Wet Hay – What to Do?

Last fall our neighbor planted some dryland wheat on his field and part of one of our fields that adjoins his property.  The agreement was that if he planted it we would allow him to graze our portion and once the hay was baled we would be able to keep a few bales.

Harvest time came and the hay was cut, let to sit for a while to dry out and then baled up into round bales.  With our wet spring we were fortunate not to have rain on the hay once it was cut – or so we thought.

When I last let the girls out to graze, several of them headed straight to the hay barn and started picking hay off the sides of the bales that had been harvested from our field (note – the girls are not silly and know where the hay is kept!).  We were pleased to see that the girls liked the hay from our field, we had had it tested and the test results were good for alpaca hay.

I started feeding the hay on Sunday.  I noticed when I was getting it off the bale it smelt different from our previous load of hay.  Not a bad or mouldy smell, but definitely a different one, a little like the smell of brome or even tobacco leaves.  The hay also felt a little different and was harder to prise off the bale.

During the evening I went out to check on the girls and was surprised to see hay still in their hay bunks, usually it disappears pretty quickly.

Yesterday as Ric was feeding he called me over to the hay, as he was trying to get hay from the bale the pitchfork had actually broken.  Until he could get to mend the pitch fork he pulled some hay off the bale and at that point realized that the hay felt damp and hot, not a good thing.

We have tried another bale from the same cutting and it too is dry at the ends but feels wet and hot in the middle.

So now we have a problem, what to do with the hay.  Fortunately we had just agreed to buy some hay from two different sources so we can hopefully get some different hay delivered to us pretty quickly.  However we have three and a half bales that are wet and hot.

Wet hay is not good feed as it can mold and also it loses some of its nutritional value.  Hot hay is a potential hazard as it can spontaneously combust.  So tomorrow we will be taking temperatures on the hay, if the temperature within the bale is over 96 we really have a problem on our hands and will need to carefully move the bales to a place where it will be safe should they burn (not that I can think of such a place right now, but I bet you I will pretty quickly if the hay is that hot).  The other suggestion has been to break open the bales and spread the hay to dry out.  We do have space to do that, but it will be a tedious process and we will lose a lot of hay, but rather that than lose the farm to a hay fire.

One thing that does puzzle me is that on researching this subject the documents I found referred to the optimum baling moisture of hay for big round bales being 18% or slightly less.  Our hay’s moisture content at the time of testing was 17.17%.  From what I have read some moisture is required in baled hay to allow for limited fungi to grow and for the bale to stabilize at around 15% moisture, so I am surprised that we are having problems with hay that has a 17% moisture content.  Of course wet hay is a subject on which I only have limited knowledge, so perhaps the answer on the moisture content on our hay is obvious to a knowledgable hay grower – if so I hope that hay grower will share the answer to my question with me!

Rosemary

Just for the Record

In an effort to continue to catch up on various tasks I spent the weekend entering data into our herd record computer software.  It is a task that I prefer to do weekly, but it just takes a spate of back to back shows, seminars, shearing, vacations and other such distractions and before I know it there is a ton of data entry to do.

The good thing is that we have good and current records on all of the alpacas at the farm by virtue of our barn book.  The barn book is actually a Day-Timer kept in a sturdy three ring binder (I like the Day-Timer page format and I also like the reminder that they send me every year to put in my order for next year, it’s one less thing to think about!).  Everything that happens with regards to the alpacas is logged into the barn book.  Weights, breeding records, medications, routine tasks such as toe nail trimming, observations on particular alpacas, birthing records, show records, arriving and departing alpacas – if it pertains to the alpacas it is written into the barn book.  We have even used it to log feed consumption noting when we opened a bag of feed or started a new bale of hay. 

The barn book is a very useful tool and a great place to start with herd records, but from there they need to be put into a format that makes the information easily accessible and well organized.

We use software called HerdLogic and have been using it for several years now.  When we first started raising alpacas we had a special book with record sheets for each alpaca, which was fine, but everything was lumped together and so to find a certain piece of information we had to wade through the pages for each alpaca.  So as the herd grew we realized that in order to be able to keep up with all of the alpaca records we needed something more sophisticated than hand written sheets. 

After doing our research and talking to other alpaca breeders we decided that HerdLogic was our best option and we have been pleased with the product over the years.  The company regularly releases updates with improvements on the product, and we find the product easy to use.  I keep my HerdLogic records on my laptop computer, which makes it easy for me to have access to that information at shows and other events I attend.

