You could be excused for being a bit confused on Saturday at the Devon County Show. According to the catalogue Saturday should have been white huacaya day but first impressions of the alpacas in the ring would have indicated grey animals. This was because on the Friday we were just covered in soot from the steam engines next door. Fortunately Health and safety officials did something I approved of for once and moved them further away.

Apart from that it was a great show made all the more fantastic by the showing of the Popham team. One Championship and three reserves. Not bad when you consider that Alpaca Stud, Classical and Langaton were all there. We were very pleased with Emma and Finesse winning the Champion and reserve in the fawn female suris and little Joshua, at 12 months and 3 days winning Intermediate white huacaya and then taking reserve white male, beating some pretty big names including last years Bath & West supreme winner.

Roll on the next show……

Plans are underway for the preparation of the Popham show team for Devon county and in usual Popham fashion we have entered more than we can fit in the trailer. So some hasty calls have been made and hopefully we are going to get a special permit to make about three deliveries. Meanwhile some of the show team have become so over fleeced that the wet weather has caused them to mat up and you have to rip their fleeces open. These few will be scratched making our travelling arrangements easier anyway. I’m really going to have to improve my fleece management this year and shear the show team much later and seriously look at what all the big breeders seem to be doing…..the dreaded cria shearing.

Anyway back to the show and we are expecting a good showing in the suris from Flinstone and Emma and hopefully some good results from Storm and CoCo in the huacayas. Joshua has just turned one year old so has to move up into intermediate and is taking on the big guns there including, I expect, last years overall winner Paris from Classical Alpacas. Oh well you don’t know how good you are till you beat them.

So watch this space nad I’ll let you know how the Popham team do. If the blog is quiet for a while you can probably safely guess we didn’t do too well!!

You may recall the post about Popham’s “dial an alpaca” mating service ( see 7th April 2009 post). Well as you can see in the photo I have made a few modifications to allow for easier loading.

Things are a bit miserable here at Popham for two reasons. Firstly I have had to cancel the CCA show due to the weather. I went down to the site yesterday and it has just been churned so badly we would have spent more time pulling vehicles out of the mud than showing and also the forecast is proving true as it is just pissing down at the moment.  Oh well, perhaps in hindsight we shouldn’t have chosen a ground that was being used for a horse show the day before but there is nothing we can do about the weather. Secondly I’m pretty grumpy about my knee, I’ve partially torn my patella tendon and am hobbling around on crutches. I am not a very good patient at the best of times so don’t get in the way of my crutches!

As you can see from the previous post Tracy is back with us. Her timing couldn’t have been better what with the next two weekends busy with shows and then Royal Cornwall at the beginning of June where we have a trade stand. We thought we’d give it a go this year but like all new-bee’s to the show they’ve put us out in the periphery somewhere. With so many people pouring through the gates I’m sure we’ll be kept busy.

The race to see who can be the fattest cria has taken an interesting twist with the suri boy having overtaken the huacaya on the fat scales. Both are weighing in at over 20kg but both are the picture of health as they roll around the field.

Finally a competition, Dave and Elaine from Collabear Alpacas brought their girl Bramble down to meet Camouflage. Have a look at the pictures and work out what you think the colour of the cria will be. All entries by email please!!

Hello, Tracey here! I’m back in sunny Cornwall after spending nearly 5 months in New Zealand. Some of you may have already read that i was over there working on an alpaca farm swapping ideas and info with New Zealand alpaca breeders. Well now I’m back and have stepped in to help Gary and Felicia. I have worked on and off for them since 2006 and I’m pleased to be back in the swing of things. And what a busy week it has been. Dream one of the suri females gave us a false alarm at the beginning of the week, she is 11 months and 3 weeks so is imminent. The plan was for dream and kizzi the other expectant female to have them before sunday as it’s the day of the CCA show. But as we all know nothing ever goes to plan. Fingers crossed they will oblige tomorrow! So yes as you can imagine this week has been hectic with the preparation for the show, which is being held at Troon show ground near Cambourne, kick off is at 11am. This show is only open to CCA members and we have received over 60 entries so Gary who is the show organiser is thrilled, as this is more than last year! On the other hand Gary hasn’t been his normal happy cheerful self as he managed to tear his patella tendon, and is now hobbling around on crutch’s hitting anything or any one that gets in his way! Needless to say Felicia is not amused by his impeccable timing once again!

My time in New Zealand was memorable, and a life time experience! Furthering my knowledge of alpacas. I got to see some fantastic animals, and even got to lead a supreme champion around the show ring! I had a permanent smile on my face that day. I got to see a lot of import animals going through quarantine on route to the UK, some stunning, some average, making me realise the standard of the British alpacas are right up there with the best of them. My time over there also made me realise i had great teachers when i first got into alpacas, having a farming background and having lambed thousands of sheep was an advantage, but Gary and Felicia taught me all i know about alpacas! It has been great being able to come back and share my experience and knowledge with them, and bring back some fresh idea’s! I’m just glad to be part of the team here at Popham and able to offer support and advise to clients and fellow alpaca breeders.

And remember if your in the area, pop in and see us at the show this sunday, you may even get to see some of the alpacas mentioned on the blog!!

Took the boys on their first mating trip yesterday to meet Dawn Crawford’s girls near Ashburton. Things didn’t go that smoothly as the boys were a bit slow to get going and Dawn’s girls have been open for a while but eventually the deeds were done but not without some hilarity. Dawn had some company when we arrived, her neighbours son, Charlie and his friend were on the scene to welcome the alpacas. These lads were only about 8 years old so Dawn had to prep them as to what was about to happen. After some difficult questions they sat down to watch matters unfold and as I said things were a bit slow. After a while Charlie volunteered the following suggestion ” turns the dimmer switch down low, put the music on and go to bed in a heart shaped bed”. Well, Camouflage seemed to take this advice on board and got into the spirit of things but by now Charlie and his mate had got bored and pushed off.

The two cria are now weighing on at 18 and 19kg. I am struggling to lift them onto the scales. Surely they have got to slow down shortly or we’ll be thinking of weaning them at about 3 months!!

Felicia and Sarah continued with the halter training on Saturday with those mad suris. Some of them are born to the halter, others would rather die.

One other bit of news is Tracy is back from New Zealand, she been working at Southern Alapacas and Quarantine station where they handle a lot of the exports to this country. She’s been telling us lots of interesting tit bits about all the alpacas destined for our shores. She’s also come back with some great ideas about the fibre and products side of things which we hopefully will be able to use.