Fallowfield Alpacas

Melanie is flat out with the B and b and the new alpaca clothing business so it falls to me to keep the blog updated!Our herd are in excellent condition and this has shown in the cria born so far this year.They all exceeded 7kg at birth and are all piling on the weight with all mums having loads of milk.We haven't had to bottle or tube feed any so far which means we get much more sleep!We will name the last three tomorrow with our usual classical theme and post some photos.We have three girls due in about a fortnight but will probably leave them open over the winter  to be mated in the spring as we wish to get most of our births at the same time in the spring.This allows the cria to grow through the best of the summer weather and high quality grazing as we have found late born crias have often struggled to catch up.

After almost 1400 hours work our elderly ATV broke its crankshaft pulling the topper up a steep hill and has been replaced with another larger engined Honda which has already started eaning its keep.I topped several of the paddocks today with an eye to getting them in the optimum condition ready for winter.We take our grass maintenance very seriously.For once we got the hay absolutely right-it was cut early ensuring all the goodness was retained then we had a week of blazing sunshine following which we baled it and got it all in the barn.It smells like haylage and the alpacas love it!

This year Melanie has handed over the organization of the Alpaca Show at the Border Union Show at Kelso but will still be assisting as Chief Steward.Having won Supreme Champion there in 2007 with Evian and in 2008 with Ullyses we are disappointed that we are unable to enter this year.We try to support as many shows as we can  and hope to  be at the Westmorland Show in September and the Yorkshire Show in October.

We have had a fabulous three days here.  Three crias have been born in as many days - all girls and in great condition.  The births weren't without their challenges.  On Friday, one of our top Australian imports from Flowerdale Alpacas, went into labour.  However, the cria was not presenting correctly and had only her head and one leg showing.  Fortunately, Michael Awburn who helps us on the farm, was with us and he was able to push the cria's head back inside her Mum and unravel her tangled legs to allow for her to be born correctly.  The cria is a beautiful light fawn girl weighing 7.3 kgs and she is feeding really well.

On Saturday morning, we awoke to find that Persephone had given birth at about 6.30am to a little white girl.  She was absolutely fine but Persephone's milk was rather slow to come through and she had one rather bulbous teat which was giving us some cause for concern. Following regular massaging of the teats with hot water and a sponge, the milk came in strongly and the cria is feeding naturally .

On Sunday afternoon, Chella decided that after 370 days she would finally give birth.  She had looked as if she was going to have twins at the very least.  However, she delivered just one cria very easily.  I have never before witnessed a cria growling as it is hanging there with just the head and front legs showing.  Within 5 minutes of her hitting the ground, she was on her feet and looking for milk.  Quite remarkable!  We were quite convinced it must be a little boy, but no yet another girl and this time a gorgeous chocolate brown.  Chella can be a bit difficult to handle - but is a wonderful mother and has loads of milk.

In amidst all of this, we have been really busy with our B and B guests and have made 20 lbs of blackcurrant jam from the fruit from the garden this weekend.  Busy days!!

We will upload some photographs of the crias in the next couple of days.

Having had a break for some holidays, we are now back to work with a vengeance.  My sister Lou very nobly came up to stay from her home in Derbyshire to alpaca-sit whilst we had some time off with our Australian buddies Jeffry and Carol Farman.  Lou was rather disappointed not to have any new arrivals whilst she was in charge.  So far we have got three beautiful crias - two white females and a fawn male. 

Our first cria was born to Athena - a very special girl who we bottle fed.  We have named her cria Artemis.  She is quite delighful and very independent and laid back.

The next one to arrive was Julius - he thinks that he is a stud male already and at ten days old is mounting any open female he can get a hold of.

Then finally, Octavia gave birth to Lucilla on Saturday morning - that put paid to the Tesco shopping trip!  This birth was not quite so straightforward as the cria was stuck and her head was beginning to swell.  We are very lucky to have such a good vet - David Parkin - who lives nearby.  He was not on call but he still came out to deliver the cria who is now running around the paddock with her chums.  Thank you David! 

We never seem to have quiet times here - only busy and very busy times!  Mike has been working terribly hard outside improving fencing - some of our larger fields have been split in half and timber top rails have been added to the fences. He has also been busy replacing some of the larger troughs by smaller ones which are raised off the ground so the alpacas cannot paddle in them and it is much easier to keep them clean. 

The Northumberland show was a successful event for us from all viewpoints.  There has been great concern this year amongs alpaca breeders regarding the safety aspect of taking alpacas to shows.  This has meant that show organisers like ourselves have had to bend over backwards to provide the safest possible conditions for breeders and their show animals.  We felt that this was achieved at the Northumberland county show which was held on May 31st.  We also had some very pleasing results with our alpacas.  Appollonia took 1st Junior White Female and then went on to win Junior Female Reserve champion and Best Northumbrian Alpaca.  Marcus took 1st Junior Fawn Male and then Junior Male Reserve Champion.  We ended up with an array of rosettes, as each alpaca we took came away with a rosette.  Ariadne should proably have got a prize for being the most disobliging alpaca as she frequently refused to walk around the ring and spent most of her time just lying down.  She only really walked well, when she was being led out of the tent to get into the trailer for the trip back home!