To me good record keeping is very important.  As we are very open in the information we give to prospective buyers of our alpacas it is important that we can readily show them all of the records for any alpaca they might be interested in.  I personally am a bit put off when I ask to see records on an alpaca that I might be interested in purchasing and the alpaca’s owner either does not have records or provides records that are either too vague or incomplete.

No doubt about it, it is a chore to keep up with the data entry on the herd records, but at the end of the day it makes life so much easier.  Whether we be providing records to a prospective customer or sending records to a vet regarding a sick alpaca, it is great to be able to just pull up the records on the computer and print off a copy.

So this evening it is back to the grindstone, not too much longer and I will be fully up to date and get back into healthy habits of entering data on a weekly basis.

 Rosemary 

Cinnamon – Much Improved

Friday night ended up being a short one as I stayed up until 2 a.m. to monitor Cinnamon who had been ill earlier in the day.  Thankfully by 2 a.m. she started to chew her cud, just a little, but enough to make me feel she was back on track again.  Cinnamon looked pretty relaxed and so I felt that I could chance leaving her alone for a few hours to grab some sleep. 

It was almost a full moon last night and the alpacas were very relaxed in the moonlight, some chewing their cud, others stretched out, others just watching the world go by and the crias curled up beside their dams for the night.

By 6 a.m. I was up to check on Cinnamon again and she looked good.  She had returned to the pen where I had kept her for part of Friday and was happily eating hay. 

Eventually as the morning progressed I saw her go to the poop pile and was pleased to see her passing normal alpaca beans. 

Cinnamon will still be on her antibiotics for the next few days, she is starting to realize that the applesauce that I mix the Tucoprim in actually tastes nice and once I caught her she took it without a fuss.  Cinnamon will also receive regular doses of MSE drench until her antibiotics are finished, as antibiotics can have a diminishing effect on the stomach flora and that is the last thing Cinnamon needs right now.

So all in all Saturday was an easier day.  I will still be keeping a close eye on Cinnamon in case she has a relapse and also the rest of the herd in case anyone else starts with diarrhea, but for now at least all looks good.  Fingers crossed it will stay that way!

Rosemary

Gut Feelings – In More Ways Than One

Yesterday morning got off to a rough start when I looked out at the girls pasture and noticed one of our young females Cinnamon lying on her side on her own.  Cinnamon is a real herd lover and it just isn’t like her to be away from the rest of the herd.  What also bothered me was that Cinnamon was in the same part of the pasture that she was sitting in when I did my late night check the night before. 

I watched Cinnamon for a while to see what she did; I felt that if she got up after a short while and joined the herd she was probably okay.  As I watched Cinnamon she did not get up, she sat partially up and then lay back down; something was surely not right with her.

I quickly got dressed and went out to check on Cinnamon, as I got close I could see that she was lying in a pool of diarrhea and had diarrhea flowing from her.  I could also see marks in the ground where her feet had been scrabbling during the night.  I knew that I had to give Cinnamon some immediate care and I also needed to assess her condition.  Could she stand? Did she have a temperature?  How were her heart rate and respiration?  Was she even interested in food?

I went back to the house, collected a rectal thermometer, paper towels, rubber gloves, drew up 10cc of MSE drench and made up a dose of Tucoprim, an antibiotic that we commonly use for bad diarrhea.  I thought about bringing out some Biosponge, a product which is an intestinal absorbent and is pretty good at arresting diarrhea in crias, however part of me felt that I needed to let Cinnamon’s body expel whatever was causing the problem and so I decided against the Biosponge. 

Grabbing a halter I went over to Cinnamon and was able to halter her without too much of a problem.  Another indication that she was not feeling well, as usually she is not too keen to put her halter on and certainly would not let me catch her in an open space.  Thankfully Cinnamon was able to stand and so I gently walked her over to a pen so that I could assess her, medicate her and observe her.

Cinnamon’s heart and respiration were normal and her temperature was 101.5, which was pretty close to normal (normal temperature in an adult alpaca is 101.1).  I gave Cinnamon the Tucoprim and MSE (which she promptly tried to spit out) and then cleaned her up as best I could with the paper towels being careful to put them into a plastic sack that I had taken out with me to avoid spreading whatever it was Cinnamon had.

