Kanika, You’re a Mess!

Having distributed the loose hay into the shelters and put some outside, we were enjoying watching the girls lying on the hay.  They all sat in a line on top of the hay following the path that it made in the pasture.   Naturally there was some rolling taking place and all in all the alpacas were enjoying the loose hay.

Then it came time to do evening chores and we realized we had forgotten something – Kanika had not being wearing her sheep cover.  The reason we were reminded of this at evening chores was that there she stood covered in tiny little pieces of hay!  The hay almost took her from being a dark brown alpaca to being a light fawn one – it was everywhere!  Kanika’s first fleece is superfine and like all cria fleeces it acts like Velcro, trapping anything that comes in contact with it.

 We had Kanika wearing a fleece cover until just a few days ago, but had taken it off as was getting to small and it looked as if her fleece was starting to felt a little.  Our intention was to let Kanika run around without her fleece cover for a couple of days in order to allow her fleece to relax and not be so felted.

Instead though we were greeted with a cria whose fleece was full of vegetable matter.  Kanika must have had a great time rolling in the hay, but however would we get her fleece clean. We took a couple of steps to try and clean Kanika up.  First we used our Click and Slick wands (see picture below). 

 

The Click and Slick wands were very popular with alpaca breeders around the time that we started in the alpaca business.  The wands can be used to generate static in the fleece, which helps draw the small pieces of vegetable matter out.  You start off by flicking the fleece with the wand with the wavy edge, and then once you have brought the debris to the surface of the fleece you use the straight edged wand to flick the debris off the fleece. 

We stopped using the wands on our show alpacas when we realized that if you used the wands too heavily on the fleeces it destroys the architecture of the fleece and the alpaca does not show at it’s best.  The fleece architecture does bounce back after a few days, but at a show you don’t have that long to wait.

For a situation such as Kanika’s though, and also on shearing day the wands can be useful at cleaning fleeces at least a little.  So gently we used the wands on Kanika yesterday and managed to get some of the vegetable matter out of her fleece. 

Next we put a new fleece cover back on Kanika to prevent more debris getting into Kanika’s fleece.  We will check her fleece again in a couple of days to see how much vegetable matter has dropped off her fleece.  It may be that we need to go over her with the wands again, only time will tell.

I do hope we can salvage Kanika’s fleece, if it is too heavily laden with vegetable matter then the processors will not want it and I will definitely not be able to show it in that state.  Fingers crossed though most of the vegetable matter will fall out over the next few days.

 Of course from Kanika’s point of view she cannot understand what the fuss is all about, all she knows is that she had a good time rolling in the hay.

Rosemary  

Shifting Sands

One of the challenges of living in semi arid desert is sand. When there is a little moisture the sand clumps into a muddy mess, but in times of severe dryness, as we are experiencing now, it becomes a fine red sand that blows and shifts easily.

The fine red sand gets into our alpaca fleeces, giving them a gritty feel and can also give them a nice peachy hue! Fortunately our sand washes out of our fleeces but in some other areas of the country the sand actually stains the fleece to where it cannot be washed out. I have some alpaca yarn in my inventory that was sold to me by a processor who was unable to get the stain out of some alpaca fleeces that had been sent to him from Georgia, rather than discard the yarn or continue to battle to get it back to white he decided to call the yarn Georgia Peach and sell it as is. The Georgia Peach yarn is the prettiest color and has always sold well, natural dye at its best I guess.

Yesterday the weather gave us a break from the wind; it was a beautiful day, warm, sunny and still. Taking a look around the farm we could see the destruction caused by the wind. In places our top soil is completely gone and in other places the ground is a different height than it was a few days ago.

In the alpaca pastures we have a continual problem with the sand building up around the fence lines. As we have to have secure fencing it means there is more to catch the sand and stop it at the fence line.

In the girls pasture the fence line on the east side of the pasture had gone from being 5 feet tall to being about two feet tall in places due to the build up of sand. Thankfully alpacas are home bodies so no-one had taken the initiative to step over the fence, but they easily could have done so.

So it was out with the tractor and rake for a session of distributing the sand back around the pasture. To help keep it down we also raked some of the waste hay from the big bale of hay over the sand.