Isadora has gone down to Houghton Alpacas to be mated to their top male Cambridge Navigator.  It feels a little strange to have sent one of our girls away as we have never done this before, but she is such a stunningly good alpaca that we felt that she deserved to be put to an absolutely first-class male.

We are still waiting for our first cria to be born.  Athena is now 335 days and she is looking more uncomfortable as each day passes.  However she is a maiden and so could go for a little while yet I suppose.  Our alpacas should have been sheared today, but we are just one of the many breeders who were expecting James Dixon to shear their alpacas but due to the ill health of his mother in law he was forced to dash back to Australia - we wish her a speedy recovery.  We are hoping that one or other of his compatriots will help us out in the next few days - fingers crossed!  At least the weather has cooled down as we were having to keep the hosepipes urned on in the paddocks to keep the animals cool.  I only hope that the rain clears soon as we really don't need to be shearing soggy alpacas!! 

Although the weather is still depressingly cold and wintry, we are still working away at the outside jobs that we do every Spring.  Having got the fields harrowed and rolled and fences and walls repaired, Mike has been busy with the weed killing this week.  We expected to get on with this a few weeks ago but the weather has been so cold that the grass - and weeds! - have simply not been growing.  However, the farm is now looking really tidy and well-organised.  Very satisfying!

I have been busy helping Vicki Ridley with the organisation of the Northumberland Show which takes place on 31st May at Corbridge in Northumberland.  Like all alpaca shows this year, the entry numbers are down on previous years on account of the extra space required to comply with the recommended bio-security measures.  However, the quality of the alpacas entered is as high as ever.  We have some fabulous alpacas coming from all over the country.  We have also got a brand-new trophy this year for the Supreme Champion Alpaca.  It is a beautiful silver rose bowl.  It proved to be quite a challenge to find a tophy of the sort of quality that we were looking for but I managed to track something down in Newcastle last week.  I very much hope that the first winner of this new trophy will appreciate it!

Our new boy, Houghton King, had his first mating last Sunday - perhaps not what should happen on the Sabbath, but he was very quiet and discreet about it!  We had another mating going on and as King was looking particularly interested we thought we should let him have a go as well.  He was absolutely brilliant - no messing about; he just knew exactly what was expected of him. His date that day was Sabrina, our intermediate black female. 

We had three people here last Saturday attending one of our Alpaca Taster Experience sessions.  They all really enjoyed themselves and commented afterwards that they were particularly pleased with what a "hands-on" experience it was.  So many of these things can be rather disappointing if they are merely demonstrations which is not what most people are looking for. 

Tomorrow I must really try and find time to put the details of our alpacas that are for sale on the Alpaca Seller website.  I always find that I am rather behind with this particular job.  I do hope that if anyone is looking for any alpacas, they will just ring us and come out and see our animals.  We are always very happy to show people around and introduce them to our girls and boys.  We seem to have had quite a number of visitors here recently and several of our alpacas have now got new homes. 

As a smaller breeder, it is quite a challenge deciding not only when is the right moment to buy your own stud male but also what colour to choose.  Up until now, we have preferred to buy in the majority of our stud services as we wished to have a good spread of top genetics.  Over last couple of years we have come to the conclusion that there is greater demand in this country for good quality fawns and coloured alpacas rather than whites.

Having been searching unsuccessfully in the UK for twelve months for that alpaca with the "Wow Factor", we were leaning towards another Australian import from Jeffry Farman's elite Flowerdale herd, that had won the Fawn Junior Class at the 2009 Australian Nationals.  The downside of this was the time and cost involved in screening, quarantining and importing alpacas from Australia.

Out of the blue, and to our great suprise and delight, Liz and Mick George of Houghton Hall Alpacas offered to sell us Houghton King, an intermediate light fawn male who has already had a stunning show career.  In 2009, he was Junior Male Champion at the UK National Show; Junior Male Champion at the Northumberland Show and Champion Huacaya at the Kenilworth show.  For a fawn alpaca to beat the whites to become Junior Male Champion at National level is a testimony to the quality of this alpaca.  King exhibits excellent bone structure with a good broad chest and strong legs.  He has an exquisite fleece.  His latest stats are 17.9 micron, 23.2% CV, 4.2% SD and 1.15% fibres>30.  His fleece has high-frequency crimp in well-defined staples extending right under his belly and down his legs;beautiful lustre and a very, very soft handle.  His fleece has great density  inherited from his sire, Houghton Neptune, imported from the Cedar House Stud in Australia. In short, Houghton King has got the "Wow Factor" in spades!

King is settling in well to our Northern climes and is already showing a serious interest in the girls and should be working later this season.  We feel truly privileged to own such a special male and look forward to his future progeny.  Interesting times ahead!

I cannot believe how long it is since I last up-dated this blog.  Where do the days go to?  We have been so busy here with lots of Bed and Breakfast guests - even some repeat visitors from last year.  We had all of our children staying over Easter which was brilliant fun and then of course we have the odd alpaca to look after not to mention the odd acre of grazing to be "spring-cleaned".

