Me & my friend

At last I managed to take the camera out with me, although it's not a hay shot. I thought you might like to see the reformed character that is Gaussian. Anyone who has witnessed a previous feeding session will appreciate what a complete transformation this is - look no restraint!!

He is my new best friend, this morning he met me at the gate, in fact he had his head through the gate before I'd opened it. It is so nice he even put the vitamin paste tube in his mouth voluntarily, although he pulled away too quickly to get any.

Angelus, one of the Australian imports who is a Gianmarco daughter is looking on to make sure Gaussian is not getting something she might like!

We've been working on the fencing again today, sadly it's not going as quickly as we were hoping. Doubt it will be completed tomorrow.

We had a brief brake when a new manure collector came to relieve us of some of the muck mountain - tomorrow we have a chap coming with a 2 ton trailer which will be good!!

Cleaning day

I have had a busy day today cleaning up. After feeding and filling all the hay mangers and nets it was out with the muck truck to clean the girls field. It is a never ending job, as fast as I suck it up they push it out! I have just put another advert for the manure on freecycle to try and get rid of it, we seem to have a bit of a build up of sacks at the minute.

In the end I spent all morning out there and still didn't quite finish it all off. I did have a little break to give my new best friend, Gaussian his bottle. He kept coming asking for more milk so I had to come back and do him an extra bottle - I still can't believe he is the same animal, the transformation is unbelievable. We'll weigh him again in the morning when he has his vitamin paste.

This afternoon I've been out with the disinfectant cleaning the trailer, muck truck and quad. I like to keep things cleaning, unfortunately the car was parked a bit to close to the muck truck so I had to give that a quick jet wash too!!

A couple of firsts

Firstly I've just got to share with you today's excitement, for the first time ever (and he's six months old now) Gaussian actually came to me for his bottle. No chasing round the field, restraint or even the slightest murmer of complaint, he was a good boy. Drank all his milk then had a little nibble of my nose for good measure!

I'm not sure if it is the various vitamins kicking in, the introduction of glucose to his milk or the lucerne haylage I've tried to get him interested in, but something has definitely changed. Thanks for all the advice hopefully I will get him eating hard feed soon to. At least he put back on some of the weight he has lost over the last couple of weeks when we weighed him tonight.

The other first was Molly eating from my hand, she had been eating from the bucket whilst I held it but didn't have the confidence to take food from my hand, until today that was. That only leaves her sister Milly, Katia, Veruschka and Nefertiti who don't eat from my hand.

The year ahead

I have been busy filling in my 2009 BAS wall calender with all the forthcoming alpaca births, shows and events and it's already got plenty of entries on there. I can't believe that our first cria is due 11 weeks today.

It is one of the girls we have for sale, Molly, so we may not have her by the time she comes to birth. Molly & her sister Millie would be ideal as part of a starter herd along with one of the other girls we have for sale. I'm hoping that Millie & Molly will stay together as they are great friends having always lived together.

Our tickets for the Alpaca Futurity have arrived, it was a great event last year and something I would definitely recommend. We actually bought Little Miss Irraquoy at the elite auction, she's nuts, we love her to bits. We are looking forward to this year event although we won't be taking the cheque book for any animals this year!

Again I failed miserably at taking the camera out with me this morning, the new hay manger went down a treat and would have made a lovely shot. If it is nice tomorrow I'll endeavour to take it out as I've not put any photo's on here for a while and I'm getting complained at.

The all clear

I didn't think I was ever going to get on here tonight. Paul has been working on the NEBAG (North East & Border Alpaca Group) website where he has just set up a blog for members to use. It was doing something it shouldn't and he has been cursing it. Now he's not about I can tell you!! So any fellow NEBAG members please make sure you use it or I'll never hear the end of it.

We had good news back from the vets today regarding the post-mortem, all the viral tests came back negative, so no BVD or any other nasties. Not that we were expecting any, but it is always nice to get confirmation all is ok; we are clean. Sadly it will remain an unexplained loss.

Thank you to all those who have offered advice on Gaussian, I have lots of suggestions to try so I will keep you posted. I am determined he is not going to beat me, I think we are having a battle of wills.

The alpacas Christmas present arrived today, another 10 foot Hay Manger. They will have a bit more space and it will hopefully save me filling them twice a day! Although I am sure if I left a big round bale out in a day they would eat the lot. It is always the same few that get settled in front of their respective bag or manger and just eat and eat and eat.

More vitamins for Gaussian

Yesterdays positive weight gain for Gaussian was short lived, today he has almost lost all the grams he had gained yesterday. He really is a worry, we gave him a B12 injection today which seems to help Chiquita last year when she hit a plateau last year, hopefully it will have the same effect on Gaussian this year. As Paul is back to work tomorrow and I have no mum to help, I don't think I will manage to weigh him on my own, so it will have to wait until the weekend for an update.

Rob at Wellground Alpacas has suggested trying lucerne haylage, I already have some on order so we will see if that helps any; not that he is very interested in hay most of the time.

The fencing has progressed today, I meant to take the camera out to show you what we are doing now but I forgot. I'll try and remember one day in the week. We had the usual supervision, Hughie, making sure we did a good job.

Another year and another fencing project!

Another busy day with another fence to construct - yes another one! We like to be able to rotate the fields and the latest addition to our grazing needed dividing. So today we began said task, I really can't believe how much fencing and shelter construction we have done, yet there is still more to be done.

The boys currently have the run of the whole field which is far too big for them so it will be nice to get it done. Today we had to fetch a few bits and bobs, then it was the tricky job of dodging the water pipe, so hopefully we will get on a bit quicker tomorrow.

I also needed to give the boys one of their routine injections, everyone was very well behaved. Legend of Spartacus needed a bit of a hair cut whilst we had hold of him. His fleece grows so quickly the poor chap could hardly see.

During this mornings feeding Kate managed to christen Paul's new coat, she really doesn't like sharing her personal space with anyone and was engaged in a bit of a spit off with a few of her fellow herd members and Paul managed to get in the firing line - oops!

Finally, Gaussian managed to put on a few grams today, he really is a worry. Regular readers will know that I have had to pretty much force feed him from the day he was born. His is no longer getting his bottle as he is 6 months old (not that he looks it), and since then his weight has dropped more than risen. He just nibbles on grass and shown no interest in supplement or really eating, I am currently giving him 'jump start' vitamin paste to try and encourage his appetite but it doesn't seem to be having much impact.

Occasionally he is interested in the hay but more often than not hes happy to nibble on his two blades of grass! Any suggestions for fattening him up would be greatly appreciated.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all our readers, here's to a good 2009 for all of us!

Today a bit of normality has returned to Barnacre with all of our Christmas and New Year visitors going back home. The animals have enjoyed my mum being here as even they realise that she is a complete push over, and really take advantage of her good nature, almost all the animals insisting that they have to be hand fed.

Today was the last injection for Alice following her rather sudden abortion earlier in the week. She is fine and dandy and flirting on a regular basis, however she will have to wait to be remated.

It was a new round bale on the menu this morning which went down well, this weather we get through so much it is a never ending job filling all the mangers and hay nets. Oonagh always insists on helping herself from the bale after I have covered it for the day and always manages to find a gap large enough to get her head into to help herself. This afternoon when I went into the field she had friends; Willow, Chiquita and Molly!

Ursula has been limping for the last couple of days, we could not see or feel anything untoward. Thankfully today she is looking much better and is walking almost normally, I think she must have pulled her leg somehow.