A very busy day

Hi, today has been a very busy day. I have done the feed round, moved alpacas out of the shed, cleaned the area that had an alpaca that had been here for a mating and disinfected the floor. As well as all this my auntie and uncle have had a walk n’ talk too.

On the feed round this morning I feed Hughie and he definitely remembers me. We feed the girls and you might of seen the live video of them coming out of the field on Barnacre Alpacas Instagram.

 

I have walked Aloyious (I think that photo was on Twitter!) and Indie Skye, done sweeping and used the muck rake.  As well as this I had to carry the disinfectant mat from one shed to another, this is actually heavier than I thought it would be.

Tonight, I gave Endeavour his bottle and helped my Auntie (Debbie) to give him and Kamato’s baby vitamin paste.

 

I will do another blog tomorrow and tell you about some other things I do to help on the farm.

Faith

I’M FINALLY HERE!!!

 All Faiths own work, including the photo's!

It is so nice to be back in the countryside and be with the alpacas. They make me feel so calm and I don’t want to ever leave. The smell is so sweet that I feel as if I am breathing for the first time in ages.

 I arrived last night and I have already done so much. I have met Ziyad, watched Endeavours Physio, seen a mating and more. I am going to be writing a blog everyday while I am here and I will tell you all about the things I have done that day.

Meeting Ziyad was funny. We were on the morning feed round feeding the girls and there was a baby alpaca trying to eat my shoe laces, this was Ziyad. Ziyad seems to of made friends with a dog called Sidney.

The mating lasted for about 15 minutes and was with Shaylee and Aramist. Shaylee was proving hard to catch until she suddenly decided that she would sit down for us, thank you Shaylee. Aramist tried to get on any girl he could and then he got on Shaylee the wrong way round, we got there in the end though.

 

After the cottage guests left and the cottage had been empty for three hours we had to deep clean the cottage before the next guests arrive. I helped with this by striping one of the beds, using antibacterial wipes to do the light switches and the banister. Cleaned the sides and other people did the hovering and bathroom, made the beds and everything else needed to make sure you stay is as safe as possible.

I will do another one tomorrow and tell you about some other things I do to help on the farm.

Faith

Faith again!!

Hi everyone, it’s Faith again. I can’t believe that it is the summer holidays already but this is good because it means that I get to go up soon. Yay! And so can you, because walk and talks are back on. In this blog I am going to tell you about some of the amazing things that my Auntie and Uncle (Debbie and Paul) have been up to lately.

First of all, they have some deers that keep on visiting them in one of the fields, I hope that I get to see them while I am there. I don’t think that I have ever seen a deer in person before, have you?

They have also been mating some of the girls that have already had their babies. As well as this, they have cria sheared some of the earlier cria which is the first time every.

 

Wow! They have finished all of the hay, this was in 5 fields, 55 acres approximately, it took a few long days to get all that done.

They have had some very warm weather, why couldn’t I have that on holiday :( . But they also had a monsoon, a bit like me on holiday, rain, rain and rain. On a funny note, some of the alpacas seem to be creating a Mud Pack Gang. With this warm weather the alpacas kept on using the water troughs as a you might say a cooling station, so out came a paddling pool.

Thank you to everybody who purchases thing from the shop or spends any money at Barnacre Alpacas as the money is helping towards vet bills for Endeavour and Pablo. Now that Pablo has had his metal plate removed that should hopefully mean no more vet visits for Pablo. Endeavour has had his pins removed and he still needs to do his physio, his pins are being tested to make sure they are using the correct antibiotics for the infection. Fingers crossed (only one hand) he will get better.

Not enough hours in the day so over to Faith!

There just aren't enough hours in he day to do all of the jobs on the list and my niece Faith has been complaining at me for months that I haven't written a blog.  I tend to tweet and Instagram frequently so didn't think blogging was so important. However, during lockdown Faiths complaining has become even more frequent so last week I suggested she write the blog!!  

And here it is......

Hi, my name is Faith, I am the niece of Debbie and Paul. During lockdown, I have not been able to go up to Barnacre Alpacas and I have really missed it. So instead, I looked through the whole website looking at pictures. When I got to the blog I realised that my Auntie hadn’t done one since  May 2016, so I asked her to do one. However, she got very busy as it is the birthing season, so she asked me to do one. Here it goes…

Well, a lot has happened since 2016. A lot more babies have been born and a lot more hard work has gone into Barnacre Alpacas.  In 2017 they moved house, they can now be found at Turpin Hill Farm. Soon after moving, they built two new sheds and divided the fields and got field shelters. They have had some new arrivals, Twiggy the cat and Nellie and Niamh two rescue Donkeys as well as baby alpacas, baby goats and baby sheep. 