We have continued to invest in new machinery and bought some new harrows a couple of weeks ago.  Our old ones were pretty antiquated and had been given to us by a neighbouring farmer some years back.  Now that the new harrows are here there has been no stopping Mike in getting all the fields harrowed.  He is just about to start rolling them next and then the weed-killling will begin.  Of course, there have been some fencing and dry stone wall repairs.  We have also started splitting up some of our larger fields.  We often tell new breeders to do the minimum amount of fencing at first, or to take advice from other alpaca breeders before doing any fencing.  We did neither of these things when we started out and really regret it now.  We spent an awful lot of money on fencing just before we got our alpacas and we would do it so differently now.  Hindsight is a wonderful thing!  The same thing applies to water troughs.  We really wish that we had put in much smaller troughs raised off the ground.  Our alpacas are overly fond of paddling in the troughs or laying their necks in them.  Either way they manage to get themselves and the troughs into a bit of a mess!

The halter training is progressing well.  What a difference it has made having Mike here to help with this job.  Apart from the time aspect of doing it on your own, it is so much easier for the weanlings to be able to follow another alpaca.  None of them have been real shockers to work with this year, but that might have something to do with how relaxed this whole group seem to have been.  They weren't the least bit stressed out at  being weaned and seem to have gone from strength to strength.  

We have just completed our entries for the Northumberland Show which is on Bank Holiday Monday 31st May.  We have a couple of our weanlings who are showing great promise but their top knots and necks have become completely matted.  This is partly to do with the hay seeds when we had so much snow on the ground and their heads were permanently stuck  into a hay bale.  We must manage this better next year!  It always happens to your best ones!

How time flies!  It seems quite remarkable that we are halter training our weanlings.  It seems absolutely no time at all since they were born and yet we have left the halter training quite late this year. In principle this is due to the terrible weather that we have had over the past few months.  In the past we have weaned the little ones in January, but we had a few late births last year and then the weather was so bad that it seemed rather cruel to be separating the crias from their Mums in those sort of conditions. I admit it - I am a real softie!   However it is over three weeks since our little tribe was weaned and the time has come. 

We have found that it is really important to take time in the early stages of halter training.  There are a variety of schools of thought on the subject, but we want to ensure that the weanlings do not become head-shy and that they will confidently strut their stuff in the show ring.  Therefore the order of the day is "Slowly, slowly" at first.  Let them sniff the headcollars and see how it feels having it resting on their noses.  Gradually increase the amount of time they spend with the headcollars on - there is no point trying to drag them around the fields if they are not yet used to wearing the headcollars.  Remember - it is essential to fit the headcollars pretty tightly.  A common mistake made by many novice and even some experienced breeders is to fasten the headcollars too loosely.  I see this all the time when I am doing Pen Inspections prior to the commencement of a show.  If the headcollar is too loose, it will slip down over their noses and lie across the cartilage in the nose and impede the breathing.  Another point to remember is to keep the fleece trimmed around their eyes.  So many young alpacas carry a great amount of fleece on their faces, particularly around their eyes as this can impede their vision - so-called "fleece blindness".  We have made this mistake ourselves in the past when we were just starting out.  You think that your little alpaca looks so sweet with all this fleece on its face, but actually the alpaca's impaired vision makes it really nervous especially when you take it out of its familiar surroundings and into the show ring.  So keep clipping around those eyes.  I personally find it easier to do so with a pair of small embroidery scissors.  That way you are not brandishing a large implement in front of their eyes and you have greater control over the scissors if the alpaca makes a sudden movement.

It is not always possible - particularly for the new breeder with only a few alpacas in their herd - but it is always easier to train a weanling if they are able to follow an older alpaca being led around the paddock in front of them.  I hate to say it, but the boys are a lot more amenable than the girls - who'd have thought it?!

The golden rule is "Little and often".  Better to do just 10 minutes per alpaca per day, than 30 minutes once or twice a week and last but not least, always try and end the training session on a high note.   For instance, if your alpaca decides to lie down, don't give in and take off the headcollar there and then.  Make sure that you get the animal up on its feet and walking forward again - even if its only a few steps.

Good luck and let me know if you are having any problems!

We are delighted to announce that Treacle Handknits of Morpeth, Northumberland is now stocking Fallowfield Alpaca Yarn.  Treacle opened just before Christmas 2009 and is run by Kym and Claire.  It is a delightful knitting shop which not only sells wonderful yarns but also offers knitting workshops and courses - a must for any enthusiastic knitter.

Our alpaca yarn is stocked in both Double Knitting and 4 Ply, in both natural and hand-dyed shades.  A selection of our knitting patterns are also available - these have been designed exlusively for Fallowfield Alpacas for our alpaca yarn.

We wish Treacle every success.  Their details can be found on www.treaclehandknits.co.uk

It has been an extremely busy weekend here at Fallowfield - and it's only Saturday night!  Very beautiful as well, since we have had very heavy frosts for the last few days with bright sunshine and blue skies!  Lovely!  We had B and B guests on Friday night and then new arrivals this morning.

