Dolly Lingers, Flies Arrive

The last few days have been more humid than we usually experience in this part of the country and have coincided with the arrival of August heat.    We have been keeping a close eye on the alpacas, who are used to our high temperatures but who are not used to the humidity.  The fans have been running 24 hours a day and the Gatorade has been present in the water buckets to provide the alpacas with electrolytes.

 

Watching the herd they appear to be handling the heat index well.  While there are moments when several of the alpacas will be stretched out in the sun and asleep for the most part they have still been active, nibbling at hay and exploring the pastures.  Lack of activity can be an indication of heat stress and so to see our alpacas moving round pretty much as usual is a good sign.

 

The crias love to play still and their latest game seems to be one of trying to see who can leap up in the air and give the fanciest kick.  I think Zianna is holding first place in that game with Annochia and Dream coming a close second.

 

Amazingly the reason for our humidity is the lingering effect of Hurricane Dolly that hit the South Texas coastline last week.  Once Dolly had landed she headed North West, as she traveled over the Sangre de Cristo Mountains her timing and placement was just right to cause about 7 inches of rain in 24 hours for the village of Ruidoso, New Mexico.  Ruidoso to me always seems more of a small town than a village but it is commonly referred to as a village.  Whether it is a town or a village it is a charming place and we have happy memories of time spent there over the years.  Ruidoso is also home to Enchantment Farm Alpacas, the farm where we purchased our first alpacas.

 

Unfortunately the rains from Hurricane Dolly caused major problems in Ruidoso as the Rio Ruidoso broke its banks and major flooding caused devastation with between 300 and 500 people having been evacuated.  Having seen the news we called and spoke to the Evans family of Enchantment Farm Alpacas and also Marilyn Smith of Portas Nirvana Alpacas, also in Ruidoso, and both reported that they are okay and not badly effected by the floods.

 

At Windrush Alpacas we did not experience any of the heavy rains, we had one short burst of rain but apart from that the only signs we have seen of Hurricane Dolly is cloudy skies (with some quite spectacular clouds) and increased humidity, and then there are the flies.

 

We had been doing quite well regarding the flies until the moisture and humidity arrived at the end of last week.  A few days after that and the flies started appearing en masse.  It is amazing to see how many flies can suddenly appear without warning.  We are still using Diatomaceous Earth on our alpaca feed and sprinkled on the poop piles, but I think the volume of flies is just too much for any product to handle.   Our flytraps are filling up within just a day or two, which is unusual for us even for August, which is typically our worst month for flies.  Hopefully as time goes on the Diatomaceous Earth will have a greater effect and the fly population will dwindle.

 

Rosemary

Good Timing or Bad?

Snake in a fan

I am sure we have all had circumstances when things have happened that make us feel that our timing is incredibly good or incredibly bad.  Over the weekend I discovered that some timing had come together that turned out good for us but not so good for the other party involved.

 

 

We recently purchased a new fan for the weanling’s shelter.  As happens with outside fans we had one that was working one day, turned off overnight and then refused to work again.  So off we went to the hardware store to buy a replacement fan for the weanlings.

 

The new fan was set in place and was working well.  That is until one day last week when I noticed it had stopped working.  I didn’t pay too much attention to it as we had a power cut that day and I thought maybe the circuit breaker had clicked on for some reason.  I had also had to use the power outlet for that fan that same day and had unplugged the fan, so I thought that might be related to the circuit breaker tripping.  When I checked the circuit breaker sure enough it had tripped and so I reset it, assuming that the fan had come back on.

 

A later check revealed that the fan had not come back on, but by then the temperature had cooled for the evening and so I did not try to get the fan working again.

 

The next day as I did chores I decided that it was time to take a closer look at the fan and all of its connections to see what the problem was, after all this fan was only a couple of weeks old and surely it should last longer than that.  As I pulled on the fan to get it away from the corner I was thinking about where I had filed the receipt for the fan so I could return it if it really was not working.  With my mind on the chances of returning the fan I wasn’t really paying attention to the fan itself so when I looked down got a surprise – a snake hanging from the fan!  Fortunately I am not too disturbed by the sight of a snake and so was able to take a second look at the snake to discover that thankfully it was dead.

