A Quickie

The holiday season is drawing to a close and the last of our guests leave tomorrow.
The alpacas have had plenty of walks through the woods. The chickens now, have all been named, and puppy can get back to knowing which house he is supposed to live in.
 We have lots of memories of people we have met and a few more friends made along the way. It would be to much to include everyone but here are a few of my favourite photos of the past few weeks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and finally.... 5

It had been peeing it down with rain all day long on Friday.
 Having given up on the numerous outside jobs that need doing by mid morning I had spent the rest of the day 'window shopping' the internet for a new car. It was quite by chance then that I had to give my square eyes a rest and went to glance out the window.
The view from the window by the computer looks out over the field at the back of the house, but because of the trees and the ruin of the old stone bread oven only about one third of it can be seen. So if the alpacas are anywhere other than the bottom left hand corner,  you can't see them.
It was fortunate then that right in this closest corner to the house Kalhua (the three legged one) had chosen to go into labour.
"Oh no.., not now... please. It's bloody half six in the evening and it's bloody raining!"
There's nothing like an unwanted traipse into a soggy field to get a man cursing. So it was on with the dirty jeans,cagoule and wellies and don't forget the camera.
Within a matter of minutes it was all done and dusted. The cria was out. The rain miraculously stopped and all was well with the world.
It was obvious straight away the cria was black. My master plan was all coming good. The jewel in the crown and all that. This was the black girl we had been hoping for.......?

 

 

 

 

Bugger, it's a boy.

 

How close was that?,from a grey father not a bad effort.

 He's only a little squirt weighing in at five and a half kilos..It was another late night in the field shelter making sure everything was hunky dory.

I had to include the third photo in this montage because the others do nothing to scupper the rumour that Kalhua only has three legs.

And before anybody points it out; it's clearly a strange photographic genetic trait thats been passed on to the cria !



 

 

 



The great pretender and a few visitors

Ok, Time to come clean. I feel a bit of a plonker. Fannys not pregnant. She's been pretending all along. Probably our best female, and one cria we were really looking forward to, now isn't going to happen I'm sure. She spat off half a dozen times after mating last year and I can't explain what the bulging was some six weeks ago but I've given up hope now and she's back in the teenagers field in disgrace.
No more 'mum to be' extra rations for her.
Jonah is putting on weight too slowly. He's only gained 200grms on his initial birth weight in a week. Although he seems fine it's not enough gain so he's now getting a supplementary bottle and Mums had a few jabs of Oxytocine over the last three days to see if we can bring more milk on.
It's been a full on week one way or another. With an outbreak of mites to deal with and a sick suri needing round the clock monitoring we also had close on 40 visitors from the AIKB organisation visit us on Tuesday and then on Wednesday 11 students with a few teachers from a Loudeac College studying textiles spending the day here.

AIKB visitors arriving

overflow carparking

coffee break

Loudeac Students

Discovering spinning

 

Jonah and the worry

He are a few more pictures of our first cria of the year. Now named Jonah.

He should be called Toast as he's mostly dark brown but a bit burnt round the edges.

His fleece has changed alot in three days. From the long straight mop in the new born picture,it has shrunk into nice tight short bundles.

Fanny is still a cause for concern. Today is exactly one year from her last mating date and now I'm starting to think she may have lost it along the way. One month ago she had the tell tale sign of bulging ladybits as often happens a couple of weeks before a birth. But now she isn't acting pregnant at all.

We had a little heart to heart in the field this evening and had plenty of opportunity for a good feel around but could feel nothing. The fact she was so  relaxed suggests to me she is either open or sick.

It's a bit of a mystery. More investigation tomorrow.

Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present.....

The first arrival of the year greeted us this morning at 8.30 in the middle of a downpour.
 It was Tia's. Sitting and still coated in the birth membrane,so not many minutes old.
By the time we had got a towel, iodine and cria coat to the scene and checked mums milk was turned on the rain had stopped and we were able to dry it off and put a coat on before the next shower.
Not quite the cracking black girl we were hoping for but a dark brown boy will do nicely.

He's 8 kilos and full of beans but as yet unamed.

 

Will post some better pictures when he's dried off properly.

Where's our babies?