We had no sooner made our new guests comfortable, than we were loading up the trailer with Lysander and Horatio and off up the A1 to just outside of Morpeth where we delivered the boys to their new home.  They didn't seem remotely phased by their new surroundings and the other alpacas which were already there.  In fact, they were totally relaxed and were quickly making friends.  There is no doubt that alpacas do settle much more quickly into new environments if they are sold in pairs.  All of our alpacas are so well handled and socialised that we are very confident that they will not give their new owners any problems.

We are looking forward to the Alpaca Futurity which takes place at the end of next week.  We are only going down for one day as we are running another of our popular Alpaca Taster Experience sessions on Sunday 28th February.  We still have a couple more places left for the 28th, so please get in touch if you are interested.  The next date for this course is March 28th.

Yesterday morning saw me once again down at Stoneleigh Park for the inaugural meeting of the BAS National Fibre Committee.  I think that all those present would agree that we had a very positive first meeting.  For those of you who are unclear as to the precise role of this committee, I shall quote our terms of reference:

"This committee is not tasked with creating a marketplace for UK alpaca fibre.  It is solely tasked with creating a resource infrastructure through which members can gain access to researched factual knowledge pertaining to this arena, through which they can gain perspective and assess the viability, enhance and develop their own commercial initiatives."

The committee members were delighted to learn that Cameron Holt has very kindly volunteered to be part of this committee and to contribute his expertise in whichever way he can.  We are very grateful to Cameron as he is one of the world's experts in alpaca fibre.

I am delighted to announce some first class test results that we have just received.  As part of our ongoing mission to breed top-quality animals, we took the decision to carry out comprehensive blood tests on a group of 12 of our alpacas, selected purely at random.  We had absolutely no signs of sickness in the herd, but we wanted to be sure that they were all correctly mineralised and that we could have categorical proof of their state of health.  This followed on from some soil testing which we had done a year ago, the results of which showed that some of our paddocks were deficient in certain minerals and we then applied mineral supplements to those paddocks.

The blood test results showed that we have an extremely healthy herd of alpacas here at Fallowfield and our thanks must go to our vet, David Parkin at Intake Vets, Hexham, for all the help he has given us.  David was very complimentary about the herd and said that we are obviously doing all the right things for our alpacas - a testament to the professional approach we take at Fallowfield.   This is so important to us as we want buyers to be confident that they are getting strong, healthy alpacas.

We have been frantically busy lately with enquiries and bookings for our increasingly popular courses and all the other stuff that goes on around here on a daily basis.  Just cleaning up after the last of the snow has gone has been a big job in itself.  

We are also very much looking forward to welcoming our first Bed and Breakfast bookings of the year at the beginning of next month - new menu ideas will be shown on the website very soon.

After almost 40 years working as an architect, latterly as Chairman of _Space Group, Mike has taken semi-retirement allowing more time to work with Melanie developing the alpaca and fleece business.  He is staying on at _Space as non-executive Chairman for several months but is hugely looking forward to promoting Fallowfield Alpacas and the associated commercial opportunities.

We have several exciting projects in the pipeline which will be developed in 2010, details to follow.  With the recent spell of Arctic snowy weather, an additional pair of hands has proved invaluable.  All our alpacas have been brought into the home paddocks with access to the barns at night wich makes feeding and watering so much easier.  The snow has been so deep at Fallowfield, that the quad bike has struggled to get across the fields and we have had to use the tractor on occasions.  As there is obviously no grass available, the alpacas are eating large quantities of hay but are showing no signs of suffering from the weather as they are in great physical condition.  Mucking out the poo from the barns is heavy work but the recently purchased new trailers are earning their keep.  The softening weather forecast for the next few days will hopefully melt the snow and allow the animals to get back to normal grazing.

The snow has been incredibly beautiful, but we are all ready for some milder weather.

It has scarcely stopped snowing here for the last week and it is beginning to look increasingly similar to Lapland - not that I've actually been to Lapland!  (Apologies to any Laplanders who might be reading this!) 

The snow cannot last for ever and we are keeping positive and looking forward to some lovely Spring weather. 

We have set the first dates for our 2010 Alpaca Courses.  These are as follows:

Alpaca Taster Experience

Sunday 28th February 1.30 pm to 3.30 pm

Sunday 28th March 1.30 pm to 3.30 pm

Introduction to Alpacas course

Saturday 24th April

Alpaca Husbandry Course

Sunday 25th April

If anyone wishes to have further information regarding these courses then please ring on 01434 681276.

Well here we are - Christmas is over and the New Year is almost upon us.  We have had a lovely time with all of our family around us.  The house looks very festive with lots of greenery and traditional Christmas decorations and the snow seems determined to stay put for a while yet.  We have reached the point that we are a little bored with it now as the alpacas are going through masses of hay and the water troughs are frequently frozen solid which all makes for a lot more work for us all.

We had a special treat on Sunday when we welcomed Brian and Sophia Li-Chung to Fallowfield.  They had travelled all the way from Taiwan to spend some of their honeymoon with our alpacas.  Brian has been in love with alpacas for quite some time, having only seen them in zoos in Taiwan previously and he was desperate to have some hands-on time with them, so they had booked one of our Alpaca Taster Experience courses.  As you will see from the photograph they thoroughly enjoyed themselves and Brian said that it was "one of the best days of his life"!  A pretty good endorsement!