 

A closer look at the snake in the fan

 

 

A closer look revealed that the poor snake must have been curled up around the motor of the fan, when I plugged the fan back in it must have startled the snake who tried to get away from the fan but instead met an untimely death courtesy of the fan blades.

 

The snake looks like it was a young bull snake, which is a shame as they are good at keeping the rodent population down, but I guess it’s time was up.  Talk about timing – what are the chances of that happening! 

 

Rosemary

Just Plugging Away

 Saturday was spent doing something a little different.  Planting grass plugs in the back yard.

 

Ric has been determined since we moved to this property that he was going to have a lawn in the back yard, I was content with something lower maintenance, some xeriscaping perhaps, but Ric really wanted a lawn.

 

We have been through various attempts at starting a lawn involving different seed and turf with no success.  Our soil is too poor and our water supply limited, but then we came across a possible solution, Turffalo Tech Turf.

 

I heard about the Turffalo products on a TV show on our local PBS channel KENW.  The show has a local angle and one week featured Curt Jaynes from GardenSource nursery in Portales about 11 miles from us.  Curt mentioned a new grass that had been developed that required half the water of other grasses and (just as important) only needed half the mowing.  The grass was said to be suitable for our hot, dry temperatures and poor soil.

 

Recently we spoke to Curt about the grass he had mentioned and it turned out to be Turffalo Tech Turf.  You can read more about Turffalo Tech Turf on the Turffalo web site, but basically Turffalo Tech Turf is a hybrid of buffalo grass, a native grass in our area.   The Tech Turf grows much denser than ordinary buffalo grass, which helps prevent weeds invading your lawn once it is established.

 

Our shipment of Tech Turf arrived on Friday and so we now need to get it into the ground.  The grass comes in little grass plugs that need to be planted 12” apart, as we have a 30 ft x 60 ft back yard that comes out to a lot of grass plugs!  We managed to plant about ¼ of the yard on Saturday, the initial rows took longer as we figured out the best system for planting them, but the more we did the faster we got.

 

For the next few days though we will be literally plugging away, planting little grass plugs.  Once the plugs are all in we will need to keep them watered until the lawn is established which will be about 30 days.  Not too long, although our dogs Tripster and Missy might be tired of only having the side yard to run around in by then.  They get walks twice a day and so they will still get plenty of exercise.

 

The Turffalo Tech Turf is a turf grass and so is not suitable for pasture land as far as we know.  We had thought of planting some of the Tech Turf in front of the house, but as we let the alpacas out to graze every now and then we didn’t want to risk them eating it if it was not suitable for them.

 

Of course when we prepared our ground we used composted alpaca poop as our fertilizer.  Fingers crossed that will help our grass grow.  I’ll keep you posted.

 

Rosemary

Griffin Gets A Cool Do

Griffin Shorn

 

Earlier in the spring when we sheared the alpacas we decided not to shear the llamas at that time.  The llamas had been shorn the previous year and when we had first acquired them we were told that we only need shear them every other year.  The llama fleece is different from the alpaca fleece in that it contains a lot more guard hair and evolved to give llamas a certain amount of protection from the elements.  So initially we thought we would not shear the llamas this year but the thought was always in the back of our mind that if the llamas showed signs of being bothered by the heat we would go ahead and shear them.

 

Until recently the llamas had seemed fine but over the last week or two we had noticed that Griffin seemed a little uncomfortable.  She was swishing her tail a lot and nibbling at her hindquarters as if something was bothering her.  We had a quick look at her to make sure there was nothing readily apparent and could not see any signs of lice or bugs or any wounds or sore spots.

 

So yesterday we sheared Griffin to see if that will help her.  The llamas behave quite differently from the alpacas when it comes to shearing.  They seem to behave better if there are fewer people in the shearing area.  I don’t know why that is, but we do find the llamas are much easier to handle for shearing if only Ric and myself are present.  On some occasions Ric has shorn them completely on his own and they did well.

