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

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!!

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!!

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!

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..........

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!!

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.........

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!