The prem cria is coming on leaps and bounds. We’ve  nicknamed her Floppsy II and I think the picture of her will explain why. (We dare not give her a proper name yet). She hasn’t put on much weight yet but is definitely tucking into mum’s milk bar. You only need to hear the slurping sounds to know that. We had a very busy “Experience Day” today with a lovely family from Truro and another from Liskeard. Certainly beat our record for the youngest alpaca fans with Fred and Millie aged 9 & 5. Fred took to alpaca farming like an old pro, even wanting to give injections !!! Unfortunately I completely forgot the trusty Nikon, so hopefully Toby, their day will remember to send me some photos.

Some of the daily chores got left a bit late I’m afraid to say.

I was just thinking over the weekend how things were a bit quiet at Popham and how at this time of year it’s difficult to find subjects to put on the blog. The weather doesn’t help as without the sun there are no real photo opportunities.

That changed yesterday. Last week we brought some females down to the birthing field early as a couple of them have a history of very early deliveries. In fact Bonny, the black huacaya has done it three years running and yesterday was no exception. A little black girl 5 1/2 weeks early. Fortunately Felicia was around as the cria went downhill very quickly and her temperature dropped to 34C. So straight into a warm bath she went till her temperature was up to 37 C and she was thrashing around. Then down in front of the Aga with Dogo, our Jack Russell on guard. We had some frozen colostrum from last year which she was given and then when I got home we moved her up to the barn to join mum and started the delightful job of milking an alpaca.

She’s still going this morning and is trying to feed but hasn’t succeeded yet so we will be topping her up for a while to come yet.

Our little female cria that we had to start suddenly on the bottle is really doing well now. Initially there was some weight loss when we started on the bottle but she seems to have settled into the diet and is much more perky. Infact quite difficult to catch which makes for a fun time when its dark but rattling the food bucket and getting the rest in makes life easier.

We have brought our first pregnant mums down to the birthing field. They aren’t due till March but two of them have given birth at 6 weeks early before so we are playing safe. They are a nice looking bunch of females, all the colours except grey. Three huacayas and one suri. When the sun comes out I reckon there should be some good photos to be taken. Amazing to think it almost cria time again.

I had a look at our Alpacaseller sales list and I was shocked at how out of date it was so my job over the weekend was to get new photos done and all the latest info onto the website etc.

Why does the alpaca you want to photograph always move to the back of the crowd when you get your camera out and the rest just stand in the way looking at you. Then just as you’ve got the great shot lined up a head appears in front of your lens. The other problem was it has been rather wet. I should have done it last week when they were all dry and shiny!!

Anyway it’s all up to date now, at least till next time.

Sorry it’s taken so long for the next update but, it’s been busy as normal over here!

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and a happy new year?? I had a lovely time up in the north island with Becky!

Mon 22nd I had to take a male down to meet Nic at Lake Tekapo, to be dropped off for a client. Balmoral Station owned by Andrew & Kathy and their son Sam, farming over 5000 Merino sheep! They were extremely friendly, and offered to show me around the shearing shed. You may well be thinking “it’s only a shed”, but let me tell you it was amazing. Andrew got in some merino rams for me to look at as all the sheep were up in the hills. You could see for miles, but there was no sign of a single sheep! They have recently started breeding alpacas, and buy mainly weathers as their main aim is fleece production. Most of their sheep wool comes from castrated males so they find weathered males just as suitable as any other. They were kind enough to offer me the use of their spare cottage if I was travelling in the area or just wanting to learn more about merino farming. I think I will end up taking them up on the offer! On the way home approx 10min from leaving the merino farm, we passed a small airport that does air safaris in that area. Nic pulled in and sent me in the direction of the plane. It was fantastic. Flying over Mount Cook, Lake Tekapo, Lake Pukaki and the Fox Glacier. I was up in the air for 1hour 15mins, whilst I was in the air, nick took the Stud male we had in the float for a walk around Lake Tekapo, he said he had some strange looks, but most people just wanted to pet the alpaca and have their photos taken with him. The next morning I flew out from Christchurch to Palmerston North. Then caught the bus to Hawera where Becky is staying. It was lovely to see a familiar face when I got off the bus. She took me straight to the beach. We had a lovely stroll along the beach, the sand was jet black!

Once we got to the farm, I met the people Becky was staying with, William and Hazel, and there 5month old son Harry! Hazel’s parents were over from UK, they live near Tiverton, Devon. It’s a small world. They were really welcoming, lovely people. Me and Becky offered to do the milking over Christmas as it gave them time as a family. They milk approx 350 jersey cows. I never realised how small there were. The parlour is a 36/72 herringbone so it takes 2 of you to milk. We wandered into town Christmas Eve and had a few drinks in a local pub that has a live band every year! Xmas day was hectic, we did the milking and feeding up then off the Williams family, 24 of us for dinner, good job it was a buffet.

On Boxing Day after milking me and Becky set off for Mount Taranaki or Mount Egmont as the locals call it. We went to Dawson Falls, then on to the ski fields. We headed back to Hawera via New Plymouth and on to the Surf Highway 45! On the sat it was Williams’s birthday, hazel that morning had asked him what he wanted for his birthday tea, she said he could have whatever he wanted. To which he replied “corned beef”!!!! I was stunned, who on earth would choose corn beef as there favourite meal. Well I was in for a surprise as corned beef over here is nothing like the corned beef we have at home. It’s a lovely joined of beef prepared by the butchers in a special way, it was delicious.