 

Griffin did well today, although she was not happy about us shearing her rear legs and so we did end up putting a blindfold on her.  We just used a clean old tee shirt, which we folded lengthwise to form the blindfold, the tee shirt was then placed over Griffin’s eyes and was held in place by tucking it into her halter.

 

As Griffin’s fiber came off (a beautiful Rose Grey fleece it is) we examined the fleece for ticks, bugs or evidence of any unwanted guests, but everything looked normal.  Her tail however was very matted and so we removed what matting we could and sheared her tail down. 

 

As dry as our spring was I do wonder if Griffin just has a case of dry, itchy skin.  Our alpaca Ma Cushla developed dry skin, which we discovered when we sheared her.  We changed Ma Cushla’s diet to include more fiber nutrients and some feed developed for pregnant and nursing dams and crias.  The change of diet seemed to help Ma Cushla and so we will change Griffin’s ration a little bit and see if it has a as well too.

 

Of course now we feel that should shear our other two llamas Maya and Inca, so it’s back to shearing again, then we will be well and truly done with shearing – until next year that is!

 

Rosemary

Coming this September to an alpaca farm near you

National Alpaca Farm Days will again take place this year.  The dates have been set for September 27 and 28 and the publicity is ramping up for the event.  Last year many farms reported lots of visitors during National Alpaca Farm Days and this year we hope the response will be the same.

 

National Alpaca Farm Days was created to have one weekend when alpaca farms all over the US are open to the public in order to have a concentrated effort to introduce people to alpacas, alpaca products and the alpaca lifestyle.  It is up to individual farms to decide the times they will be open and if they want to be open both days, one day or not open at all.

 

We will be open for National Alpaca Farm Days on the Saturday (September 27) from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., we are also planning on having an Open Farm Day on September 6 so that will be two times during the month of September that people can visit the farm.

 

In preparation for the event we have started to order alpaca products for our store and will be working on press releases and other publicity.

 

For alpaca breeders who are members of the Alpaca Owners and Breeders Association (AOBA) there is information on the AOBA members website www.alpacaowners.com on to how to sign up for the event.  You will need your user name and password to log in, but once you are logged in the sign up process is easy and there are several informational documents to help you get started in publicizing the event in your area.

 

The National Alpaca Farm Days website www.nationalalpacafarmdays.com for now has a temporary static page set up, but come September 1^st the page will feature an interactive map listing participating farms contact information and pinpointing where each participating farm is located.

 

So if you are looking to pay us a visit, mark you calendar for either our Open Farm Day on September 6 or National Alpaca Farm Days on September 27 and we will look forward to seeing you then!

 

Rosemary

Getting to the root of the problem

   

Our trip to the vet yesterday proved fruitful in that we were able to get to the bottom of the problem of Queen’s jaw abscess.

 

Our vet first examined the lump externally and then tried to get some pus to drain from it.  The lump was significantly smaller than the day before, we had drained the abscess ourselves earlier in the day but had not been able to get much pus from it.  Our vet was unable to get anything else out of the abscess and felt that was a good sign that the abscess was draining well on it’s own.

 

Having examined the lump externally our vet them probed it internally.  The probe went in quite a way but the good news was the vet could feel bone.  Just to be on the safe side though he suggested an x-ray of Queen’s jaw which we willingly agreed to.

 

Queen behaved well throughout all of the poking, prodding and x-rays.  She did grumble a bit from time to time but stood quietly for most of the time.  The x-ray revealed that Queen has an infected tooth.  It is the first molar on the left hand side of her jaw.  Our vet has new equipment that allows him to download the x-ray image to his computer.  It was so much clearer than trying to decipher an x-ray on the usual light box.  We could easily see that the root of the infected tooth was much different in appearance to the healthy teeth in Queen’s jaw.

 

From the x-ray it was back to examine the affected tooth.  A large syringe wrapped in vet wrap was put sideways into Queen’s mouth to hold her mouth open.  The vet them pulled on the tooth using some large plier type tool (it was a specialized veterinary tool).  The tooth is still firmly attached; our vet also checked the area for odor and did not find any which is also a good sign.

