Where does the time go, its seems like only yesterday we were celebrating the start of spring and look, its already the end of April. Before we know where we are we will be shearing, thats if Felicia hasn’t quietly arranged to have me have me done in before then. I’ve made a bit of a mistake. We have arranged our shearing day for the 13th June. Nothing wrong with that you say but I have also ( not on purpose I assure you) arranged a quick trip with the boys to Le Mans to see the 24 hour racing for that weekend. Oops……

Now as much as I would like to go to Le mans and return to find all all the alpacas sheared, I am rather happy in my married life and would like it to continue that way so I have been trying to contact Colin and re-arrange the shearing day but he is in France shearing till the 5th of May so I am going to have a sticky few days till then.

Well, after much deliberation over the weekend we finally decided to keep with our original plan and hold fire on the matings till July. We really were in two minds about it having seen how well the early cria have done this year but with us both working it seems best to concentrate the breeding season into a much smaller period. This will also free up our time for the shows etc so I’m afraid to say there were some very disappointed stud males here over the weekend.

Said goodbye to Eternity and Falcon over the weekend, Eternity has gone to join Tania at Caton Alpacas and Falcon has gone to Emma and Glen at Eden alpacas near St. Austell.

Paul and Jaquii from Cherokee Alpacas have sent me some photos of the Camouflage day. I love the one with the little Pied Piper.

Things have been pretty hectic at work recently so the blog has consequently been quite quiet and there has not been so much happening with the alpacas apart from feed, check, weigh, feed, check weigh etc and then of course the Camouflage day kept us busy. We have decided to do some matings this weekend and break our resolution. The first reason for this is the fact that these early cria are doing so well and the other is quite simply that Camouflage ( and Richard) for that matter have had some bookings made for their services. We want tom make sure they are working and not firing blanks before we go setting off around the countryside with them. Also (on a more selfish note) we want to be the first to have their cria !!!!!

We had a very busy day yesterday with our Camouflage “Open ” day, so much so that I didn’t have time to get my camera out. I’m hoping we’ll get some photos sent in so I can put them on the blog. Steve from Quelvhin Alpacas in Brittany helped out and really looked the part in his camouflage tee-shirt. The weather  helped out as well. We also managed to get 3 new members for the CCA group which will help to swell our numbers for the CCA show in May.

Thanks Mark for your comment about cria weight gain, (see last blog). Our cria weight gain is continuing at a fantastic rate, this is the first time we have had cria this early and I agree with Mark, it must have something to do with the seasonal grass surge. As I have mentioned in the blog before, this year we are planning to hold all our matings back till mid July but we are beginning to reconsider this in view of how well these early cria are doing.

We weighed the cria earlier today. Mundevhu has put on a massive 8kg in just under a month and Invincible 6kg in about 3 weeks. Those are the biggest weight gains we have ever known. The moms are so attentive and let the cria drink for as long as they want. They’ll be catching up the weanlings from last year shortly.

The rain came back yesterday but it didn’t really bother us too much as we were all a bit  fragile after the party on Sunday.

We have had a couple of really busy days worming everyone and moving the groups around to fresh pasture. The really lucky ones moved up to a paddock about a mile away. It’s about 4 acres and the grass is ankle high and really green and lush. The seven I took up couldn’t believe their eyes and went charging around doing their little hops and skips before settling down to some serious munching. Tomorrow I will take up another dozen which will spoil the party a bit!!

The two cria are growing at an incredible rate (oh by the way I have called the suri boy who had a bad start Invincible, partly because that’s a good name to hear over the tannoy when he wins his first show. The other reason is because its the type of new vehicle I’m getting after my Nissan blew up. A Toyota Hilux Invincible.

Our daughter Victoria is back from Uni this weekend, just finished her third year at Birmingham Med School( yes a proud Dad) and our son Phil and his girlfriend are coming down for Easter. It’s Victoria’s 21st on Sunday and we are having a big thrash for her. So the blog is going to be quiet till after Easter so we’ll see you then and have a good one.

Well here it is folks, the information you’ve been waiting for.

Our new mobile mating service swings into action shortly ….

We returned last night, exhausted but very pleased with our performance at the Swag show. 420 alpacas, all the big breeders and numerous smaller breeders, some I’ve never met before. We managed six rosettes from our twelve entries. The three results that really pleased us were our huacaya juniors. Storm, our Little Legend boy, getting third in the Junior fawn huacaya, Joshua also came third in the Junior white huacaya and then Coco came home with a fourth in the junior fawn female. These were massive classes and we were surrounded by all the big names and to see them further down in the line-up when the prizes were given was very satisfying. Our suris also did very well. Eva came second in the intermediate white suri. Emma won Intermediate Suri fawn female even though her behavior in the ring was appalling. Fatima won coloured female suri junior.

The show went very well, the organisation was terrific and I feel the Swag committee deserve a round of applause.

It’s not often I use this blog to advertise but after our tremendous success I shall be bringing you details of new mobile mating service in the next posting so watch this space.