Big boys and little boys

I'm under strict instructions to take things easy so I thought it would be an ideal opportunity to tell you a bit of whats been happening.

The sun has made a welcome appearance, although it seems to have been replaced today by frequent hail and snow showers and a howling gale!

We decided to put the two groups of boys together last week, usually the adolescent boys don't join the stud boys until after shearing when everyone looks and smells different and they go into a new field for another distraction.

However as we were moving the studs into a new field and seeing as they are all very well behaved we gave it a go  We have a few boys who will start their working life this year, including Supreme Champion Thor, double fawn Champion Zoom and another of our white champions Linus, all unrelated and with very exciting genetics and fleeces (introductory discounts will be available on these boys so please get in touch if you are interested).

All went very well, it was head down munching....

With the odd bit of posing...

Until Loki remembered the burried wall, it makes a fantastic posing platform!

Loki is very proud of his tackle and likes to flash it to anyone and everyone, particularly Golden Guinea who is the boss.

Guinea tends to ignore the other boys for so long and every now and again reminds them he's the boss!

Frequent followers to our blog and twitter (@barnacrealpacas) will be aware that we also have a few sheep here too.  Lambing isn't supposed to begin until 17th April, well after the NWAG show however someone seems to have forgot to mention it to this little cutie who arrived on Sunday from Bella one of our Texel girls.

There is also a pair of blackie twins on the top of the hill who have managed to avoid the camera so far.  I love birthing season; alpacas start next month too :-)

Work Experience and job week

I'm pleased to hear my last blog went down well, so I thought I'd better make sure I didn't leave it long before I did the next one before I am in trouble again!

We are so busy what with one thing and another it's difficult to find the time to fit in sitting at the computer, but here I am whilst I have a cup of tea and sneak one of Paul custard creams whilst he's not here.

I've had a lovely young girl called Lucy here for some work experience for a few days which was great, she's wanting to become a vet and off to uni later in the year.

It's the second time Lucy has been and she is great, first job on our list was to get the littlies weaned.  I have to say they have been a great bunch so far and with a couple of exceptions, Khaleesi and Xanthe.....

.......... they have all been good.  They did crack it in then end though!

We like to get them used to walking on all surfaces and coming across different things so someone always accompanies me and on this occasion Lucy) to the post box.  Selkis and Aryana are so friendly and happy to explore they love a stroll down the drive.

I also like to halter train them to walk onto the scales which always makes life easier in the future as some of the older girls and purchased girls do find the scales a bit of a scary experience!

Whilst Lucy was here all the girls got weighed and wormed and had a pedicure where required.  Other than the usual drama queens it went quite well and for the first time ever we managed to weigh Venus (nickname crazy horse!) who was a hefty 80.4kg.

Porker award went to Vitoria who came in at 99.4kg although with a bit of luck she's pregnant.  

Lucy also got to do the oral AD&E paste which all the littlies are happy to take.

It wasn't all hard work she did get to play on Paul's toy, although I don't think he realises us girls don't find it as much fun as he does!

Bottle feeding is a much more fun job if you ask me!

Weaning continues, I've added another four to the line of bums, they do have more troughs these two are just the favourites!

Arty, Pixie, Pandora and Stella have all settled in nicely although Stella has made it quite clear that she doesn't think she should have been stopped from having her bottle and had a few stroppy tantrums initially!  

That just leaves the youngest two cria Oscar and Peaches to wean along with tiny Nelson, Slug and Eclipse who are on a go slow.  They will be all weaned by the end of the month though with a bit of luck. 

Alive and kicking

Sorry for the lack of blog post and thank you to those of you who have been in touch to check that we’re ok. Yes we are ok, I've just very busy, but have continued to tweet (you can follow us @BarnacreAlpacas) as I can do that whilst walking round the place!

I really can’t believe it was October when I last blogged, I’m ashamed.  Many nights I've sat down to write a blog but either fell asleep over the computer or started doing website updates. There is so much to tell you I’m not sure where to start.

