our daughter purchased four months ago, freed herself from her leash and coller and promptly went on a killing spree with our newly purchased chickens! I was alerted by her escape when our Alpacas sent out warning shrieks and when I spotted the empty lead and coller, my immediate thoughts became a nightmare as I began to fear the safety of the Alpacas! I found the dog over the corpse of one of the chickens and subsequently found another dead chicken within a few metres of the first. After a headcount, I found only 4 of the original 8 and came to the conclusion that the other 2 had fled. We felt absolutely gutted and after locking the four of them in their henhouse, both Sheila and I searched the area ouside of the farm to see if we could find them to no avail.

The only good news that day was to come later when I conducted the routine evening check of the Alpacas................I discovered the missing two chickens happily feeding from their feed station outside their henhouse. I was extremely relieved to see them and I ushered them into the safety of the coop for the night.

We have to learn from this tragedy and so certain things will have to change from now on, needless to say, the security of the animals will have to take priority!

On a lighter note, I have taken this opportunity to publish a couple of photo's of Miss Moneypenny who continues to get up to some mischief!!

The hens are laying!!

Hi folks. A major announcement!...............our chickens have started laying!! Yesterday we were thrilled to find an egg in one of the nesting boxes and further more, this morning, we noticed that one of the hens was settling into one of the nesting boxes in preperation for another egg laying session and sure enough, after a couple of minutes, she delivered an egg! Two eggs in two days.....wow! I guess the others will get round to it in due course.

After my comments about the Alpaca troughs getting filled with rain water, Rob Rawlins at Wellground offered a very simple solution..........drill holes in the base! Couldn't have been more simpler so thanks Rob for the advice.

We have noticed that the grass growth seems to be really slowing down now and on our routine paddock inspections just lately, we have identified even more Ragwort growing. It is a constant battle to eradicate this weed as the root system is fairly comprehensive and spreads underground only to "pop" up several feet away from the original plant.

At this time of year, we have a significant rabbit population and the damage they are doing to our paddocks is getting quite serious now. Mind you, a number of them have contracted that nasty disease, Myxomatosis and when found with obvious signs of the disease, they are humanely despatched.

Yesterday was a day for some chain saw and brush cutter work. I decided that one of our paddocks at the bottom end of Easter-Wood was in need of some serious hedge and bramble clearing so after a 2 hour stint, I am pleased to be able to report that all of the encroaching hedges and brambles have now been neatly trimmed! I suppose it is a bit like spring cleaning really as it always feels good when this sort of maintenance has been completed.

We still have a problem with mites on the ears and over the eyes of some of our girls and tomorrow, we will be applying some ointment that our vet sent over to us in the hope that this will erradicate the symptons. We will also administer another dose of Dectomax just to be sure.

Well, I am signing off now but will return soon.

A quite week so far!

Good morning all. I am afraid it has been a fairly quite week this week with little to report other than the routine work. We did however plan to visit our friends, Karl & Lisa at WillowBank Alpacas in Leicester yesterday but unfortunately, Sheila was not feeling too good and we postponed the trip until another day. Mind you, the weather was abysmal so we probably saved ourselves a good soaking!

The chickens we collected last week are settling in nicely even though I thought we were going to lose a couple of them yesterday as they had managed to fly/jump up onto the fencing which encloses their run. As they have had their wings clipped, I didn't expect them to be capable of getting onto the top of the fence!

Our Alpacas always appear not to like the heavy rain and whilst they race to shelter once it starts, they seem to then ease up and bask in the torrent!! I find this a little odd! During the feed run yesterday evening, amidst the heavy downpour, all of them were quite content to lie down in the open paddocks rather than seek the cosiness of the field shelters. Most bizarre!

One of the other problems that we experience when it unexpectedly rains is the fact that the empty feed troughs fill up with water and despite our best efforts in remembering to inverse them once they have finished their feed, we always seem to forget. Consequently, our Alpacas have to wait until we drain off the water before giving them their feed/supplements. This leads to squabbles amongst themselves as they jockey for the best positions once we start to dish out the food!

With the weather promising to be good today, it means that we can get on with some general paddock cleaning without the fear of getting soaked.

Will be back again soon.