We are currently looking at dates for all of our courses for 2010 and these will be posted on our website very soon.  If anyone wishes to receive information about future dates, please get in touch.  Also if anyone is looking for alpacas for sale and they can't see what they are looking for on our sales list, please just ring or e-mail for further information.

I find it difficult to believe that it is almost 2 weeks since I last up-dated my blog - time flies when you're having fun!  Actually, my back has not been good recently so I am behind with most things - including the Christmas shopping, cooking, cleaning and fleece skirting!

I am often asked whether we put our alpacas away at night in their field shelters.  The answer is "No- generally speaking". There are always exceptions to the rule however.  When we first got our alpacas, I usd to shut them inside the barn each evening in the winter months, thinking that this was the best thing to do for the animals.  However, as I became more knowledgeable, I very quickly realised that I was probably not doing the best for my beloved alpacas.   If you have a herd of soggy alpacas, the last thing you want to do is to house them snugly in a barn overnight with minimal ventilation.  This is a recipe for a variety of infections to occur including pneumonia.  Therefore, we now will only shut them inside a barn at night if, they are sick or if the weather conditions are truly exceptional.  In other words, healthy alpacas should be able to withstand most UK winter weather and as long as field shelters are made available to them, it is not necessary to  shut them in at night.  If they wish to seek shelter from the weather they will do so of their own accord.

The bad weather continues here - even a few snow flurries this morning but that has done nothing to dampen my excitement at the new machinery we have acquired.  Yes, my farming credentials increased enormously on Saturday when I went to the farm machinery sale at Hexham mart -  all on my onesome as well!  If you are reading this in Australia, Jeffry, you will remember going to one of these sales when you were over here last summer. I have to say that the weather was a bit different then as we were all wading around in mud last Saturday.

Anyway, back to the point...

I managed to get a big new trailer to go on the back of the tractor, an ATV trailer to go on the back of the quad bike and wait for it..an almost brand-new calf crush which will be perfect for the alpacas!  I'm not sure what I am most excited about the crush or the ATV trailer.  I have been wanting to get a crush for some time but had not seen anything remotely suitable or they were desperately expensive.  This is going to make so many husbandry tasks that much easier.  Although the majority of our alpacas are very well-mannered, the pregnant mums do get rather hormonal and many don't like being held or interfered with whilst pregnant. 

The ATV trailer is so useful - it's hardly been off the back of the quad since I got it back home.  Taking loads of hay over the fields, moving feed troughs and a myriad of other tasks are now so much easier and the quad bike does not churn up the wet fields as the big tractor does.

However, I must stress that it is really not necessary to have all this equipment when you are a new breeder, but as the numbers increase it definitely makes for a more efficient alpaca farm.  Also, a word of warning!  There are some excellent bargains to be had by buying second-hand farm equipment but we would NEVER again buy a second-hand quad bike.  The one we bought seemed to be in good condition but we very soon found that we had to spend so much money on it to keep it going that we could have bought a much bigger brand new one. 

Apologies for the recent absence.  Once again my back has been playing up "big time"!  Those of you with similar problems will fully understand!  Anyway I had some physio yesterday so I am back in action again - just!

The weather has been absolutely shocking here for the past 7 - 10 days.  Continuous rain and gales which have left the land absolutely saturated.  However it has not been nearly as bad here as to the west of us in Cumbria.  We feel very sorry for all those people who have been flooded out of their homes and businesses.  We are very lucky here as we live on the top of a Northumberland Crag so there is absolutely no chance of being flooded here!  Living in such a beautiful spot as we do, there is always something to see outside which brings a smile to your face no matter how awful the weather is.  This morning as I was out on my rounds feeding the alpacas, I startled about 10 or 12 pheasants in the lower meadow.  There are so many of them around at the moment.

The alpacas are all looking terribly soggy this morning although the rain does not seem to worry them.  Although it is wet it is actually not very cold so they are not bothered about seeking shelter, preferring to be outside all the time.  Even our driest fields are pretty wet at the moment with standing water in various places.  This makes me think that it is about time that we did some faecal worm tests as there is always a risk of fluke if the alpacas are grazing on wet land. 

Faecal worm tests do seem to be a bit of a bother, but they are well worth doing.  It's quite amazing how long you can wait around for alpacas to have a poo when you are wanting to collect a fresh sample - you must never just pick some off the ground that has been lying around for some time.  It isn't necessary to take a sample from each animal - just a few from the various groups.

On that cheerful note, it is probably time for me to get on with updating my Alpaca Seller sales list as we have several more alpacas that we are going to put on the market.  No shortage of jobs to do - either inside or out!

Just in case anyone is wondering ......I have had a few computer problems today and so I have not been able to update our sales list very much. 

If you are looking for some alpacas, then please keep checking our sales list or send us an e-mail or even pick up the telephone and let us know what you are looking for.  If we can't help you, it is quie likely that we might know someone who can!

Good night!!