This year, my Uncle Paul has got some new, as my Auntie calls them, ‘boys toys’ a new tractor and all the equipment so that they can do their own hay. The tractor is a Massey Ferguson 5713, I actually got to drive it!!!  I did all the research for them too and he even bought the tractor I picked!

As I said many baby animals have been born and some have died as well. In 2019 Casper was born to Casiphia and Ida, unfortunately he was orphaned at 9 weeks old because of his mothers death. Sadly, earlier this year Loki was put to sleep because of cancer in his foot. The thing I remember most about Loki is when him and Hughie were looking after the sheep. They have already had 41 alpaca babies this year.

In October 2019, there was the Yorkshire Alpaca show, in which there is a young handlers and fancy dress competition. I entered both. I came first in the fancy dress competition with Jasper. I also came joint second in the young handers competition with Apophis . In this Barnacre Alpacas also got 2 champions, 1 reserve champion, 2 firsts, 1 second, 2 thirds and 1 fourth.  

I have missed seeing the alpacas so much (seeing them on pictures and FaceTime is not the same) and I cannot wait to go up. I enjoy all the fresh air and the animals just make you feel so calm. I also want to see my favourite alpaca Hughie, I wonder weather he will recognise me as he normally know its me. When I get to go, the first thing I want to do is go for a walk around the farm to the nearest field with alpacas in and say hello.

To spend time with the amazing alpacas you could book a walk and talk or buy an adoption pack. To spend longer you could stay in one of the holiday cottages which includes a £5 discount per person for a walk and talk. For more information on this look on the other parts of the website. Personally, I would recommend going on a walk and talk because you get to walk one of the alpacas and you get to walk around the farm with a tour guide (Debbie or Paul).  Although I haven’t stayed in a cottage, I have had a nosey and they look really cosy, and did I mention that you are provided with some treats (some human, some alpaca).

For regular updates follow Barnacre Alpacas on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. 

New life on the hill

Spring finally seems to have arrived and with if new life on the farm is beginning to arrive.

I decided not to tup our sheep last year as we never send our sheep to the mart and I didn't really want anymore, plus I didn't want lambing to clash with the Scottish Alpaca Show that we'd were going to attend (more on that another night).  

I did make an exception for my three Wensleydale ewes though, Drizzle, Parnie and Mist.  I din't think any of them were actually pregnant and in typical sheep style we sadly lost Mist a couple of months ago for no apparent reason!  Anyway it turned out that Drizzle was indeed pregnant and surprised me with a very cute, in an ugly sort of way, tup lamb who Paul named Gromit after is dad Wallace!

Despite only having one lamb this year he is causing plenty of work (not that I'm complaining, I love him!).  Initially his mum had no milk and wasn't very interested in him.  Having not been expecting any lambs I didn't have any colostrum (and it was Sunday) so he started off on alpaca colostrum until I managed to get some from a friend, Sam at West Barn Pygmy Goats who also has a few pet sheep.

I thought Gromit was just a bit of a dopey weak lamb but then realised that he couldn't see, the poor little man has very little if any sight.  As he has grown his front legs have become very bent too, this poor little man is in special care, on a course of antibiotics and vitamin injections in the hope that we can salvage at least some sight and splinted legs to try and stop them from getting worse and hopefully straightening them.

Next to arrive 24 hours later was a very sweet little angora goat who we have named Calico.  Again, just like all my angora births assistance was required when April presented a head and no feet!  Thankfully there was plenty of room and the gorgeous little kid was safely delivered.

I have also been hatching some of our goose eggs, I'd put 8 in the incubator but only 6 were fertile.  I had been told by a number of people that geese were particularly difficult to hatch so I wasn't too hopeful for much success.  The first one pipped and made very little progress and eventually needed help as did the second.  Sadly the other 4 didn't manage to hatch, but these two are doing just great and are now 4 and 5 days old and growing so fast.

On the alpaca front Marne is now on 353 days, but having gone 410 with Oscar we could still have a bit of a wait.  She doesn't really have much signs of milk yet either but she had none last time so that isn't much help!

Andromeda is as wide as a house so hopefully she wont have too much longer to go, she's on 352 days so is well over our herd average and not knowing how long she went with Nelson two years ago who knows what sort of gestation she likes.

As promised, a blog!

