My little friend

With Debbie and Paul away at the futurity, i am looking after the animals. I was a bit concerned that Gaussian might not have his bottle from me. I am really pleased to say that he has had every single one without any fuss. Good boy Gaussian. Janet(Debbie,s mum )

Happy Birthday Barnacre

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BARNACRE ALPACAS, it is two years since our first three alpaca arrived on site.

We have come along way since those three girls Duchess, Blossom and Willow arrived. That said, these three girls have produced ribbon winning cria including the Junior Reserve Champion at the Northumberland County Show and 1st place fleece at the Slaley Show. This just goes to prove how the breeding up theory does work.

Using the best studs can for your girls is something I can't emphasise enough. This is why we are so excited about our three herdsires who are all fantastic.

My parents arrived yesterday as Paul and I are heading off for the Futurity tonight, mum wanted to run through everyones requirements with me for a day before we went.

Gaussian has been a relatively good boy for her so far, she has given him his last four feeds and all but one he has taken. Hopefully he will continue to be good once I have left. We weighed him this morning seeing as we will be away on Saturday and he's still heading up 16.66kg (36.7lbs).

I've even shown mum how to post a blog entry so all you not at the Futurity keep your eyes open for her posting.

The suns shining and life is good

The alpacas are certainly enjoying the current sunny spell with Willow at the start of every sunbathing session. She has been stretched out most of the day, which has given Gaussian something to do as she had a bit of a twitch!!

The vet was out this morning to do a couple of Health Certificates, both passed with flying colours. Even though you know all is well it is still nice to hear it from the professional. He was also pleased to see that Gaussian was looking better.

Duchess has a course of antibiotics which will hopefully sort out her abscess, it worked last time so fingers crossed.

I had a visit from another keen allotment owner today to collect some manure. Only one slight hitch, he managed to get his car stuck on the way. He trusted his sat-nav rather than my instructions and ended up going down a very muddy track with leads to a ford which we struggle to get through on the quad or 4x4 99% of the time - moral; don't always believe technology.

Lamb update

Thanks for all the good wishes for little lamby, I am pleased to report he is doing well and has today begun sucking his bottle rather than chewing at it, so things are looking up. He already sees me as his mum so has spends ages yelling when I am out of sight.

I am determined not to have a repeat of Mia last year, so I am being stricter with this little chap and he is having to stay in the pen I have made for him. He has plenty of room to run and play, if he stays with me longer term I will put him with my lambs from last year. Alan's next sheep to lamb had triplets so no chance of him going to her!

He did follow me in to see the weanlings this morning, but they were all too frightened of him to get too close. Horatio was desperate to inspect him but didn't quite have the courage to get into 'nose' range.

Unfortunately the vet visit got postponed until tomorrow, so the insurance certificates and Duchess will have to wait a few more hours. It took me ages to convince Legend of Spartacus to go into the shelter as well - he obviously knew something was a foot.

Scanning round two

We had the BCF Technologies guy back round today with the Duo Scanner we were interested in. We had slightly more success than we did with the previous two models but still not fantastic. I knew it would be hard but with the girls in question being so far gone I thought it would be easier. We are obviously doing something wrong.

We did managed to see Imala's cria, Imala is so good natured she stood quite happily whilst we moved the probe round. She did crane her neck a few times to check out the picture for herself - maybe she wanted to know the sex!!

My little foster lamb is doing well, he wasn't keen on his bedtime bottle last night but was certainly pleased to see me at 5am. His tongue is looking very sore today and I fear it may be a little infected so he has had some antibiotics which should help.

A new addition to the fold

No not a cria, my first foster lamb of the year!! Alan (my farmer friend) popped round this morning asking if I was taking in any 'friends' this year and how could you refuse this little fellow:-


Poor little chap hasn't had the best start in life, his mum doesn't want him, not that she has any milk for him anyway, which is probably why she doesn't want him. If that's not bad enough the crows managed to attack him within minutes of being born and have taken a chunk out of his tongue. He's obviously sore because he's not very keen to suck, despite having a very good pair of lungs on him.

Gaussian has managed to break through the 16kg barrier, I was secretly hoping that he would be at lease 16.2kg but he actually weighed in at 16.42kg, so I am really pleased.

It was AD&E paste day for some of the herd, it does make me laugh how some of them love it and want more whilst others hate it and try and spit it out. The weanlings get it every two weeks over winter and thankfully they are all quite happy to take it. Aodhfin and Horatio queue up for theirs.

A great way to clear your head

As the weather was good again this morning I was back out with the muck truck. It is great when you have things on you mind to just get out there and do some sucking! I feel like I have spent all week doing it but it does look much better for it.

Once you get behind with a job like that it is a nightmare to catch back up, it seems like a never ending task. I'm now hoping that my regular manure collectors will come collecting as I have a rather large collection building.

I think Duchess's abscess is back again. I treated her for it last year and thought that we had succeeded in getting rid of it, but I fear it is back. I have the vet out on Monday to do a couple of health certificates so I will get him to check her out.

Unfortunately we had some rain this afternoon so my outdoor jobs came to an end. I came inside and finished the latest knitting project, a pair of long armed fingerless mittens. They have been knitted in the Gabby & Imala yarn mix, a lovely fawn colour. Once I have sewn them up they will hit the shop so keep your eyes peeled.

Working the land

I have spent all day outside today, it makes such a change to be able to get out. The girls field is now nice and clean; well it was! Just the shelter to do now which is on tomorrow's job list.



As I have been in the field most of the day I took the camera with me, check out Molly's 'bump' it's growing by the day. She is just over 10 months gone now so not long to wait now and she'll be a mummy.

I also took a new snap of Gaussian, he has had his coat off again today. His 'coat' is now officially his 'pyjama's' as I am only putting it back on at night. He's not that keen on me putting it on so it's a bit of a wrestling match after his tea time bottle.