Yesterday we celebrated our 8^th birthday, the alpacas got lots of bonus veggies and I got treated to a bottle of Prosecco; thanks Lizzie and we even saved Paul a small sip!!

Last year we had our best ever year for knitwear sales and for the first time ever I went into the new year with a long order list of special commissions, so the knitting needles are still smoking!!

Like most other people we have mud, mud and more mud, I've never known it so bad, the alpaca are so dirty I’m not sure they will ever recover!  The boys are absolutely filthy and the girls have mud dreadlocks!  

Ankha here not only likes to paddle backwards and forwards through the mud she likes to roll in it too!

At least the snow gave us a bit of a change from brown to white…….

And the girls are soon in the minute it starts to snow (or rain!); they’re not daft!

Oscar and Nelson who were featured in some of my last blogs are doing well, I’ll tell you more about them specifically later, sadly the same can’t be said for little Black Betty who I mentioned in my last blog, she continued to lose weight and despite being bottle fed and put on a drip towards the end she lost her battle with life. 

We've now weaned most of last years cria and I've already sold some of them, and as you can imagine already regretting agreeing to sell some of them!  They are currently being halter trained and adjusting to life without mum which I have to say is going very well, in fact I think with one exception they have hardly noticed they have left!

I don’t think the same will be said for the next few to wean because some of them have been having a bottle.  Pixie and Stella have been getting a milk top us as their mums don’t have much milk and Arty (work of Art) has been fully bottle fed since the death of his mum Cara just before Christmas, which was very sad, she suffered a Colonic torsion. 

Arty is such a sweetie, he likes his speedibeet too…. 

Eye eye Oscar, anyone for mushrooms?

Thanks for your comments on Nelson, he seems just fine after his transfusion, today is weigh day so I'll update you on that next time.

He had Thiamine Judy and was clear of cocci, it didn't make any difference unfortunately, and his Albumin levels were normal too.  The only slightly high result was his bile acid but this was only at the top end of normal and not something my vet or Claire Whitehead had any real concerns over.

Moving on to Oscar, the ophthalmologist was very pleased with him and his eye and the speed at which it was healing.  He is still on a cocktail of eye drops but the injections are coming to an end and the drops have reduced, and there is definitely sight there.  We're back again in three weeks.

We are are heading towards thoughts of winter and winter grazing so the main group of girls have had another move round, fresh grass always goes down well!  Before they move I always check the fields carefully and there were some very impressive mushrooms in this field, not sure what they were but I don't think I'd fancy them in an omelet!

I've decided that I think I seriously need to look into a milking goat, as I have now started feeding another of the cria.  Black Betty has always been a slow grower but last week she lost weight, I'd tried feeding her before but she wasn't having any of it, however she must now be hungry as she took just short of 300ml twice.  Hopefully that will help her weigh gain, poor little thing doesn't have a very dense fleece either so she might end up with a second coat on before long too!!

Yesterday when checking the sheep we noticed that someone had hit the crash barrier on the far east side of our farm and had pushed it into part of our fence.  Thankfully the sheep hadn't noticed that they could actually get out!  I was not impressed that they hadn't bothered to tell me, it must have been a big lorry as they have pulled two huge lumps of concrete out the ground, the police knew nothing about it either so looks like it's another fence repair that we've got to fund.

Nelson news

I mentioned little Nelson on the blog last week and the latest blood that had been taken by the vet to try and establish what was going on.  We have tested for everything, you name it we've tested for it, including the nasties like BVD (not that we thought he has/had it) and everything comes back ok and it did again!

He has clear fecal counts, his heart, lungs and chest sound fine, but then you look at him and he's tiny, his growth chart is far from normal and without something we fear he wont make it through winter.