Everybody seems to be having cria at the moment, except us. I can't bear the waiting any longer.
Tia is currently at 354 days and Fanny is 361 days ! and not looking at all pregnant.
For weeks I have been keeping an hourly lookout in the field only to find things all hunky dory.
Quite a few mornings I could have happily laid in for a extra hour or so. But no.You have to get up and check.
Traipsing out in your dressing gown whilst the kettle boils only to find you should have stayed in bed.
It's all getting a bit annoying now. Some of the older girls due in August are definately pregnant carrying quite visable packages around with them and Bali's belly is amazing to watch with the cria turning cartwheels and trying to punch it's way out all the time.
 But Fanny keeps us guessing. Perhaps she is waiting for a change in the weather. It's actually been raining for days now so maybe it's just as well.
We did have a timely break in the weather on Saturday where we attended the local village agricultural comice at Malguenac. As well as a display of some pretty awesome machinery, including a tree eating monster that reduced whole trees,three or four at a time into tons of chippings in a matter of minutes, there was the usual cattle and Breton horse competitions.

 

 

 

 

 

 The alpacas drew a crowd as always and we sold a bit of our yarn. As it was only five minutes away from home we were able to nip back to keep up the cria birth checks. At the end of the day we had time to take the animals home and get back for the repas which included some fantastic hams that had been slowly cooking behind our stall all afternoon.

Writers block re righted

Regular readers of this dribble will have noticed a total lack of effort on my part over the last month.
So much so that in addition to the in-house jibes and prompting, people are ringing up to check that everything's ok.! and, upon establishing that everything is ok, registering their complaint and even threatening to remove this blog from their 'favourites' list if I didn't get my finger out!.
Well, flattered as I am that anyone gives a toss about what I have to say, I'm not sure I should succumb to emotional blackmail. The responsibility of spoon feeding the readership daily or even weekly words of wisdom is too much to bare. I mean, where will it all end?
I don't want to be held to account for depriving the annonymous of their 'fix' of 'alpaca news'. It's worrying.
Did Rafael Nadal drop the third set during the French open final because he was concerned? Or could this explain the Queens long face as she cruised the jubilee flotilla?
Ok,so I'm aiming a little high there. But you know what I mean.
The truth of the matter is I haven't done it. Not because I've been too busy. Not because I've been ill,or even because of a computer malfunction,which is usually a good excuse.
I just couldn't be arsed.
Well, honesty is always the best policy. Consider normal service now 'resumed'.

So, firstly I need to clear up a small matter regarding a previous posting which included a photo of an alpaca,and which due to the angle of the shot only appears to have three legs.
 Certain people have expressed their concern about the welfare of this animal and others questioned my sanity for  buying her. I kid you not.

I would like to clarify for the benefit of the gullible she is not at all tripodal but is equiped with the regular number of legs.One adequately placed in each corner. So no worries.

Shearing day was kind to us and the sun shone all day. Seems like ages ago now. Probably because it was.
The alpacas are all looking resplendent and sylph like and the fleeces have been skirted and bagged..

Indiana, (above) our rose grey boy was sold the moment his fleece came off and is being delivered tomorrow along with two others. In fact it's been a good week for selling boys. Imran has also gone this week to the lovely Monique and Didier all the way to Toulouse, and French Lad and Angove find new homes on Saturday.

 

 

Imran safely installed with his new black girlfriend

 Sometimes when you are feeling a bit bogged down with all the chores that come with this chosen lifestyle something happens to make you think "well, actually we've got it easy"
Meet Nicholas and Frederic . Two guys that we got to know a couple of weeks ago when we were asked to go and look over their newly acquired herd of alpacas.They wanted our opinion on various matters from health to breeding choices.They had a herd of around fifteen. Quite a lot you might think as a starter herd.But these boys were no strangers to large numbers. Their farm was something else.If it had four legs they were breeding it. Horses and poneys were their passion and there were fields full! A few rare breed cows too  thrown in for good measure. They also had sheep.They had goats. There were pigs roaming free around the courtyard.One of which had been serviced by a wild boar that had got to her and had just had a litter of twenty four piglets. A building had been converted to house Frederics collection of tortoises which were not just the common ones but giant ones that need regulated heating and a special licence.

A whole building was crammed full of every sort of feed with wall to wall chest freezers and sacks of all sorts of stuff.
But Iv'e saved the best till last.
The dogs. I've never seen so many dogs in one place. They just kept coming. wave after wave.
Gobsmacked,I asked how many they had. They truely didn't know the answer. "About seventy" Frederic said.
SEVENTY !

This picture shows only a few!
And the yard and fields were spotless.!
I shall never,EVER moan about picking up poo again!