Fallowfield Alpacas

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!

Although we have been running courses here at Fallowfield for some time now, this weekend was the first back-to-back Introductory and Husbandry courses that we have run.  It was very successful as it allowed everyone to really learn about alpacas in a fun environment.  Several people said that they had had the best weekend in ages and one said that "It was the best birthday present ever!"  It also provided people with great net-working possibilities.  Everyone was exchanging contact details with the intention of keeping in touch and even the possibility of going into business with each other.

We did think that Pandora might have been waiting to demonstrate alpaca birthing methods, but she obviously wasn't prepared to be a "Crowd Pleaser" and I don't really blame her.  Nevertheless I would have preferred her to have waited until today rather than deliver her cria at 7 o'clock last night just as we were thinking of relaxing over a bottle of wine!  The cria was 8 kgs and on his feet 30 minutes after giving birth, but he has been very reluctant to feed from his Mum, so the night was spent giving him colostrum - thank goodness for the large stock still in our deep freeze.  I am still bottle feeding him, but I live in hope.  It pays to be an optimist!

Today has been a bit of a mixed bag of things.  Both good and not so good.

Although our new website has only just been launched, we have had loads of e-mails from right across the globe, telling us how great the website now looks and how simple it is to navigate around.  It is brilliant when you realise that all that hard work has paid off.  I wonder just how long it will be before we think that it is time to refresh the thing all over again!

Of course the day could have been massively improved if  Pandora had decided to give birth.  She is now 349 days.  Since she has waited this long, I am now beginning to hope that she might last until Sunday when we are running one of our Husbandry Course Days and she could then demonstrate the whole subject of birthing - hopefully  not a difficult one! Perhaps it would give our attendees the totally wrong impression as they might be falsely led to believe that alpacas can moreorless give birth to order! wish....!

All of our crias seem to be thriving, even those that were rather premature this year.  I will need to check the hedge/fence line of the small paddock near the barn tomorrow, as the crias seem to have found a wonderful source of goose grass and keep appearing with goose grass wrapped completely around them. It is certainly not a good look and does nothing for a cria fleece!

I am thrilled that we have finally got our new website up and running.  What a lot of work is involved in keeping websites looking fresh - especially when you  are not quite as computer literate as some.  I am constantly being told that it is not "Rocket-science" but I have to admit that I prefer working with our alpacas than sitting at the computer - far more rewarding!  However I am very pleased with the new look and hope that all our readers agree with me.  There are always things that could be improved and we will keep on doing so.

So much for Sunday being a day of rest!  After Church this morning, we did spit offs with all of our females.  We had been waiting for Harry to come back from his sailing course in the Med to help with this task  - he has successfully passed his Coastal Skippers' Exams.   That all moreorless went to plan although Maisie and Nerini were sitting which was a bit disappointing.  Then there was more fleece skirting - just for a change! - and finally I had the last details to do for the courses we are running nex weekend.  We are now fully booked for our Intoductory Course and the Alpaca Husbandry course.  We are absolutely delighted about the response from would-be alpaca owners.

Pandora has still not given birth - maybe tomorrow........!

Whilst Mike went salmon fishing today, I got my priorities right and spent the day skirting fleece prior to sending it off to the mill to be processed. This task was made so much easier by the assistance of Marie Old - we know how to enjoy ourselves! It is always a matter of getting the balance right between over skirting and not including anything that might spoil the finished yarn.  Although it is a labour intensive task, it is made all the easier if you have a friend to help you.  It is definitely worth getting done during the summer months as it is no fun being out in a cold barn  skirting fleece during the winter.