Although I hate the cold, damp weather that we have had recently, it does mean that there are no more flies around.  We were planning to get two of our boys gelded two or three weeks ago but as we had a rather unexpected spell of warm weather we decided that it would be far better if we delayed this procedure.  Carrying out this operation on the boys when there were a lot of flies about would have been a sure fire way of them getting fly strike.  There's nothing that a fly likes better than some fresh blood - apologies to the squeamish amongst you!  Actually I was quite squeamish myself once and even now our vet often tells me to look away , but I can always cope when needs must!  Or at  least I have managed thus far!!  So we have got a busy day ahead of us tomorrow and hopefully Lysander and Perseus will be okay.  It can be a difficult decision as to whether one should geld a male but we don't like to keep males on the farm that won't be used as stud males and as far as whites are concerned they have to be better than the rest in our opinion, if they are to be used as stud males.

As we delayed the visit from the vet, we have still got the microchipping to do tomorrow as well - why am I not surprised that the weather forecast is awful and we will be handling a whole lot of soggy alpacas.  Actually the girls and the crias all look totally discraceful just now as we moved them into one of our top fields a few days ago and a few mole hills have been popping up there.  Needless to say they are all having huge fun rolling in the mole hills and since they have very wet fleeces at the moment they have all ended up absolutely filthy dirty.  Great!!

Well here we are in November.  Hard to believe really as I just don't know where this year has gone to.  Having said all of that, the weather has been extremely wet and windy here this past week.   Mike was hoping to go fishing on Saturday, but the river was in spate so he was thwarted yet again.   We have had lots of lovely B and B guest this week,  the last of whom mentioned at breakfast on Monday morning that there was a tree down over the drive.  Whoops!!  This was really disappointing as it was a lovely, straight oak tree that was about 30 years old.  Quite hard to understand as it was in a fairly sheltered area and there were a lot more trees that one would have thought might have come down in a storm which have remained standing.  Fortunately Harry was at home to wield the chain saw.  I am used to using most of the machinery on the farm but I have been banned from using the chain saw!

Having done some body scoring on the alpacas at the weekend when they were getting their vitamins, we decided to supplement Nerini with some pelletted alfalfa. I find that alfalfa pellets are an excellent form of supplentary feed.  They are quite unpalatable compared to the commercial feeds such as Camelibra and as such the alpacas will only eat them if they are really hungry.  As with all new foods, we have been giving Nerini only small amounts to begin with so as not to upset her stomach.  Thankfully, alpacas are truly creatures of habit and so it has not been difficult to tempt Nerini into a catching pen to feast from her own bowl of food.  Nerini has been gobbling up the whole lot so she was obviously ready for this extra bit of nutrition.

Yesterday I received an enquiry about which was my favourite alpaca colour. Although this seems to be a very simple question if you take it at face value, I cannot give a simple answer.  Some might say that has got something to do with my advancing years but we'll pass swiftly over that one!

In trying to decide which is my favourite colour of alpaca, I naturally think about the quality and the end-usage of that alpaca fleece.  After all, alpacas are primarily fibre-producing animals and I am strenuously trying to promote the British Alpaca fibre industry.

At Fallowfield our white alpacas do outnumber our coloured alpacas.  If I was buying alpacas purely to keep as pets, then I most likely would choose fawns, chestnut browns and blacks and would even include some of the newly fashionable "Apaloosa" style spotted alpacas.  Although these colours make for extremely attractive alpacas, the darker colours do not share the same qualities of the best white fleeces.

White alpaca fleece has for a long time been a far superior product to coloured fleeces although in recent years there have been vast improvements in the latter and in particular in the light fawns.  So much so that there has been some discussion as to whether there should be a separate class for Light Fawns in the show ring in 2010.  I get very excited when I see a really good white fleece with all its lustre, fineness, handle and fabulous crimp and immediately think about what beautiful fabrics it will make.  I am particuarly fond of white alpacas because their fleece can be dyed any colour you wish.  I know that there are a lot of people out there who think that this is pure heresy as there are so many beautiful natural colours.  However although I am a great fan of these natural colours, most of our wardrobes are full of all the colours of the rainbow, so why not enjoy these colours in alpaca clothing as well.

Many people seem to think that white alpacas all look alike.  Well I can tell you that you just have to come and walk around our herd and you will see how wrong that is. They all have completely different faces for one thing and of course their characters are all quite different too.

I don't really seem to have come to a proper conclusion about my favourite alpaca colour - all I can say is that I have lots of favourites depending on what I want out of them apart from the sheer pleasure that they all give me - well with one or two exceptions of course and I will tell you about them another day!

Although we seemed to have a pretty dismal summer, we have had a sharp reminder this week that winter is not too far away - and I don't mean it is the sight of the Christmas cards and crackers in the shops!  The north-easterly wind has been rather chilly this week with the odd ground frost as well.  Fortunately all of our crias seem to be thriving - even Pandora's cria which was the latest addition to the herd.  He still hasn't got a name!  As we live on the Roman Wall we have adopted  a classical theme for the names of our alpacas, although I have to admit that there are more Greek names that Roman ones in the herd - but we are not being too pedantic about it!  If anyone of you has any suggestions for this little chap, I would be delighted to hear from you.