 

Having discovered what the problem was we then needed to discuss our options.  Option one was to put Queen on antibiotics for two weeks and hope that they would knock out the infection.   This option would be easy to do, but the chances are the problem will flare up again over time.  Option Two was to remove the tooth.  For this option Queen would be anesthetized and then, given how strong the tooth still was sitting in the jaw, it would most likely need to be chiseled out.  There would then be the challenge of maintaining the area where the tooth had been removed to prevent any further infection.  The advantage of this option would be that it would be a long term solution and with the way the current abscess was placed there was a ready made drain in Queens jaw.

 

Option Two sounded as if it might be the better option, except that our Queen is about 30 days pregnant.  When we told the vet about Queen’s pregnancy he said that he felt we would be better off waiting to extract the tooth.  He felt from his examination that it would last through her pregnancy and that once Queen has her next cria we can set a date for the tooth to be extracted.

 

Option One still has it’s risks as it is better to avoid antibiotics during pregnancy, especially the first 60 days, but the risk is less at this point.  The antibiotic we will be using is one that we used previously on a pregnant dam that had a bone abscess on her leg bone.  That dam was on high doses of the antibiotic for a large part of her pregnancy and both her and her cria were fine.  Hopefully that will be the case with Queen and the cria she is carrying.

 

There is always the slight chance Queen will lose her cria due to the stress of the vet exam today, we will hope not but is a fact we have to face.    If Queen does lose her cria we will need to accept that is how things are meant to be and go ahead and remove the offending tooth from Queen’s jaw.  Fingers crossed though the antibiotic will be effective and all will be well with Queen and her pregnancy.

 

 Rosemary

 

One Lump or Two

Over the last few days we noticed that our alpaca Queen had something going on with her jaw.  The first sign was that she was not closing her lips properly but kept them slightly open, then some swelling started to appear on her jaw line and that swelling has grown quite rapidly.

 

Queen has had problems in this area before.  About two years ago she had a tooth abscess that we treated first with high dose antibiotics.  The abscess showed a little improvement but there was still a lot of swelling there.  An x-ray revealed that there was not any bone involvement at that time.  Sometimes with a tooth abscess the bone gets eaten away by the bacteria that is also causing the abscess causing further complications. 

 

When Queen had not responded to the high dose antibiotics our veterinarian suggested putting in an antibiotic implant.  The procedure was quick, Queen was given a sedative (to which she was very receptive) our vet made an incision in the area of the abscess, drained the abscess put in the implant and quickly sewed Queen up again.  The implant was left in for three weeks and then removed.  The removal was as quick and easy as the initial implant and the abscess by that time had gone.

 

Our vet had warned us that we may see further problems in that area of Queen’s jaw, and last year we did see some swelling but it soon went down again.  This year however the swelling was rapid and quite significant, getting to golf ball size very quickly.  By Sunday evening chores the swelling had gone from being hard in texture to becoming soft and pliable and so we felt that we may need to get it lanced by the vet.

 

We already had an appointment with the vet for today.  Some of the alpacas at our farm our returning to their owners and need brucellosis and TB tests for the health certificate in order that they may travel, so we called and asked if it would be okay if we could bring Queen in too to have her lump examined.   

 

I guess Queen heard us making the arrangements for a trip to the vet as by yesterday afternoon the lump had ruptured.  (Knowing Queen as we do we think she decided to take care of business herself rather than have the vet do it!).  We cleaned the area and the hole in the lump carefully, flushing it out with some bentadine solution.  We then dried it off and applied some wound dressing to help treat the area, keep it free from flies and yet still allow it to remain open to drain.  Queen will still be going to the vet today, just to have him cast his expert eye on the problem and advise us as to how to continue to treat it.

 

I suspect that for many days to follow we will be draining and irrigating Queen’s lump, but I am glad that it ruptured to the outside rather than into her jaw area which would be difficult to treat.  A course of antibiotics for Queen will also be quite likely.

 

All being well the lump will gradually diminish and we will not see any further instances of it.  The mere presence of the lump though does make me wonder if Queen may be a little run down, another thing to discuss with the vet.  Queen is in her middle years, nursing a large cria and we think expecting another cria and so it is possible that she could be run down and need some extra TLC for a while.   Nothing less than treatment fit for Queen I think!

