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.

Just got back from our local alpaca/llama group  CCA meeting  where we have been planning the years events. Looks like the CCA show will be on the 8th May then we’re going to have our first fleece show at the Camborne Show on the 17th July. With a couple of other events including a fleece skirting day planned it makes me feel we turned the corner on winter and spring is not far away. Even saw the first signs of daffodils today behind the kennels. I’ve been doing the day job quite a bit recently, really gets in the way, but have tomorrow off so hopefully I’ll be able to get the Nikon out and get some more alpaca photos onto the blog, possibly a rhea or two as well.

There was an alpaca doing the show rounds in this country last year and you could say he swept the boards. He was called Navigator and what really interested me about him was his sire, called Spartacus owned by Matt Lloyd of EP Cambridge Alpacas in Australia.  Now I have known Chris and Adrienne of Ambersun Alpacas for many years and you might say they have a very “friendly” rivalry with Matt Lloyd, all together they are the  biggest names in the Aussie alpaca business. The important thing is the only time I have heard Chris and Adrienne compliment a Cambridge animal was when talking about Spartacus.

Having seen the results and listened to the comments I now have three of my best white huacayas in cria to Navigator all due next summer. If only the alpaca business was as easy as that, we all know that the chances of the perfect result are minuscule but it is the dreams that keep us going. All that said tonight I spotted something on the internet that got my heart fluttering…. follow this link ( or copy and paste it to your browser) and you will see why!!!

http://www.abc.net.au/rural/nsw/content/2010/01/s2788326.htm

While the alpacas remain clean and dry in this icy weather Felicia and I decided to get the intermediate males (2008 cria) in and have a look at their fleeces. We also weighed them all and checked them over and I’m pleased to say all are doing well even in these conditions. We were very pleased with some of the fleeces especially our new brown suri male Cosmo. We have still not had much in the way of snow, the ice remains but things are beginning to thaw out this morning. The water in the fields isn’t running yet but I don’t think it will be much longer. The rheas have survived it all very well which is a relief. They have had shelter but have never used it!!!!

We’ve got plenty of ice for the Gin and tonics though but as so often happens we seem to miss out on the snow. I’ve spoken to both Melanie at Moonsbrook Alpacas and Lyndsey at Dreamfield Alpacas today and they are up to their ankles in and have had enough. We kept the younger animals in last night as we did go down to -6 C but they were all eager to get out to the grass this morning. The water troughs need filling by hand but that is where the quad comes in really useful. One thing about this weather is the alpacas do scrub up nicely.

The second photo is one of our favourite crias from last year. She is out of Little Legend and we called her Inkspot as she has a small brown patch on the side of her neck. She’s a real star.

With the icy weather back the alpacas have cleaned up beautifully again so out came the trusty Nikon and here are some pics of this years potential stud males. The first is Popham Ambersun Flame, a son of Benleigh Golden flame and a grandson of Jolimont Warrior. The second is Flame agin, this time with Popham Storm, a son of Little Legend. The third is our new suri stud male, Moonsbrook Cosmo, a Bulleyman boy, who will cover all our Matador girls and give us  colour in the offspring that Felicia really wants to develop. The fourth is Cambridge Joshua, a Remarque boy who was born on Popham but at the time his mother belonged to EP Cambridge hence his Cambridge prefix. The black male is Popham Equador who has really come on well in the last year and will cover the black huacayas in the Popham herd. The final alpacas pic is of Popham Free Spirit ( Bozedown Ceasar) and Cosmo again.

Then there’s the rheas who have survived the cold weather really well and have grown tremendously.

Well that’s Christmas over for another year, I probably sound a bit like Scrooge but I always feel a sort of anticlimax at this time of the festive season especially after all the excitement in the build up to the big day.

Sorry for the blog being so quiet recently, I will try and do better for the new year. There you go, that will be my New Years Resolution. I much prefer the sound of that to a diet.

The alpacas cleaned up beautifully in the freezing weather, they seemed to love it. We didn’t have any snow but loads of ice and frozen ground. Alas though the rain is back now and the alpacas have gone back to their drowned rat appearance. We have weaned quite a few of the cria in the last few weeks and as per normal most of them handle the next few days quite happily but there’s always one or two that wonder around totally lost. They’re the ones we watch very closely and dose up with wormer, vecoxan and vitamins. They do loose some weight but soon begin to pick up again.