Cinnamon was willing at that stage to walk around the pen and so I left her in there and brought her a bucket of hay and two buckets of water, one of plain water and the other water with electrolytes in it.  The reason behind the two buckets of water was that I wanted her to drink something and if she wasn’t keen on electrolyte water and that was all that I had left her then she would more than likely not drink.  By offering plain water alongside the electrolyte water I had a good chance she would drink something.  After a short while Cinnamon started to nibble on some hay, which was another good sign.  I also saw her drinking the plain water which was encouraging.

I had discovered Cinnamon having trouble at 6:30 a.m. and by 10:30 a.m. she was acting much better, I let her out of the pen and she immediately went to the poop pile.  This time she did not have diarrhea but instead her poop was the texture of mashed potatoes so something was starting to work.

I left Cinnamon out of her pen for the rest of the day.  She moved around a little slower than normal and ate hay; I was encouraged to see her chewing her cud, another good sign. 

As the day progressed I became aware that Cinnamon was becoming less active and when she lay down she either stretched out on her side or lay with her legs kicked out.  Both of those positions can indicate abdominal discomfort in an alpaca and so red flags started to go up for me.  I continued to watch Cinnamon through the afternoon and one thing I did notice was that while she was going to the poop pile only urine was coming out, no poop was to be seen.

By the time evening chores came around I decided to again pen Cinnamon up to observe her.  She again let me catch her without too much fuss and when I put her in her pen she lay down almost immediately.  I had soaked some beet pulp shreds for her as I felt she should not have pellets while her stomach was upset and beet pulp shreds are Cinnamons favorite.  I also put hay and water in the pen.  I sat down near Cinnamon and could hear that she was moaning very quietly, I offered her the beet shreds but she was not at all interested and the same went for the hay.

Pain management in alpacas is, I feel, essential to their recovery, if they get to a stage where the pain is too intense they can easily give up their fight to survive.  With Cinnamon starting to moan I was now pretty certain she was experiencing some pain.  The pain most likely was gas caused by her intestinal upset, that in itself can be problematic as when the gas causes pain the alpaca tenses up and it is harder for the gas to pass through the alpacas system.  So to ease Cinnamon’s pain I gave her 1cc of Banamine.  The Banamine helps reduce pain but also will help Cinnamon to relax. 

Within an hour of having the Banamine Cinnamon was up and eating hay.  She ate hay well and then eat her beet pulp shreds so I let her out to join the herd.  The last thing I want to do is stress her and I know she will be happier with the herd. 

So as I write this (on Friday night) I am encouraged that Cinnamon is eating again, but I know that she is still not out of trouble yet.  I will of course check on her during the night, hopefully she will be relaxed and comfortable and her digestive system can start to function normally.

After several years of raising alpacas, I find that often the best thing is to trust my gut feelings.  Now I certainly would have called our vet if I felt Cinnamon had a condition that was beyond my caring skills, but as of now my gut feeling is that Cinnamon ate something that badly disagreed with her.  Just two days before this happened she and the rest of the girls were out grazing; perhaps it was something she ate that day that caused the problem.  Of course if Cinnamon does not start to show improvement I will consult our vet and see what he recommends, she may need a stronger antibiotic, but from what I have seen she is responding to what I have done so far. 

As with humans it could take her a few days to get back to her normal lively self, but until then you can be certain that she will be watched very closely and given the best care I can.   I might lose some sleep over Cinnamon, but it will be worth every minute if I can get her back to good health – who needs sleep anyway!

Rosemary

Getting Voices Heard

Ric left yesterday to travel to Nashville, Tennessee to attend a meeting of the Alpaca Owners and Breeders Association (AOBA) Affiliate Congress.

The Affiliate Congress was developed in the past year in an effort to improve communication between the AOBA Board of Directors and the membership of AOBA.  Long gone are the days when AOBA had just a few hundred members and communication between the BOD and membership was effortless.  Now with several thousand members in AOBA it is a little bit more difficult for the membership to get their voices heard, but as AOBA is their organization it is important that they do so.

As there are many regional affiliates to AOBA it was decided that the affiliates could best provide the link between AOBA and the membership and so the Affiliate Congress is composed of the current Affiliate Presidents or their designated representative.  As Ric is currently the President of the TxOLAN Alpaca Affiliate it is his duty to attend the Affiliate Congress meeting.

The strategy of the Affiliate Congress is to identify issues and opportunities within the membership that need to be addressed and to then jointly develop solutions within the Affiliate Congress which the AOBA board can review and implement as appropriate.