I’ve not found the time and if I’m totally honest the motivation to write a blog in in long time, my life is so busy and grabbing two minutes to do a quick tweet or snapping something to post on Instagram seems to fit so much easier into my day.  So if you want to follow us on Twitter were @BarnacareAlpacas and on Instagram we’re Barnacre_Alpacas 

However I appreciate that not everyone likes or uses twitter and Instagram and also some of you enjoy the detail that I can include within a blog, so I thought I’d better find the time to write one.  So here goes for all you complaining at me for not blogging!

To be honest I’m not sure where to start, it’s been almost a year since my last blog and this is starting to sound like I’m sat in the confession box.

We had a great year of birthing last year, with just over 40 babies born, not only our own but also from our various livery clients and this year is set to be busier again.  We’re only three weeks away from the first due date of this year, don’t tell mum as she’s farm sitting whilst we attend the inaugural Scottish Alpaca Championship in Lanark the weekend before and she’ll only panic!  The early ones tend to hang on so I’m sure Andromeda (Nelson's mum) will wait until after her due date.

Things haven’t all been great since last year, sadly we lost my dad last summer.  My dad was a huge inspiration in my life, and without realising it he was one of the main reasons I was determined to live my alpaca dream.

   

My dad (and mum for that matter) worked hard all his life and planned to travel in their caravan when dad retired, but ill health caused him to retire from work early and sell their beloved caravan and in the end dad never really got to enjoy his retirement.  I’d always been taught that if you work hard enough you can achieve anything (and I’m certainly not afraid of hard work) and I was adamant I didn’t want to spend my life working my socks off like my dad for a retirement I might never get to enjoy, so I managed to convince Paul the well paid office job could be sacrificed for a chance to try and make the alpaca dream a reality.  And that was over nine years ago now and the rest is history so they say!

Despite being crippled with arthritis, cancer and numerous other issues dad still got to enjoy the alpacas, I even managed to get him on the quad one or two times.

It was heart breaking at times when you know he would have loved to get more involved, telling Paul how not to built the field shelter or how he would do it; he was always right too!  He did manged to make me a couple of skirting tables along the way; we soon outgrew the first one as our fleeces improved!

I then managed to persuade him to make me a button for a bag I’d knitted because I couldn’t find a natural button I liked, of course he couldn’t stop with one button he did it so well, I soon had him making tiny buttons and scarf pins which meant he’d had to invent various tools for holding them as his hands were so deformed by this point he couldn’t hold them!

I’m so proud of my dad and hope that he will be watching over me as proud of me as I am of him, I love you dad!  

Twins and a prolapse

I had been hoping that I would have been able to blog with cria photos by now, however the first three are now overdue, Elysian is on 365 days, Gabby 354 and Chiquita is on 345.  In fact we have 15 girls over 330 days gestation!

Sadly Venus gave birth in the early hours of Saturday morning in the pouring rain to twin girls, she had managed to carry them almost ten months.  I found her stood over them in the field at 5am (my usual early morning check), she was a first time mum and clearly very confused by things.

The girls were solid brown weighing 4kg and a tiny rose grey weighing 2kg, I spent the first few hours beating myself up about the bigger girl who may have stood a very slim chance had she been born during the day.

Disturbing pictures follow.......

Of all the alpaca lines we have Venus is from a line of girls who produce big babies so if anyone stood a chance of managing twins it would be this one, Venus's mum star was our biggest cria ever at 13kg.

Sadly the loss of the twins was only the start of it, Venus seemed to be taking a while to pas the placenta, and I was beginning to think that some oxytocin may be required but then she started to stain and out began to come the placenta.

It took slightly longer than usual, breeders out there will know that gravity usually plays a big part once the afterbirth starts to come away.  However this didn't happen and it soon became apparent that things weren't going to plan and she was prolapsing.

Poor Venus ended up with a double horned prolapse!  My phone went flat after this photo so you will be pleased to know you don't get to see the worst of things.

Venus isn't the most cooperative of girls and hates the halter and not getting her own way so catching her to resolve this problem wasn't going to be easy.  In fact it took us the whole time it took the vet to arrive to actually get her out of the field!  Thankfully I'd just managed to wrap things in clingfilm before she threw herself onto the ground squealing.

Sam Prescott, our vet,  is fantastic and after giving Venus an epidural soon got the left horn hack into position but the right was much tighter and took some doing but he managed.  Paul did ask if he was attaching it to her tongue at one point as he was having to go in so far!

Venus is now sore and not happy about being in but things are looking much better than they did.

The jury is out on whether to mate her again or not.  Has anyone else out there got any experience on prolapses, particularly double horned ones following twins?

I'm not looking forward to a straight forward, text book baby please girls.

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 :-)