The alpacas get most excited when they see the tractor, usually it means the delivery of another big bale of hay. This time though the tractor just moved dirt and hay around, but it still gave the alpacas something to look forward to. They found new pieces of hay to chew and then had the treat of having a good roll in the soft dirt and hay that had just been spread out. Once they had finished rolling it was time to stretch out, bask in the sunshine and enjoy the calm day. For the alpacas life was good!

Rosemary

Not Quite a Hat but Getting There

My latest knitting project is almost complete. It got off to a good start and then got postponed as we prepared for the show. I had high hopes of knitting on the journey to the show but we were so late setting off it was dark before we got an hour down the road. I have a little light that I travel with to help me be able to knit in the truck after dark, but the yarn I am using splits easily and the fact that the section I am working on is a mid blue didn’t help my progress.

I did manage to cast on the stitches for the next section but the eyestrain just doing that was a little much and so I had to put the project aside for a while.

When we returned home I did get a chance to do some knitting – as I sat with Ric at the hospital as we waited to see the doctor. I knew we were going to have a long wait (it turned out to be over two hours until we even got to see the doctor) and so went to the hospital prepared. The time goes by a lot quicker when you have something to do.

While at the hospital I discovered that I had actually twisted the knitting on the circular needles creating a möbius band – not what I wanted at all. It seems as if every time I read the words “be careful not to twist the knitting on the circular needles” it is an automatic signal to my brain to do just that!

Still by the time we left the hospital I had ripped out the bad knitting and recreated the piece to where it was when we arrived, so all was not lost.

The next section will form the crown and will attach to the main body of the hat that you see pictured above. The yarn is Landscapes, a lovely blend of alpaca and silk from Alpaca With A Twist and the hat has a beautiful soft feel to it.

The hat will be finished soon and then it will be on to the next craft project, I still have a couple of sweaters on my to do list, but of course there is still that matching sock to make to complete the pair I have already started. Whatever the next project is one thing’s for sure, it will be made of alpaca!

Rosemary

 

Still Playing Catch Up

There is still work to be done as a result of the TxOLAN Alpaca Spectacular.  Judges and volunteers expenses need to be paid, mail in fleeces need to be shipped back to their owners and then there is the end of show report to prepare for the Alpaca Owners and Breeders Association (AOBA).  So that will be my task for today so that I can put the show “to bed” until next year, but then again ………

You see the TxOLAN Alpaca Spectacular Show Committee is already working on the planning for next years show!  The conference calls will be starting up again shortly, with the first one being a chance to recap what went well and what needs to be improved on for next year.

Many exhibitors while understanding that a show takes a lot of planning perhaps don’t understand just how much planning it does take.  In reality the cogs that make the show work never stop and there is always something going on to make the show run smoothly the following year.

Fortunately for me once my show report has been turned in there is not too much that has to be done for next year’s show until closer to the show date.  The judges for next year are already under consideration and once they have been contracted I get a little breathing space.  There are some minor changes that need to be made to the show forms and some supplies that are required that I need to get while they are still fresh in my memory.

For the Event Coordinator though it is a different matter, and our Event Coordinator Sandy Steffy of Whisper Soft Alpacas is ready to get things moving in order to make next year’s show a success.   Sandy is a hard worker and has that lovely persuasive charm that many people from the Southern States have.  It’s hard to say “no” to Sandy as she sweet talks you in her lovely Louisiana lilt!

I was very impressed with Sandy during the recent TxOLAN Alpaca Spectacular, she was easily found throughout the event, she checked on the various show managers often and anything you needed she organized quickly.  Not once did I see her flustered and always she was pleasant to all she met.  I know by Sunday Sandy had to have been ready to drop, but she never once let it show.  I will look forward to working with Sandy in the next year.

So the show “catch up” will go on, although a little like a cat that chases it’s tail I am not sure that we ever really will get completely caught up, but that’s just the nature of the beast isn’t it?

Rosemary   

Fingers in the Fleece

We are back to the task of sorting through the fleeces in the fleece room.  I am determined to reduce the pile before we get to this year’s shearing!

The deadline for submission of clip to the Alpaca Fiber Coop of North America (AFCNA) is February 29 and so I am trying to get as many fleeces as I can shipped off to them today in order that the fleeces are received by the deadline date.