Ric’s journey to Nashville was slightly delayed by weather and runway problems in Dallas/Fort Worth but he made it to Nashville safely and is now checked in to his hotel.  It will be interesting to hear all that he learns from this weekend, and hopefully the Affiliate Congress can continue with their vision to create an organization where their members enjoy effective communication between themselves and the AOBA board and are delighted with the work of both the affiliate congress and the AOBA board.  I am sure Ric will learn a lot and it will also be a great chance for him to visit with other Affiliate Presidents and get to know them better.

I have a quiet weekend planned and am hoping to be able to get caught up on entering my herd records into the computer and other office tasks.  We don’t have any crias due or any alpacas to breed so chores will be routine – well that’s what I think and I am just hoping the alpacas agree with me!

Rosemary 

Best Friends – At Least For Now

It’s always fun to watch how the crias interact with each other, they are typically full of fun and want to play.  Chases around the pasture, neck wrestling, king of the hill games and general exploration are generally the order of the day for crias.  They learn from each other and they learn from the older alpacas in the pasture.

Sometimes crias bond closely with each other, other-times the bond is not as tight.  Currently we have two crias who are very tightly bonded and spend almost every moment of the day in the company of each other.

One of the crias is little Annie who we sheared the other day.  Annie is quite laid back and never really took to the other crias that were already here when she arrived.  The other cria is Clarissa’s little boy, who now finally has a name “Windrush White Blast” or Blast to his friends. 

In my absence Ric had called Clarissa’s cria “Speck” as whenever Ric looked out to the pasture there was a little white speck chasing around, but Speck is not really a very strong name for a herdsire in the making, so we upped the volume on his name taking him from being a speck to being a blast.  I am not sure that Blast is too impressed with his new name as he still answers to “baby” but in time we hope he will take to it.

Annie and Blast really are very close, Blast spends far more time with Annie than he does with his dam Clarissa.  He does go back to Clarissa to nurse but once he has finished it is back to Annie’s side.  The two play together and lie together in the sunshine.  Annie now eats a few pellets in the morning and Blast is following her lead, sticking his head in the bowl and rolling a pellet around in his mouth.

The only problem with Annie and Blast’s relationship is that Annie is here with her dam Aurora who has been sent to us for breeding.  We believe Aurora is now pregnant and will be ultra-sounding her next week to confirm the pregnancy.  Once Aurora is confirmed pregnant she and Annie will be headed home to their owners which I am sure is not going to go over well with Blast.

It’s difficult to know what to do in this situation, we could put them in separate pastures here but they would still be able to see each other and that would be stressful on them.  We will just have to be ready to keep an eye on Blast once Annie leaves and maybe give him a few cc’s of MSE drench to help him cope with the stress of being separated from his friend.

One consolation is that when we took Annie to be sheared the other day Blast went off and did his own thing so perhaps all will be well when Annie goes home.  Until then we will let the two of them enjoy each others company and who knows one day when they are fully grown they may reunite for a breeding date!  Wouldn’t that be something.

 Rosemary

The Quest for Good Hay

It’s that time of the year when we start to try and find our hay supply for the alpacas for the next year.  We like to try and buy a years supply of hay at a time to provide stability in the alpacas diet.  It really isn’t a good thing to keep switching from one hay to the other, it can cause digestive upset and sometimes the alpacas don’t like the switch and may stop eating or eat less for several days.

When you research the types of hay to feed to alpacas you will find a lot of reference to Orchard Grass hay, Timothy hay and Bermuda Grass hay.  Orchard and Bermuda grass hay can be a good choice and Timothy is okay if part of a mix with another hay, to feed straight Timothy hay can lead to problems as time goes on.

In our area Orchard hay and Bermuda hay are not grown, the area mainly caters to beef and dairy cattle and therefore the hay grown tends to be Wheat hay, Haygrazer, Alfalfa and a little Oat hay.  Haygrazer is not a good choice for alpacas and alfalfa is usually too high in protein for alpacas; you can feed a little alfalfa to your late term pregnancy girls who need the extra energy but as a rule it is not a good day to day hay for a herd of alpacas. 

Wheat hay and Oat hay can be good choices for alpacas.  We have been feeding Wheat hay for about the last two years and have enjoyed great success with it, the alpacas love it and typically it has the right nutritional values that we look for in hay.