We left on Monday for a road trip. We had 3 days to explore some of the north island. We spent the 1st day travelling up to Tauranga via the forgotten highway; this road was full of bends and hills, enough to make anyone sick, some of the road was just a gravel track. We drove for miles and miles, good job we remembered to fill up with petrol before we left as there wasn’t a fuel station in sight!

We stayed in Mt Maunganui where it proceeded to tip down with rain. The next morning we headed towards Rotorua. We went up the Gondola and on the Luge, which is like a kart x toboggan track downhill, it was awesome. We also talked ourselves in to going on this thing called the sky swing. Oh my, what had we done? It pulls you clear in to the air strapped in to a cage then drops you. You free fall then swing over the cliff overlooking Rotorua town. We then headed up the road where we were staying that night with a relative of Becky’s. They are milking well over 600 cows. I had great in depth conversations with Lockland and Heather about shearing Angora rabbits. They used to breed then a few years back, and we decided the way they did it was very similar to shearing alpacas. They had some friends staying with them from the UK. Pat and Jean from Dartmouth in Devon. Yes more Devon people. Pat took great delight in mocking the Cornish, but I can assure you I put up a good fight for the Cornish. He later admitted a good few hours later, that he was in fact born in Cornwall, oh how I enjoyed that moment!!

On the way home we visited Waitomo caves, where we went to see the glow worms. This was amazing highly recommended to anyone who ever gets the chance to see them. We then dropped in to the Angora rabbit Shearing shed!! Now was my chance to compare shearing methods. Yes it looks like torture as doe’s alpaca shearing, the only difference being the size of the animal. Much easier. We headed back home down the coast towards New Plymouth, then across country to Hawera. We went to the pub with Williams’s sister Tash that evening for New Years Eve. It was very quite as most people from the town leave to go elsewhere for New Year. All I can say was it was a damn site warmer than Looe.

I arrived back in Christchurch sat 3rd. On the flight down I looked out of the window and saw what I thought was field that had been spread with lime. Well I was informed by Nic that it was actually Hail!!!!!!! They had had a down pour of hail and rain in 15minutes. Enough to make everywhere white. The hail stones where that big that it had destroyed most of the veg garden. Within a few moments it was hot and sunny again.

The day before a little cria was born weighing just 4.2kg with a temp of 34.2 by 5pm his temp was 34 so he was put in a plastic bag and Linda sat with him in the Jacuzzi, within a few minutes his temp had risen to 35.9. By 8.30pm it was 36.3. It was fed glucose until it was bright enough to drink milk. This was a task as it decided it did not like the taste of the milk replacer and so the job of hand milking mum started. Every 3 hours for the next few days. By day 3 its weight had dropped to 3.6kg, this as you know is normal for babies, but at such a light birth weight it could not afford to lose much more. All this time we were feeding him, you could see he was a fighter, with a little wicked streak in his eye. By day 8 his weight was up to 4.8kg, all our hard work feeding and milking mum finally looked as if it was paying off. By day 11 he weighed 5.8kg and had gained the nick name Newt!! He’s now doing laps of the paddock with a cria twice his size and is nearly winning the races.

That brings us to today; I have spent the morning righting my article for the lifestyle block magazine over here (that’s what they call small holders!!).

I have now had the chance to sit down and write this email to you all. I have decided o stay in this evening as we are shearing on Monday and have a busy day tomorrow cleaning animals.

Becky is arriving down here on Mon so will be good to see her again. She has got 4 weeks off to travel the south island. I’m hopefully getting a week off end of next week.

Well that’s all for now. I hope this finds you all well?!! I still love it over here. Time is still passing by far too quickly.

All my love and best wishes

T xx

We’ve had some sad news from Australia. Followers of this blog will remember our male cria born (blog 9/11/08) to our female Lorraine. Unfortunately we have heard from Mariah Hill that he died suddenly. Initial thoughts are it was due to a lung infection but we are waiting the post-mortem results. Ah well, that’s alpacas for you.

After the ice age the wean-lings are delighted to be put out on a fresh field with some green grass. There’s probably not much in it except water but they do love it. Hardly touching the hay whereas a few days ago we couldn’t keep up with the demand. The little girl that we started bottle feeding a while back is still with us. She seems full of vigour but not much in the way of weight gain yet. Happily she is taking the bottle better.

The best thing about the recent cold, dry weather is that the alpacas are clean and dry instead of appearing like drowned rats. Their fleeces are in beautifull condition especially these two. Coco (on the left) and Storm.

I was better equipped to deal with the ice this morning and took a hammer and cleared all the water troughs. I reckon on the ice being about three inches thick. Of course I had to refill the troughs by hand, the alpacas as usual found this all very interesting but appeared relieved not to have to stick their heads through the little ice holes anymore. They looked like eskimos fishing.

I’ve being using the trusty Nikon indoors today trying to get some suitable pictures of our yarn to go onto our on-line shop. This should be up and running in a few weeks time. This is about the best I have managed so far. I’ll have to trawl through all the other websites to get some inspiration.

Dogo, our Jack Russell gave a very good impression of Robin Cousins last night!

I smashed a bucket to bits trying to break the ice on the water troughs this morning, I’ll use something heavier next time.

Glad to say the little girl we have had to start bottle feeding is taking the milk (in a fashion) and seems to be a bit more lively. Felicia did some poo samples on the cria and they are clear of worms but just beginning to show the start of a cocci build up. Hopefully the vecoxan we gave them will stop that especially if we give them another dose at the weekend.

I ried to take some photos in the sun this morning but the lens kept on misting up in the cold. I do like this cold dry weather, much healthier for man and beast.