To me sorting through fleeces is an enjoyable task, it gives me the opportunity to reassess the alpaca whose fleece I am working on and consider any breeding decisions I need to make for that particular alpaca.  For some of the boys there is no breeding decision to be made, for one reason or another they will not be used for breeding, but as I look at their fleece it is a good reminder of what the pairing of the parents produced.

There were a couple of fleeces in my stash yesterday that I decided to hold back for show.  We sheared a lot of show fleeces last year and I haven’t had the opportunity to show them all and as I looked at them on the skirting table I decided that it really would be worth entering them in a show.  There is a good-sized fleece show coming up in May in Denver and so I plan on entering the fleeces in that show.

One fleece that did make me smile was that of Geraint who is pictured above.  Geraint is the only surviving offspring of Primera who is a research female we have at the farm.  Primera was donated to our vet, as her crias had never survived.  We became involved in working with our vet to see if we could get one of Primera’s crias to survive and Geraint is the result.  As alpacas go Geraint is hardly the example of an award winning alpaca, but his fleece is actually not too bad.  As I worked on Geraint’s fleece on the skirting table I could feel it’s fineness and lovely soft handle and he even has some crimp definition and brightness to his fleece.  I took a little sample of it to Ric (who is still recovering from the flu) and asked him to guess whose fleece it was, he was unable to guess correctly whose fleece and was impressed when I told him that it was Geraint’s. 

This year things will be a little different at shearing time as we are going to have some of our fleeces sorted by a fleece sorter as they come off the alpaca on shearing day.  Our friend and client Troy Ogilvie of Timber Lodge Alpacas has completed his fleece sorting class and needs to work his apprenticeship by sorting a certain amount of fleeces and so will be coming to our farm to sort for us.  Those fleeces will then be sent to the North American Alpaca Fiber Producers (NAAFP) Cooperative to be processed into high quality yarn and products.  The great thing about having our fleeces sorted on shearing day is that at the end of the day all I will need to do is package up the various bags of fleece and ship them off to the Regional Collection Facility – no storing them in the fleece room or having to prepare them for the processor at a later date.  It will be done on shearing day and off the fleeces will go!  I will even get a report on my fleeces, which I will be able to use to help me with my breeding decisions.

That doesn’t mean to say I won’t get a chance to get my hands on some of my fleeces as I know there will be some we will hold back to show.   Those fleeces I will need to prepare for showing prior to sending them in and so I will get my fleece fix from working on those.  Fingers in the fleece – you just can’t beat it!

Rosemary

Shades of Spring

The calendar may say we are still in winter but nature is telling me it is springtime.  Our weather has warmed up considerably with our daytime temperatures now in the 60’s.  Nighttime temperatures are still dropping down to the thirties but the days are sunny and warmer and the skies are blue.  A couple of days ago we had one of those crazy New Mexico forecasts that warned us of a chance of snow and thunderstorms.  As it turned out the skies darkened as the clouds rolled in, the winds picked up and one little corner of Clovis got about three minutes of rain.  Then the clouds rolled off into the direction of Texas not to be seen again.

The winds are also telling us it is springtime, yesterday the sustained winds were in the 25 – 30 mph range with gusts around 50 mph.  With our dry conditions this meant that we had dust storms for most of the day.  Stepping outside required a hood tied firmly on your head and some form of eye protection to keep the dust out of your eyes (in my case a pair of old sunglasses now referred to as my “Shades of Spring”), even better yet is to wear a dust mask, but I have to admit I find those difficult to wear while working and half the time our fine red dust creeps underneath them anyway.

By the time we come in it feels as if we are a couple of pounds heavier with all of the extra dirt we are carrying.  There is nothing quite like looking down in the shower to discover you are standing in your own pile of mud, created from the dust you have just washed off!

The winds bring warmer weather but bring danger too.  We are under a fire watch most days and yesterday one of our neighbors had a frightening experience when a trailer of hay she was hauling caught fire.  The hay was not hot hay, but somehow on the journey between the feed store and her house it caught fire.  Our neighbor tried to pull the burning bales from her trailer, but with the high winds the fire continued to grow, and even worse pieces of burning hay started to land on various spots in our road.  The fire department came out and put out the blaze, but the trailer and the hay were a complete loss.  Thankfully though our neighbor suffered no more than being badly shaken up and some singed hair.   The more we think about that burning trailer of hay going up the road in the high winds, the more we realize how fortunate we were not to have several major grass fires as a result of it.