 

Rosemary

Hard Working Clearance Crew

Sven Takes A Break from Weed Clearance

On occasion we put our alpacas to work – weed eating that is.  There are always those areas on any property that are difficult to mow or get to and keep clear of weeds and the alpacas are pretty handy at getting into those areas and making light work of the job.

 

 

 

Of course there are some weeds that are not good for alpacas and you need to be aware of which those are before allowing your alpacas to a weeded area.  Usually alpacas will not eat weeds that are harmful to them, but they will eat noxious weeds if they are hungry enough and there is always the chance that they will accidentally consume a piece of bad weed along with a mouthful of good weed, and with some noxious weeds a small mouthful is enough to do some serious damage.

 

If you are in any doubt about the safety of weeds on your property try contacting your local agricultural extension agent and make arrangements for him or her to visit your property and identify what you have growing.

 

On Saturday we allowed one group of the boys to give us a helping hand by clearing the area around our propane tank.  The area is fenced and leads off one of the boy’s pastures and so it was just a matter of opening the gate to let the boys in.  They were such willing workers and had a great day nibbling the vegetation down to next to nothing.  They did a good job and it was so much nicer than one of us working with a lawn mower or weed whacker in that area.    Thank you boys, job well done!

 

Rosemary

Putting a Fresh Face on Things

 

A lot of alpaca business is conducted via the Internet.  From alpaca sales to alpaca registrations and from educational pieces to the all important marketing of your alpaca business.   These days the majority of businesses need a web site to make them fully competitive and for the alpaca industry the same applies.

 

We have had our web site for several years, it is nothing fancy but it serves its purpose.  I have had some education in the mysteries of HTML and Search Engine Optimization but by no means am I an expert, still I have enough knowledge to at least help me understand what needs to be done, whether I do it myself or contract someone else to do it on my behalf.

 

Our existing web site though is looking tired and in need of an update, more importantly the software I used to create that site with is no longer supported by the company who sold it too me making it nearly impossible to change anything on the site.  Not a good state of affairs in the world of Internet marketing.

 

One of my current projects is to recreate the website.  Nothing really drastic, as we have had a lot of good feedback on the existing site, but there is information on the site that needs to be updated and some other features I would like to add.  Most likely when the first few basic pages are completed I will make the changeover so that people get to see the new site, then as new pages and features are created they will become available.

 

Something I do bear in mind is that many people who are interested in alpacas live in rural areas without the benefit of a high speed Internet connection.  We are very fortunate that DSL is available to us, but even it has it’s off days and I know how frustrating it is to wait for a website to load it’s various flash animations and other bells and whistles.  When I went through my course on web design it was stressed to me that your Home Page should never contain large graphic images or flash in order that on a slower speed connection the Home Page still loads quickly.  I guess that rule has gone out of the window as so many websites I visit have huge amounts of graphics and flash on their home page.  I bet you the designers of those sites have not had the joy of sitting waiting for their Home Page to load, courtesy of a dial up connection!

 

Of course pictures of the alpacas are most appealing to most people and will brighten up the sight, but I will have to try and decide which ones will work best, and boy do I have a lot to choose from!

 

I will make a post on the blog to let people know when the new site is active; hopefully it will not take me forever and a day to get to that point.  One thing I dearly want to get active is an on-line store for our products, after all Christmas is coming!

 

Something I did discover the other day while doing my research into features for the site was a handy tool that helps you create a nice personal signature that you can apply to your web site or blog.  If you are interested check out www.mylivesignature.com it’s a fun little site and I enjoyed creating some signatures there.  So to wrap up this post here is one of my new signatures.

 




(Now if only I could really sign my signature like that!)

A Gentle Nudge Back In Time

Tuesday afternoon brought rain and lots of it, how wonderful the past few days have been with cool temperatures, cloudy skies and some decent rainfall.  The weather forecasters warn us that hot, dry weather is soon to return, but for now we are enjoying the rain and all it brings.  For along with Tuesday’s rain, came thunder, lighting and a loss of power.