As you can see on his chart initially his weight gain was normal and at the first peak at just over 6kg he got heat stroke and nothing has been the same since.  After lots of hard work and various medicines we did manage a month of very steady weight gain but nothing significant and we have now slowed to between 50 and 100 grams a week if we are lucky.  At three months and one week he weighs 7.71kg!!

We had decided that the next step was a plasma infusion, not that there was really any evidence that this was going to help we are just running out of ideas!  So on Wednesday we headed off to Robson & Prescott this time with Nelson and a bag of Barnacre plasma and a rather paranoid me!

He's the gorgeous little man waiting patiently for his appointment with Sam Prescott.

I've never know Sam struggle to get a vein but he did with poor Nelson and when he did manage to find one they either collapsed or there was a valve, but Nelson being the calm and laid back little man that he is just sat there and got more and more shaved and stabbed.

I was so relieved when the plasma was in and the cannular removed and all appeared well.  I am the first one to admit I am paranoid when it comes to Nelson, I just can't help it!

Nelson was pleased to get back home and went straight to get a drink off his mum Andromeda and didn't seem to be in the slighted bit upset by his little outing, a bit of milk solves everything :-)  Fingers crossed this will kick start some growth.  Sam is off now for a week and on his return wants a phone call saying Nelson has hit double figures!!

Keeping an eye on Oscar

I have so much to tell you I’m not sure where to start, if you follow our tweets you will have seen much of what has been going on, but 140 characters can be very limiting at times!

Marne’s little man has been causing me major worries, you may recall he was the 410 day gestation cria who was found flat and freezing cold in the field, initially couldn't stand, has had a plasma transfusion and is being bottle fed because mum has not milk.

At a few days old he developed an ulcer in his eye which we put down to the fact he couldn't stand and had probably been rubbing it on the floor.  With eye ointment the clouding cleared and his sight seemed fine, but it had left two white dots on his eye which the vet checked when he was out seeing Nelson (mentioned in my last blog, more on him another night).  

The drops Sam put in showed that there was not retinal damage and he was happy that it was scar tissue that could be scraped under a local anesthetic if it bothered him.  However a few days later the eye started to water and it clouded within a few hours and a black dot appeared next to the raised white scaring (you should be able to click on the photos to enlarge them).

Straight back to the vets we went as I was very worried, he now appeared to have lost sight in the eye.  Sam Prescott referred us straight to an ophthalmic specialist, Chris Dixon at veterinary vision who immediately prescribed a cocktail of eye drops and injections until he could move round his appointments to see us on Firday.  Here is the little man waiting to see Chris.

The poor little man underwent a number of very uncomfortable examinations including an ultrasound of his eye which was rather fascinating.  Put simply Chris diagnosed a protruding iris, his eye had ruptured and the black that had appeared was his iris!  

He was happy that he was suitable for surgery and he immediately underwent very complex corneal surgery to remove all the clouding, return the iris to it's rightful place, re-inflate the front of the eye and have a corneal graft.

It took almost two hours, which seemed to be the longest two hours of my life sat in Morrisons car park 5 minutes from the vets!  The relief when Sam (he was doing the anesthetic)  rang to say he was out and in recovery was immense.  I was there within minutes and within half an hour we were heading home with over 40 tiny stitches on his eyeball!  This is his eye tonight.

This little man is such a fighter, he's had so much thrown at him in his short life how could I have done anything else but try and save his sight, I'll worry about the four figure vet bill next month when it arrives!

We have now given him a name, Oscar which is a Celtic boys name meaning jumping fighter.  He's a keeper!!!

Thirsk Show

Things just seem to be manic here, with the days getting shorter outside jobs are getting harder to fit in and with a knitwear order book growing by the day I'm trying to knit like crazy at night whilst fitting in four hourly (I'm trying to stretch them out!) feeds round the clock!

As I was on bottle feeding duties Paul headed off to Thirst without me last weekend, he was commentating as usual so my mum and dad were meeting him there so mum could do most of the handling, she's great at it and loves it thankfully.

