Fortunately the sun shone on a very chilly “Experience” day yesterday. We had a good turnout and I think it was one of the best groups we’ve had. Always a bit embarrassing when you’ve got kids and it comes to the reproduction section but there weren’t any awkward questions this time. We were all ready for Felicia’s lunch when the time came though and the alpacas behaved well. Only one stabbed finger this time.
Our next day is scheduled for the Sunday 7th March. Please contact us for details.
Well its come and gone and I know we had decided not to attend this year but in the end changed our minds and exhibited and I must say I am very glad we did. Not only were our results tremendous but the event, though much smaller than previous years in number, was very well organised, very well attended and as per normal the alpacas themselves were the real stars. The seminars were worthwhile, I counted well over a hundred people at Dr Tibarys first lecture which covered the pretty concerning subject of early cria death but it was a relief to attend something where only facts were given.
Felicia did all the showing, she tends to present the alpacas in a better perspective. I tend to make them all look undernourished!! This works well as it allows me to flash the trusty Nikon around.
Infact the weekend got off to a cracking start when the trusty Nikon won Best in Show in the photography competition. The ‘alpaca and rhea’ entry was the big winner. I just wish I had thought of a better title now! Before you ask anything like ‘ how many entries were there?’ …….over 50 is the answer…..ha
The rest of the pictures are a precis of Felicia’s showing weekend and as you can see she even sought some divine help at one point and then when Gomez was given second she graciously gave thanks!!
A brief summary of our results are:
Cosmo was Brown Suri Male Champion
Equador was 2nd in the adult black male huacaya class Gomez was 2nd in the junior fawn male suri class
and probably the one that gave me the most pleasure was Joshua was 3rd in the very large intermediate white male huacaya class. He is a stunning male. It is always a pleasure when people come charging over after the class to have a look at the alpaca you have just shown.
There was a good turnout for the tb awareness meeting at Exeter and I was rather anxious about it but as it turned out there wasn’t really much new information to be had and it was not all doom and gloom. I feel that we down here in Cornwall are pretty well informed about the situation as it has been in our press for quite a long time now. It was all pretty much a repeat of the VLA talk in Truro last year, even with the same slides. The one slide I hadn’t seen was of a badger with the disease, pretty gruesome and he was still alive!! It’s this ability to survive the disease that makes them such “super secretors”.
Anyway the message was pretty positive, Gina agrees that the industry can continue in the same manner ie mobile or drive-by matings and shows must continue but with the exception of a serious improvement to our bio-security. That was where most of the talk concentrated on and there were some very useful pieces of advice to be had.
There was Teresa from Rosecraddoc Alpacas and Dawn from Golding Alpacas in the car with us. This mean’t for a very chatty trip up so fortunately I remembered my earplugs!! We dropped our fleeces and photo entries of at Classical Alpacas before going to the talk. Chas had to phone Rachel to tell her we were there, she was busy hunting for rabbits!!!! I did spot a fat looking pheasant hanging from the beams so there is obviously more to Rachel than just being an alpaca breeder, magazine editor, industry leader in the alpaca textile world, Futurity organiser etc etc….
The Futurity show team are enjoying the grass in their new isolation field which is just the lawn with a bit of wire around it. It’ll certainly save on the grass cutting when that starts up again. It also means we can get them into the barn easily and quickly when the weather turns nasty. You’ve got to keep them shiny and clean!!!
Tracy has been continuing with the halter training. Here she is with Gomez who, as you can see, already knows how to stand like a champion.
This afternoon we are off to the BAS tb roadshow at Exeter. I hope that after all the positivity of the BAS Show committee meeting of a couple of weeks ago to come back in the same happy frame of mind. We shall see!!
Felicia and Sarah are getting on with the halter training. These are the junior suri males for the Futurity and as far as suris are concerned they are behaving pretty well.
Last Sunday I was up at Stoneleigh for the BAS National Shows Committee meeting. It went on for 6 hours and we covered everything from show rules, trimming, sedatives right the way through to the thorny subject of tb. This was the first of these meetings where the regional groups send their representatives to discuss the various issues. Recommendations are then made to the board for approval. I am pleased to say it was not negative at all and it was decided that shows must definitely carry on but obviously bio-security has to be tightened up and people made aware of what risks there are.
Bryony the vet returned today to check the alpacas that had the tb tests and thankfully they were all clear so the show team can go to the Futuriy and the sold animals to their new homes over the weekend. Now Felicia really needs to get on with the halter training, I don’t want any badly behaved alpacas in the show ring…do I. Apart from that good news its been pretty miserable here weather wise. The raceways have become mud pathways and instead of ice skating we are now mud sliding.
It’s probably a bit harsh to call her a culprit as it was hardly her fault but after scanning the females from the field where I found the aborted foetus it turns out to be Bodega, a lovely fawn girl who was pregnant to Richard. Shame it was going to be one of his first. We’re didn’t really need to scan her, you could tell by the way she just stood quietly and let us handle her. Very out of character when she’s pregnant. Incidentally the foetus was a little over 3 months old.
Cornwall has had snow again this morning except us here at Popham, we’ve just had the horrible slushy stuff called sleet. It must be our proximity to the Tamar River or something that means we keep avoiding it.
Big day tomorrow, got the vet coming to do 14 tb tests and vet 3 girls we’ve sold so that will take some sorting out to get them in from the various paddocks. I was relieved when the 3 girls scanned positive yesterday as they were in the same field as Bodega.
Occasionally an alpaca will slip a pregnancy over the winter and the first you know about is when you spit them off in the spring or just realise that they’re not getting any bigger. Fortunately it is a rare occurrence but today I quite accidentally came across an aborted foetus in one of the fields. We are not sure which female it is as none of them appear distressed or show any physical signs. From the size of the foetus we have narrowed it down to four females all of which were mated in October ( the last group of the year ) and we’ll spit them off at the weekend to find out which one.
Everything has started drying out nicely over the weekend, lets hope it stays like this for a while. We have decided to take the show team to the Futurity. We hadn’t planned to mainly because of the distances involved but neither of us were completely convinced by our decision, so when Chas emailed saying they were struggling with entries we changed our minds. One major problem to overcome, we haven’t started any halter training yet and from previous blogs you probably know how I hate halter training !! I just don’t have the patience so leave it to Felicia and then moan when they won’t walk properly. We are going to take about eight up, five suris and three huacayas . It should be interesting taking on the big boys. The vet is coming a week on Monday to do the show team tb tests and also test some we’ve sold so we’ll have a few days worrying about that. Always an anxious time.
I also entered the photo competition and have been trying to get some pictures of the alpacas and rheas together. Here’s a couple that didn’t make the entry.