The more pleasant aspects of spring though are also here.  The birds are starting to sing more; our American hawk is making an appearance again and appears out of nowhere to capture poor unsuspecting sparrows.  I think it is a little early for the hawk to have hatched her eggs yet, but if she is not feeding a brood she certainly has a vigorous appetite.  

Through the earth we are seeing little blades of green starting to emerge.   Should we get rain soon the ground will rapidly transform as the native plants so well equipped to thrive on a raindrop or two take advantage of the moisture and start to grow.

The alpacas too are showing us that spring is near, their fleeces are getting long reminding us we need to start planning on shearing, and the pregnant girls are starting to look more pear shaped as their crias grow.  Yesterday the herd spent their time dashing from shelter to shelter to avoid the wind and by the evening feed we had several who had straw covered fleeces, evidence of a day spent luxuriating in the deep straw and shelter of the barn.

This morning I will no doubt have to don my “Shades of Spring” outfit again, the sunglasses, hood, gloves and whatever else I decide to wear to protect myself from the dust will, I am sure look, most fetching, but I am too practical to care about appearances when it comes to doing chores!

We will enjoy the warmer temperatures this coming week and will continue to hope that we can soon change out of the “Shades of Spring” outfit to they “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head” ensemble.  It all puts a different light on using the words “alpaca” and “fashion” in the same sentence doesn’t it!

Rosemary

The Scent of A Woman (or in our case a female alpaca)

I have often thought that cats and alpacas are similar in personality.  Both prefer to come up to you when they are ready rather than have you approach them, both love to lounge in the sunshine, and it seems that they also share a similar behavior in scenting females of the species.

Recently we received a newsletter from The Sundance Ranch Feline Sanctuary that is also located in Clovis, New Mexico.    The Sundance Ranch Feline Sanctuary provides a much needed resource for domestic cats and kittens in our area.  In the Q & A section of the January/February issue of the Sundance Ranch Newsletter the question was regarding the strange expression cats get on their face after smelling something.  The answer addressed the “Flehmen Response” and got my attention as alpacas too exhibit the “Flehmen Response”

In the picture at the top of this post you can see our Suri alpaca Cosmo giving a lovely demonstration of the Flehmen Response.    This strange pose occurs when a male alpaca smells the urine of another alpaca and often occurs at the alpaca poop piles.  The alpaca doing the smelling will throw his head back and curl his upper lip back at the same time which helps to seal his nostrils and draw the scent over a receptor on the roof of the alpacas mouth called the Jacobsen’s Organ.  As the scent is drawn over the Jacobsen’s Organ the alpaca can detect if the urine he is scenting is from a female alpaca who is receptive to breeding.

If the alpacas were all kept together the male alpaca would find the receptive female alpaca and breed her, but we are careful with our breeding program and keep the male and female alpacas in separate pens.

Sometimes I will see our male alpacas exhibiting the Flehmen Response at their own poop pile; very occasionally I have seen a female alpaca exhibit this behavior. 

I must admit to get the picture at the top of this blog some staging was necessary.  All I had to do was wheel in a wheelbarrow full of poop from the girl’s pasture and the boys started sniffing and posing for me.  Of course the boys were sorely disappointed that a visit from the girls did not follow the appearance of the wheelbarrow, but never mind, it won’t be long until crias start to arrive and then the girls will be ready for a visit from the boys (well the select few boys anyway, sorry Cosmo we don’t have any Suri girls for you).  Until that time the boys can continue to practice the Flehman Response at their own poop pile and dream of the girls in the pasture across the driveway.

Rosemary 

Now Girls That’s Just Not Nice!

On Tuesday I had to take Ric to the hospital.  He had been ill since before the TxOLAN show and when we tried to get him in to see the doctor they did not have any appointments available.  After hearing his symptoms the nurse who called me said I needed to take him in to the Quick Care Clinic at the hospital.  Ric wasn’t able to drive himself in and I had not even started chores yet.  Our friend Justus had called earlier to check on us and had offered to help if needed and so I called Justus and recruited him in to do the chores that morning.