First up was Boulevarde, this was the first time we'd actually shown him, although he'd already won a championship a couple of years ago as an adult.  He won first place senior grey male and went on to win Grey Male Champion; result!  He has a lot to live up to with his half brother, five times grey champion Sunburst.  

Shirley said he caught her eye the minute he entered the ring, she loved his walking, his fleece and everything about him, he does have that effect on you!

Next up was little Galapagos, hes' only 12 and a half months but has a stunning fleece.  1st place and Champion brown male; Shirley's comments were finest, densest and best fleece structure, beautiful animal, watch this space!

Next in was Paul and Zoom, not sure if that was because he wanted a break from talking on the mike or he'd sneaked off for a Jan cake and thought I'd better give mum a break.  Zoom won the Fawn Adult male class and also went on to win Fawn Champion.

Next it was the turn of the girls, Elfida in the intermediate fawn class.  She came second with the comment that she was finer with more character than the girl in first place but not as consistent in colour.

After lunch it was on the whites, first in for us was Czara.  The text I received was 'Czara in massive class be patient' I was struggling with the patience bit!!  After what seemed like an eternity she was placed 2nd on density with the comment this fleece woos you.  She went on to win Female White Reserve Champion.

That just left our two white adult boys, after a lengthy deliberation we got 2nd for Thor and 3rd for Plato.  The joral reasoning from Shirley on Thor was fantastic, in fact I got three texts from different people all congratulating me on the fantastic comments, and another text described the comments as orgasmic!  But at the end of the day she said she preferred a bigger 'boxier' male.  

Thor then went on to win Reserve Male Champion, clearly he was rather bored by the whole thing!!

The darkside of the Championship line up was a sea of Barnacre, three out of 5 so not a bad days work.  We took 7 animals can came home with three 1st, three 2nds, a 3rd, three colour champions and two reserve Champions so not to shabby ;-)

A gain at last

Oops it's now early on Saturday morning and I have been meaning to blog since about Wednesday!  Better late than never, I'm here now!

Thankfully Fair Lady's cria, who is still to be named; we can't agree on anything but none of the options seem to really suit her, has finally started gaining weight.

Fair Lady seemed to be starting with a touch of mastitis, but with having antibiotics and pain relief following a very traumatic labour I think I caught it very early and it has cleared up.  I was struggling to get any milk from her back quarters and she wasn't keen for the cria to nurse on three of her four teats.

In the last three days she has gained 750gms so we seem to have cracked it, although I did notice a bit of scouring last night so now need to keep an eye on that; there's always something to be watching.

On Tuesday and Wednesday we had a lovely young girl Lucy here for some work experience, she is wanting to be a vet and is wanting some alpaca experience for her portfolio.  She was very good and I'm sure will make a fantastic vet one day.

Tuesday I had the vet out, Nelson is still worrying me.  Despite now being three months old he is still only 7.5kg and gaining no weight despite eating, peeing and pooing completely normally.  He had started to stiffen up a bit on his back legs so that was a concern.

Sam has taken another two lots of bloods to see if the lab can find anything, so far everything has come back clear but I can't give up on this little man, I'm worried that without some growth he is never going to survive winter.  He is the most adorable little thing and has the best black fleece we have ever bred, he is a very special little man!

Wednesday we did a round of Lambivac injections and routine cocci drench for some of the cria, Lucy was happy to get involved and was very competent at giving injections.  Here she is giving Perry his.

We also did a bit of halter work with the young boys, Asher likes to think he's the boss and doesn't really like being told where to go!  However for the first time he seemed to get it and walked the best he has ever walked, it is still a work in progress mind you.

Paul has headed off down to Thirsk this morning with an amended show team, I'm at home on bottle feeding duty so feel a bit like I'm missing out!  Hopefully our twitter feed @BarnacreAlpacas will be keeping us all informed with proceedings.