This year with our Wet spring and slightly cooler summer you would think we would have an abundance of hay to choose from, but that isn’t the case.All hay that we purchase we have analyzed to reveal it’s nutritional content, we use a local laboratory ADM Labs of Clovis to analyze our hay. 

ADM has always provided us with great service and by having our hay analyzed we have managed to avoid some costly mistakes in our hay buying. 

As we have had various samples of hay tested this year we are finding that the hay in our area is deficient in calcium.  We usually like to see our calcium to phosphorus levels run at 2:1 or at the least 1.5:1 but this year the calcium levels are low and the calcium phosphorus levels are closer to 1:2 which is not good.  The correct calcium to phosphorus level is particularly important for our pregnant females and crias.  The pregnant females need to be able to produce healthy crias with good bone and provide sufficient milk to those crias all without depleting their own calcium levels.  In the young crias calcium is important for the development of their bones as they grow.

The other level we are having a particular problem with this year is potassium, we are seeing some really high potassium levels in the hay which is an indication to me that it has been over-fertilized.  While I do not know for sure I suspect that when we had such a “good” spring the farmers increased their fertilizer in an effort to produce a bumper crop.  Without getting too scientific a high potassium level could lead to the calcium in the high getting tied up and not being as available to the alpacas.

Additionally the protein levels in much of the hay we are testing are too high for alpacas.  We like our protein level to be between 12 – 14% and we are seeing protein levels in the 18% range.  While the higher protein levels are probably good for horses they are not so good for alpacas who are such efficient converters of their feed.

It looks as if we may have to buy hay from two sources and combine the two hays to get somewhere close to what we need.  It may be that with the right mineral supplementation we can come up with a diet for our alpacas that is pretty close to what we desire.  We could look at freighting in hay from another state but with the current fuel prices the cost of doing that will probably be sky high.

So for now we will continue our search for hay, it’s worth it to me to take the time to look at everything available to us and also to have it analyzed so that we know what we are feeding.   Hopefully soon we will find a good solution to our hay dilemma.

 Rosemary

Shearing Crias – Yes or No?

    Velvet           Annie

Sunday’s fleece skirting seminar finished earlier than I had expected so I took the opportunity to get home a day earlier.  It meant I didn’t get to stay with my friends Nancy and Brian, but they were very understanding about my going home and we will all look forward to the next time we can get together.

So having arrived home a day earlier than expected it was time to get some tasks done.   One task that needed doing was to shear Annie the cria.  Annie’s dam Aurora is here for breeding and as Annie is not weaned yet she of course came with Aurora.  Annie has a very fine, silky fleece and lots of it and during a recent discussion with her owner it had been decided that it was in Annie’s best interest to shear her. 

Many breeders debate about shearing crias.  When we first came into the alpaca business crias were not usually shorn until the shearing a year after their birth.  As time has passed on and the industry has gained more knowledge about alpacas and alpaca fleece some breeders have started to shear their crias anytime from two weeks of age onwards. 

The theory behind shearing crias is that they are less likely to heat stress if the weather is warm and that their fleece will appear more even by the time they come to show.  Another benefit of shearing crias is that the “cria tips” of the fleece are removed.  Cria tips are at the tip of the fibers of an alpacas first fleece, they are the part of the fleece that is in the amniotic fluid the longest prior to the cria being born, and often they are fine and slightly brittle.  Cria tips are like velcro and will easily trap vegetable matter in a fleece which is no fun to remove when it comes to processing that fleece.

In the past we have not really had a policy of shearing crias, but then a lot of our crias are born in the fall and are ready for shearing by the spring.  This year however Velvet Princess was born just at that time that made us feel she was too young to shear when we did our main shearing.  As the summer progressed Velvet appeared to be handling the heat well but her fleece was starting to get very long.  Ric and I had a couple of discussions about whether or not to shear Velvet.  If we left her cria fleece unshorn it would definitely be long enough to show in the spring but would it be so long that it wouldn’t show at it’s best? And what about the heat, was Velvet going to be too hot?  Eventually we decided to go ahead and shear Velvet, the daytime temperatures are gradually climbing and at the rate her fleece is growing she should still make at least the minimum fleece length for the spring 2008 shows.