The wait at the hospital was a long one; fortunately I took my knitting with me to pass the time.  We had just been taken back to one of the examination rooms when Justus called. 

On answering the phone Justus asked me if I wanted the good news or the bad.  I told him that I really didn’t mind which I received and asked him if there was a problem.  Justus then told me that he had carried over a bucket of hay to the girls pasture and set it down outside the gate.  He then went to get another bucket of hay and when he came back the gate was open and there wasn’t an alpaca or llama in sight!  Poor Justus, I can just imagine how he must have felt! 

So that was the bad news, the good news was he had found all of the girls and they were still on our property.  He had managed to get some of them back in the pasture but there were about nine of them and the three llamas that had found the haystack and were not willing to go back to their pasture.  I had to chuckle as I know how the llamas are when they don’t want to go back to their pasture, they are quite happy to lead you a merry dance around the property until they decide they have had enough fun for the day and then walk back into the pasture.

I called Bob Dart of Llano Soleado Alpacas and fortunately he was able to drive over to our place to help Justus with the girls.  Not so fortunate was Bob’s wife Regina who had also come down with the flu.

Within a short time of Bob’s arrival all of the alpacas were back in their pasture.  By the time Bob arrived Justus had looked out some halters and had figured out that the sight of the halters alone was enough to get the girls moving away from the hay.

So how had the girls got out from their pasture?  I am pretty sure I know how and who the culprit was – Willow!  You see Willow is our escapologist alpaca, since the day she was born she has always loved to squeeze through small spaces (so much so that she had to be delivered by C-Section).  I always have to watch Willow in the mornings as she will be standing on the right hand side of the gate ready to make her break for freedom as soon as the gate is opened.  There have been a couple of times that she has nearly managed to get past me and I have ended up hanging on to her for dear life.  On one occasion I almost ended up riding Willow as she tried to duck between my legs as I walked into the pasture.  She is both fast and determined.

The gate was most definitely shut when we left, and it was still shut when Justus arrived.  I have seen Willow playing with the gate latch before and now know she has figured out how to flip the latch up so that she can open the gate.  I am sure Anya would have been Willow’s accomplice as she is always right beside Willow first thing in the morning.  Once the gate was open the girls would have had no hesitation in leaving their pastures to explore the farm as they do in the summer when we allow them out to graze.

I explained to Justus that Willow and Anya were the most likely culprits in opening the gate, and that I felt that the girls were just taking advantage of his being a new helper, much like children at school will take advantage of a substitute teacher.

The good thing about alpacas is that being such herd animals they are going to stick together and not wander too far.  Our girls know exactly where our haystack is kept and I can just see them kicking up their heels with glee as they ran over to the “forbidden fruit”.   If alpacas could giggle I would bet they were doing that too as they realized they had just outwitted the “new guy”.

I had a talk with the girls later that day when I returned home.  They just looked at me as if butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths and went back to the business of eating hay and chewing cud.

We now have a pin inserted in the gate latch so that Willow cannot perform her little trick again.  And Justus  - well I hope he will feel comfortable helping us out again, but the last time I spoke to him he mentioned something about moving to Colorado!

Rosemary

And The Results Are ….

Our alpacas certainly did us proud at the TxOLAN Alpaca Show.  We had entries in both the fleece and halter classes and won ribbons in both.

In the fleece show our black yearling female “Windrush Shiimsa” took a third place in her class, my darling “TeQueely” (who two years ago at this time was unable to walk) took a first place in her class, and our herdsire “Travesura’s Altiplano Treasure” who we co-own with Bob and Regina Dart of Llano Soleado Alpacas took not only first place in his class but also was selected as the White Color Champion and won a special judges award for Best Brightness.  In addition to all of those ribbons two offspring from our herdsire “Enchantment’s Prince Regent” took Brown Color Champion (LSA Regent’s Moonlight Pavane) and Brown Reserve Color Champion (Prince Regent’s Treasure of Airlie) in their fleece classes.