 

We are fortunate in our area that we are serviced by a rural electric co-op, Farmers’ Electric Co-operative.  Through all of our years here in eastern New Mexico we have always lived in the area serviced by Farmers Electric, and whenever there is a loss of power they are quick to respond.  We have come to appreciate that whenever we lose power we can call to the co-op and a real person answers the phone, whatever time of the day or night it is.  No pre-recorded message, but a real person and often someone who we know by their first name as we have talked to them in the course of business over the years.  Most of the employees at Farmer’s Electric have worked there for many years, a sure sign of a good employer.

 

So having called in our loss of power, we were confident that the problem would be fixed as soon as possible.  We had noticed once the power had gone out that it kept trying to flicker on, a different situation than normal and something that made us suspect that we could be without power for a while.

 

Evening chores were done in the rain, but it felt good to feel the rain on our skin.  We didn’t bother with rainwear except for our boots to help us stay upright on the slick mud, and even though our clothes became wet it really wasn’t uncomfortable, just part of enjoying a cool rainy evening.

 

With chores complete the rest of the evening lay ahead, without power there would be no work on the computer and paperwork would be limited to how much could be done before the light in the house became too poor.  But there were better options to be enjoyed.  Ric had a prior engagement to go to; he had arranged to bowl in a league on behalf of a friend whose wife is seriously ill.  Ric is an avid ten pin bowler (and yes he has had his 300 game) so the chance of a night’s bowling was of great appeal to him.

 

For me the choice was simple, how wonderful to be given the chance to spend the evening knitting and reading on the front porch, with no guilt or pressure of the work that always needs to be done.  The front porch had enough shelter from the rain and the light there was much better than in the house.

 

And so it was I was to enjoy an evening of leisure. Coincidentally I had just finished reading a book entitled “Dairy of a Farmers’ Wife 1796 – 1797”.   The book is an account of the dairy of Anne Hughes, a farmer’s wife, who lived in a remote country farmhouse in Monmouthshire in the late eighteenth century.  It is an interesting book and as I read it I was fascinated by the work that was carried out by Anne Hughes and her maid Sarah, the way in which Anne freely helped others less fortunate than herself, Anne’s simple needs and the complete lack of focus on money and material possessions during that time.  The book made me think about our society today, how materialistic we tend to be and how much we take for granted, there is much we could learn from our ancestors.

 

Having finished “The Dairy of a Farmers’ Wife” I had started another book on Monday entitled “Seasons of My Life” and so was not very far into its pages.  “Seasons of My Life” is the true story of Hannah Hauxwell a solitary women who lived in the Dales of Northern England (Note: I would say Yorkshire Dales, but the Dale where Hannah lived, Baldersdale, was originally considered to be in Yorkshire but eventually considered to be County Durham).  The story of Hannah’s life is actually contained in three books and was also made into a documentary.    Hannah is quite a remarkable woman, who was discovered in 1972 to be living in an isolated farmhouse without water or electricity.  Her lifestyle and speech are rooted in another time; she almost seems to be still in the late 18^th or early 19^th century.  As I read the book I read of how before World War One there were times that were so bad that people in the Dales kept the wool from their sheep, spun their own yarn and made their own clothes.   Having read this I had joked with Ric on Tuesday morning that the way our economy is heading he had better learn to spin too as soon we would be forced into taking our alpaca fleeces and spinning them into yarn for our clothes!

 

So on Tuesday evening as I sat on the front porch of our house, a house that was without power, knitting a pair of alpaca socks for me to wear this winter, using yarn from our alpacas, the scene struck me as interesting.  My grandmother was raised on a farm in the Yorkshire Dales, I don’t remember her mentioning sheep or spinning in her recollection of her younger years, but I am betting that someone either in her generation or previous generations of our family most likely spun yarn, most definitely knitting would have featured in the family activities.  Maybe just maybe I was being gently nudged to some family roots, carrying out an activity that was also carried out many generations before me.  Perhaps continuing a tradition that somehow was lost over the years, and maybe hidden deep inside me is an ingrained knowledge, an unknown force that has guided me over the years to go back to working with animals and the land, and back to a skill that has long been forgotten or overlooked in our family.

 

Rosemary