The girls seem to be eating copious quantities of hay these days which just goes to show that the grass is poorer in quality.  Although there still seems to be plenty of grass in the fields I always worry that it will last the winter. 

We are expecting our vet - David Parkins - this afternoon to do a health check on Isadora.  It is just for the insurance, so hopefully she will get a clean bill of health.  Then David is due to come back next week to do the outstanding micro-chipping and also to geld a couple of our boys, so we wil soon have two more geldings to go our sale list.  I'm hoping that Harry or Mike will be around to assist that day as I can remember when we had Hector and Helios done and Hector was a bit of a handful.  At least now we have our very posh veterinary scales so we can calculate  the correct dosage of drugs required.  We put off getting these as it seemed to be just another expense but they are proving to be invaluable.  Beats the hell out of all the guesswork and juglling crias on the bathroom scales!!

Tuesday morning and I can't decide which is going to be the first (and worst) chore of the day - the mound of paperwork waiting for me to tackle or the mound of poo!  It's a difficult choice.  Probably I should start with the paperwork as that pile seems to be distinctly bigger and hopefully the sun might have come out later in the day - I live in hope!

I have just about recovered from all the driving I had to do at the weekend in order to get down to Stoneleigh for the Show Organisers' Meeting.  I was pretty unlucky on the Friday as the A1 was practically closed due to an accident and so I was stuck for ages.  Grateful thanks go to my sister Lou and brother in law Andrew for putting up with me at the weekend.

I have just found that I have run out of the AD&E vitamin paste which we use to supplement our alpacas.  It is so important ,particularly during the winter months when there is not so much sunlight and the quality of the grass is much poorer, to supplement the alpacas with vitamins.  We are very fortunate here that we can just pop down to Eggs-Port in Hexham to replenish our stocks when necessary.

Fortunately the hens seem to have started laying again.  We are so used to having fantastically yellow eggs here that we take it very badly when the girls stop laying.  It is a real nuisance if I have got a lot of B and B guests and the egg supply is poor.  However they seem to be getting up to speed again.  Talking of B and B, we have just got our first booking for 2010!  I suspect that 2010 might well be a very busy year for our B and B and we are really looking forward to welcoming back many of the lovely people who have already stayed here.

We are all in fine spirits here at Fallowfield as we look forward to Peter's imminent return from Afghanistan.  As many of you know, we have three sons and Peter is the middle one and is an army Captain.  He has been out in Afghanistan since the end of March, serving with the Light Dragoon Guards and is now more than ready to come home and take a well-deserved rest.  Needless to say I am now counting the days - especially as we had feared a few days ago that he would be obliged to extend his stay out there until mid-November.

Our other reason for celebration is Mike's impending retirement at the end of this year.  Really it is quite wrong to call it retirement - more a change of job -  since the alpacas and I have got plenty of things lined up for him to do here.  We are so looking forward to being able to develop our alpaca business together.

 Talking of the alpacas, they all seem to be fine and the crias are developing well.  They have been enjoying our Indian Summer although they almost got blown away in the gales here last Saturday.  At least all of our buildings seem to have survived the storms unscathed.  One year we actually lost the roof off one of our new field shelters in a big gale - fortunately there were no casualties amongst the herd as I had just moved them all out of that field a couple of days before.

The kittens seem to be growing by the day.  They are so sweet and are fascinated by the alpacas.  I hope to be able to include photographs on my blog very soon and so will inlcude some photos of them for all of you cat lovers out there.  They are fascinated by the alpacas and always rush out to see them if they are brought over to the farm buildings for any reason.

At the end of this week I am off to Stoneleigh for the BAS Show Organiser's meeting.  It is a bit of a flog driving all the way down there, as it takes me at least 5 hours, but I do think it's important to go to these things if you can, representing the regional groups and the shows you are involved with.   I just hope that the traffic won't be too awful! 

I feel rather embarrassed at having committed myself to writing a regular blog which I have just not done for the last 10 days - whoops!!  I shall get back to my regular 6.00 pm slot - often accompanied by a glass of wine!!

So where to begin?  Well, Mike and I took Horatio and Lysander to Whalton show on Saturday 19th September which was huge fun.  The only other alpaca breeders there were Debbie and Paul Rippon with a couple of their boys and we were all a bit embarrassed by the number and the superb quality of the pens which had been specially built for us - thank you very much Whalton show!  However we felt we did our bit, as twice during the afternoon, we paraded the boys around the show ring,  giving a commentary about alpacas in general and what the judges are looking for in the show ring.  It was very well received and we got a good round of applause.  We also sold some of our wool and I managed to get the names of quite a few knitters - I always need knitters for this new alpaca business in the planning -  details to come later.  So all in all we had a jolly good day.

We have had several B and B guests during the last 10 days who were from all ends of the country.  All of our visitors have been absolutely super and I take great pleasure in looking after them and making their stay - even if it is only for one night - something truly relaxing and memorable. 