Velvet and Annie tolerated their shearing well, although I am sure both were glad when we were done.  Annie’s dam had no problems accepting Annie after shearing but Velvet’s dam Queen took a little convincing that Velvet was the same cria that had been taken out of the pasture this morning.  We of course kept an eye on Queen and Velvet until we saw Velvet nursing from Queen.  The last thing we wanted is a rejected cria and while Velvet is almost at weaning weight the stress of shearing and rejection by her dam would not be good for her.

For the rest of the day Annie and Velvet frolicked around enjoying thier new cool haircuts.  Those are their “before” pictures at the top of the page and below this paragraph are thier “after” pictures.  Quite a difference, but I think they will both do better for being sheared.

   Velvet      Annie

Rosemary

Building Confidence

The Saturday Skirting Clinic with Tim Lavan went well.  The pace was easy and we had plenty of hands on time with fleeces in the afternoon.  The participants had lots of good questions and left the class with a better idea of how their fleeces should be skirted and more confidence to do so.  Tim was a great instructor, very clear in his presentation and very approachable to the participants.  It’s always a good sign to me when the questions start flowing freely.  I took two of our fleeces to the clinic one from Windrush Anya and one from Windrush Tiarnan.  We looked at Anya’s fleece today and her dense, shiny, soft fleeces received lots of oohs and aahs from the other particpants.  Anya is such a beautiful girl and we beleive she is pregnant by Windrush Jennifer’s Zindel which should be a great combination.  Tomorrow I will use Tiarnan’s fleece which is a different fleece style but still is a beautiful fleece with an incredible soft handle.

Tomorrow the seminar is repeated for another group of alpaca breeders, I will be staying on to make sure everything flows smoothly and then will spend the night with our friends Brian and Nancy Thompson of Tres Amigos Alpaca Ranch in Franktown, Colorado.  We got to know Brian and Nancy when they purchased an alpaca, Nitia, who was boarded with us at the time, they are wonderful people and we are so grateful that Nitia brought us together.  When I visit Brian and Nancy I will get to see Nitia and her cria Svengali who was born at our farm.  Svengali now has a brother so I will get to meet him too.

On Monday I will make the drive back to New Mexico and will look forward to being back among my own alpacas again.  There isn’t too much planned for next week which is a good thing, after all my travels of late it will be good to have a “normal” week again (if there ever is such a thing as a “normal” week!)

Rosemary

PS  And a Happy Birthday to Laura (Mrs Pienescu!) 

Arrived and Ready To Go

Yesterday’s drive to Golden, Colorado was a good one, the weather was warm but not too hot, the winds were low and I only ran into a little rain just before the Raton pass.  It took me right at eight hours to get to my destination, but I took it easy, enjoyed the scenery and listened to a book on tape on the way.  The night before I set off Ric and I had a conversation about the scenary on the way.  Of course the Caprock is stunning, both at San Jon where the power generating windmills are mesmerising to me and also as it climbs again up to Roy and Mosquero.  That particular stretch is nostalgic to me as it was that route in reverse that we took when we first arrived in New Mexico.  We were travelling down from visiting friends in Colorado and decided to take a back route as opposed to the main highway.  I remember as we descended the Caprock wondering what on earth people did if they ran out of fuel in that area, it is so vast and remote and you definitely need to make sure your fuel guage is not on empty!  The Kiowa grasslands are beautiful too as the grasses sway in the breeze and the antelope graze contentedly.

So today we will start the Fleece Skirting Clinic with Tim Lavan.  As the event coordinator I need to get to the Jefferson County Fairgrounds before the clinic participants, to meet up with Tim and get the room set up for the day.  Hopefully I can find my way there from the hotel without too much of a problem.

Back at home Ric is busy doing the chores and will be entertaining some farm visitors on Sunday.  The couple coming to visit live in Silver City, New Mexico and are traveling back from Denver where they have been visiting their daughter.  They are just starting to research alpacas and want to see how our farm is set up and of course meet the alpacas.  Coincidentally the lady visitor is originally from Surrey, England – what a pity I won’t be there to meet her but hopefully there will be another time.

Also on Sunday our girl Bjorn returns home.  She has been away for breeding and is now confirmed pregnant by Crescent Moon’s Rainier who is owned by Laurence and Donna Binder of Bluebonnet Hills Alpacas in Navasota, Texas.  It will be good to have Bjorn home again, she has only been gone a couple of months but we do miss her and her daughters Keeva and Anya will be overjoyed to see her get out of the trailer on Sunday.

Time for me to head off to the clinic for the day!

Rosemary