While judging was going on in the fleece show, our alpacas in the halter show were also being judged.  Windrush Shiimsa won fifth place out of a large class of 13 and Zindel’s Velvet Princess took fourth out of a class of six.  One of our client’s alpacas that we had also taken to the show “Isaac’s Athena” took the third place in Velvet’s class.  The youngest of our alpacas at the show “Windrush White Blast” unfortunately did not place, he was in a large class of white male juvenile alpacas (one of the most competitive classes at any show).  Blast is a little on the small side and that may have gone against him in the show ring, but he is young and has plenty of time to develop yet.  Blast has a beautiful fleece and I am sure his fleece will do well in the fleece shows after shearing.

The ribbons continued to flow for Regent’s offspring in the halter show as well as the fleece show.  “LSA Regent’s Moonlight Pavane” took second in her light brown yearling class and “Prince Regent’s Treasure of Airlie” took fifth in a large class of dark brown yearlings.  Two more of Regent’s offspring “Travesura’s Sulaimon” and “Enchantment’s Snow Prince” took first (Sulaimon) and second (Snow Prince) in their white yearling male class against some stiff competition.   As if that was not enough we entered Regent into the Get of Sire Class and he took third out of a very large class of Get of Sire entries.  The Get of Sire class comprises of three alpacas that are the progeny of the same sire.  The three alpacas are evaluated simultaneously in the ring by the judge and should represent their sire’s ability to transmit his positive traits to each progeny in a uniform and consistent manner.  For Regent’s group of three to take third in such a large class was good credit to Regent’s strength as a herdsire.

So we left the show with a sense of achievement, it is always great to win ribbons at a show, but more than that the success of Regent’s offspring brings a special feeling of accomplishment.  It is one thing to have a ribbon winning alpaca, but when you have played a part in the creation of that alpaca that is a special achievement in a class of it’s own.

Rosemary 

Back Home and Getting Back to Routine (Well Trying Anyway)

The days we were away at the show were long and busy and unfortunately I was unable to get to the computer to make any blog entries.  Most days we worked from early in the morning until the early hours of the next morning, and I don’t know that I would have made much sense if I had attempted to update the blog.  We finally made it home by 8 a.m. Monday morning – just in time to do chores!

All in all the show seemed to go well.  The fleece show went really well and I had a wonderful group of volunteers who worked hard, were fun to be around and made the fleece show go smoothly – a big thank you to all of those volunteers but in particular to Mary Ogilvie of Timber Lodge Alpacas, Chip Stanley of Rafter DS Alpacas and my sister in law Dena Buffington who stayed with the fleece show for the duration of the show.  A thank you also to the fleece show judges Ruth Elvestad and Sara Jane Maclennan who were a pleasure to work with.

Weather played a part in upsetting the organization of the show.  A large storm system brought snow and ice to many parts of the US and both judges and exhibitors experienced travel delays causing them to be late arriving at the show. 

In addition Ric was unwell for most of the show, but being Ric refused to stop working.  We finally got him to a doctor yesterday to be told he has a bad case of the flu and is likely to be laid up for several days as he recovers.

A thank you also has to go to our “farm sitting team” which consisted of our vet’s wife Charlotte Orton (ably assisted by her two little girls Ruby and Shelby who walked the dogs and sat with Toby while he ate his food), our friend Justus Anderson (who know considers himself an “alpaca wrangler”)  our teenage helper Bethany Heaton and her father Bill Heaton.  As Monday was a holiday and the schools were out Bethany showed up at our farm on Monday morning to do chores and she was a very welcome site when we pulled into the driveway after driving all night.  Justus also ended up with an extra stint of chores on Tuesday, but more on that later.

So now we have the task of getting back to normal, which in Ric’s case also means trying to get back to good health.  There are the end of show reports to be done, but they will not be too time consuming and then of course there is all of the equipment in the trailer to be unloaded, cleaned and put away ready for the next show.

It was good to see many of our alpaca friends at the show, and we were able to spend a little time catching up on news with some of them.  There were some beautiful alpacas at the show too, and while I was unable to see much of the halter show I did take the opportunity to have a walk around the alpaca barn late one night and get an “alpaca fix”

The alpacas we took to the show did well, for most of them it was their first show and they handled the experience well.  We also had some good show results, in particular the offspring of our herdsire Enchantment’s Prince Regent did really well – but more on that tomorrow …………….

Rosemary