We have also done some more spit tests - unfortunately not all were spitting, but as time is now getting on I think we will just leave those girls open over the winter. If we don't do so this year we will have to next year.  We had already decided to do that with Pandora to give her a rest for a few months, but yesterday when they were all herded into the catching pens, she decided she was going to lie down and not budge even though the boys were not yet anywhere in sight - a pre-emptive strike!  It certainly can't be said that alpacas are stupid, as she knew just what was going to happen with some of the others!

We have had a couple of cases of mild conjunctivitis this week, but it was quickly cleared up with some eye drops - I must admit I still feel a bit squeamish about putting eye drops into their eyes!

The toe nails keep on growing - I wish they wouldn't but the Camelid Dyanmics "bracelet hold" is absolutely brilliant and works with the majority of them.  Although I suspect that it might not be so as the pregancies progress.

Time to go and get that VAT return finished..groan!

Until the next time!

Just when one might have thought that things should be getting a bit quieter around here, we seem to be busier than ever.  On Thursday 10th September, we had to get up at 4.00 am to drive over to Westmorland Show, which is about a 2 hour drive from here.  We actually left here at 5.30 am and got there promptly as I was doing pen inspections before the show started.  Brian Raine was the Show Organiser and he had done a splendid job.  The overall standard of alpacas entered was extremely high, so we were delighted that Isadora succeeded in coming 1st in the Intermediate White female class.  She has never failed to impress the judges every time she has entered the show ring, so we are very much looking forward to mating her next year and seeing her progeny in the future.

Last Sunday (19th) we took some alpacas over to Whitfield Village Show.  The boys obviously enjoyed their day out and happily posed for photographs etc., as they were very popular with the crowds.  We also sold our hand-dyed yarn over there.  This weekend we are going to Whalton Show which is probably the last show of the season in this area.  We are going to fly the flag for Fallowfield Alpacas and sell yarn, knitting kits and scarves as we did last weekend.

The Bed and Breakfast side of things has also been busy as well during the last week.  Everyone is so complimentary that it gives us great pleasure to do bed and breakfast.  Hopefully Jeffry and Carol Farman will be equally impressed when they come and stay again in 2010.

Our kittens are thriving and seem to be getting a lot more adventurous.  They are no longer terrified of Scrumpy (my Norfolk terrier).  They are off to the vet tomorrow for their first injections so I am looking forward to finding out what sex they are!

Mike and I decided that the time had come to take a holiday.  However Pandora's cria - Alexander - was not feeding well from his Mum and was continuing to lose weight. I think that it was a combination of Pandora not having quite enough milk to begin with and the cria - Alexander - being a bit dense about the whole thing.  Fortunately Harry was going to house-sit for us otherwise it would have been exceedingly tricky to get away. 

Supplementary bottle feeding can always be quite a tricky issue.  On the one hand you want to keep the cria strong and healthy, but on the other hand you want to make sure that the cria is still hungry enough to go looking for milk from his Mum.  Bit of a balancing act that only comes with experience really.

Although some people recommend using goat's milk for bottle feeding, we have achieved great success with full cream cow's milk.   Harry did brilliantly whilst we were away and succeeded in getting little Alexander feeding totally from his Mum and piling on the weight - a job well done! 

Harry's list of chores was greatly increased when we bought two six week old kittens just a couple of days before we went away.  These two are now safely ensconced in the big hay barn and will hopefully earn their keep in due course!  They are still unnamed and we are not even sure about what sex they are - the Douglas's are definitely no cat experts!  However, an appointment has been made for them for a visit to the vet in the near future, so all should then be revealed!

August Bank Holiday Sunday and it's raining.  Although, to be fair, the rain only started here at about 4.30 pm.  My eldest son and daughter in law, Max and Jess, went to Cornwall for the weekend and the weather there is awful apparently.  We are quite happy to stay at home for Bank Holidays and get on with important stuff like "spit-offs"!  Ulysses is a very handsome light fawn male with huge presence.  He was delighted to be allowed to come and "meet and greet" the girls this afternoon. Unfortunately, the girls we tried didn't all spit off - pretty infuriating at this stage in the year but just one of those things I suppose.  Anyway, Ulysses was not disappointed as it meant that he was able to get one mating in after all

We bought two 6 week-old kittens on Friday evening.  Squeaky, our resident Fallowfield cat is quite elderly now  and is not hunting much at all.  So now we have a couple of little hooligans - as yet un-named.  One tabby and one black and white fluffy one - a proper little chocolate box kitten.  Actually, we are not too sure what sex either of them are, so a trip to the vet is in order pretty soon!

It's 9.00 pm Saturday evening, we have had a great day with a lovely group of attendees for our Introductory Course.  Some are relatively local, and one has come from Northern Ireland.  We have had great fun, which has been the main object of the day.  The weather has been fantastic and although the forecast for tomorrow is not good for  the Husbandry Course, we are going to stay positive.  We had great fun learning how to do all sort of things inlcuding haltering alpacas and taking them for a walk.  It was surprising how those alpacas that we thought would be well-behaved weren't and vice-versa!  However none of them let us down completely! 

Pandora has still not given birth - we think that she could be waiting to demonstrate the birthing section of our course tomorrow.  Time will tell!