On your marks

The car is packed and mum is making the sandwiches as I type (She's good isn't she!) ready for our very early start in the morning to Penrith. I'll let you know tomorrow night how we get on, assuming I'm still awake by the time I get to sit down.

I got the results back today from Twiggy's (one of my cats) blood test, not good news I'm afraid, she is still not stabilising. We are going to try another drug, but this is the last resort, the next option is surgery. She is a 16 year old tiny cat with hypothyroidism so far from the best candidate for survey so I'm hoping that these tablets do the trick.

Today is one of our studs 3rd birthday, Gianmarco's Masterpiece who has an amazing fleece, his 3rd fleece was a very impressive 17.9 micron and 0.5% over 30. He has a number of girls spitting off so we are really looking forward to seeing his progeny next spring.

Nice shiny trailer

As promised yesterday my first job of the day after the feed run was to clean the trailer. It is something I take very seriously so out with the disinfectant and pressure washer and off I went. I always manage to get soaked but at least we now have a nice shiny trailer again.

The mats are back in so is the dividing gate and it is ready for the off very early on Thursday morning.

I weighed Kealani again tonight and she had put on another 260 grams today. She is the fastest growing cria of the year so far, taking the crown from Star who was over a kilo and a half heavier at birth. She is looking like she will be a quick developer just like Oonagh was.

Now the birthing season is over for another year I have been working on the statistics. I am very stringent with my record keeping and I like to compare year on year and see what trends and anomalies I can pick up on.

I will share some of the figures and averages with you over the next few weeks but not tonight as I need a break from figures.

Twiggy's turn for the vet

It has been a lovely sunny day today so out latest baby Kealani was finally able to have a whole day with no coat on. She is growing fast, and has put on over 1.5kg's which is fantastic news. I don't usually like cria this late in the year but it certainly doesn't seem to be holding this little lady back.

After the morning routine of feeding and checking everyone it was off to the vets with Twiggy, one of my cats. She has an over active thyroid so has to have tablets everyday and regular blood tests. I will have to call tomorrow for the results, I wouldn't be surprised if they have to alter the medication again.

Whilst I was there I ordered a couple of bottles of lambivac so I can vaccinate the cria, poor little things I hate having to inject babies, it always seems so cruel. A necessary evil though I'm afraid.

I was supposed to be cleaning the trailer out from the weekend move of the girls but didn't quite get round to it, so that is on tomorrows list. I always give it a thorough clean after every use, and it is needed for Thursday as we are at the Westmorland County Show - that's going to be an early start! I'm really looking forward to it as we will get to see Horatio and Aodhfin (my recently sold babies) again.

The end of summer

Today officially marked the end of summer for Barnacre Alpacas. All the girls are now in their winter fields, well the first of their winter fields.

You may recall we moved most of the herd last weekend but kept Oonagh and a few friends back until she had given birth. Following the safe arrival of Kealani, as she was doing so well we decided to reunite everyone and moved the stragglers down the lane.

Oonagh was not too keen on going in the trailer with her baby. We ran the girls up in the spring but with baby in toe it was easier to put them in the trailer rather than cross our neighbours two horse fields. It's only a few hundred yards down the lane and they were all fine.

There was the usual mad greeting when the girls met their friends and as one would expect Kealani received huge amounts of attention which really worried Oonagh, she kept running off with her baby but this made things worse as everyone ran after them.

Things soon settled down and normality was resumed. Lualeni was very pleased to see her big sister (Oonagh), she was clucking away to her. Unfortunately Oonagh was not so pleased to see her sister and sent her packing. Hopefully one Oonagh is settled with her baby they we become close again.

We nipped over to the collective sale at Hexham Mart this morning, we were hoping to get a sheep taxi (a small trailer for the back of the quad to move a couple of sheep or hay bales about), but they didn't have any worth bidding on. Never mid we will keep looking.

Past soggy

It has not been pleasant again today, this morning was very wet. Thankfully Oonagh, Kealani and their friends made the wise decision to sleep in the field shelter last night. In fact they stayed in there until lunchtime when the rain slowed down.

Despite the appalling weather the new cria is doing very well, she has gained another 220grams today so at this rate will soon catch up with the other cria. Mind you I'm not surprised she is growing so quick as she is always under mum feeding.

I have been doing a spot of knitting, I need to replenish the stock sold last weekend at the Dyke Neuk show. I've done a pair of booties and am not knitting another pair of those stripy glove to match the stripy hat as they sold. I've set mum on knitting some other gloves too because they sold well last weekend.

Weather warning

For once the weathermen got it right, we had a weather warning for heavy rain today and boy has it rained; again!

The girls had decided not to go in the shelter last night but both fields of girls had gone under the trees. Little Kealani was rather wet and a little cold this morning but thankfully the rain stopped first thing so I changed her into a nice dry coat and she was happy.

As a bit of a treat for Oonagh and her friends I decided to let them onto the drive to chomp on the grass along side the house. There is a four or five foot strip the length of the house that was nice and green and in need of a cut. Kealani was not sure about walking across the gravel drive but managed it in more of a bounce than a walk.

Once the rain return it was torrential and the field was so already so wet there are now standing puddles everywhere. I decided to shut Oonagh, Kealani and their friends in as the rain was so bad.

Thankfully it had eased off again now so they are out for a bit, I'll see what it's like later but I think they may have a night in tonight. Maybe I should think about buying the herd some wellies, although that would be 64 pairs required which sounds rather expensive!!

Despite the rather wet welcome into the world Kealani is thriving and in two days has put on exactly half a kilo. You would expect a newborn cria to loose weight initially so this is fantastic, as I've said before Oonagh has obviously inherited her mums milking abilities.

Finally I'd like to say Happy Birthday Little Miss Irraquoy who is three today.

Flaked out

The herd took full advantage of the lunchtime sunshine and this is the scene that greeting me when I took Heidi her midday bottle. I couldn't fit them all in but the whole herd was stretched out.

Our latest arrival is settling into the outside world nicely. Oonagh is certainly following the family tradition and proving to be a fantastic mum. She has also been blessed with her mothers fantastic milking abilities. Oonagh has bags of milk and her adorable little baby has gained weight in the first twenty four hours which isn't very often the case.

We have named her Kealani, which is Hawaiian and pronounced Keh-a-lah-nee. It means spiritual & white heaven.

The weather has turned this evening so it was back on with the coat, and just in time before the rain arrived. The forecast isn't good for tomorrow so it looks like she might have to keep her coat on for the next couple of days.

It's a (solid white) girl!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oonagh did it! Our first ever Barnacre baby became a mum today and Oonagh gave birth to a lovely little girl fathered by Wellground's Supreme Champion stud Samson. She arrived in text book style just before 10am this morning weighing in at 7.52kg.

She was lifting her head almost immediately after hitting the ground and was soon up and feeding. In fact she is the first cria I've had that has managed to get up from kushed to standing on their first attempt. She even found the milk bar but didn't manage to stay still enough to suckle - amazing don't you think.

Oonagh has taken to motherhood fantastically, mind you with Blossom as her mum I would have expected nothing less. Your mum would have been proud of you Oonagh, a little girl too so keeping up the family tradition.

More on the new arrival tomorrow I really need to go to bed before I fall asleep over the keyboard.