Fetching the Feed

Monday I had to make a flying visit to Albuquerque to pick up a load of feed.  It’s about a four hour drive from our house to the feed mill, a drive that might seem excessive to some, but when it comes to getting good quality, fresh feed the drive is worth making.

Our feed is milled by Onate Mills using a pre-mix supplied to them by Dr. Norm Evans.  Dr. Evans is one of the top authorities on alpaca nutrition in the United States and has formulated feed to suit the different nutritional needs of alpacas in different states.  While some might think that one generic feed would be sufficient for all the alpacas in the US that is not the case.  Differing mineral soil content, varying amounts of sunlight, weather conditions and differing water qualities are just a few of the factors that can cause different nutritional requirements in alpacas across the US.

We could purchase the feed under a different brand name from a closer store, but that brand sells the feed in 40 lb bags instead of the 50 lb. bags we get from Onate and the price on the other brand is quite a bit higher.  When you are feeding 60 plus alpacas every day a difference of 10 lb. per bag and a couple of dollars per bag soon adds up.  So when all the factors are taken into consideration it is worth our time to drive to the mill in Albuquerque to pick up feed.  We also know that the feed is fresh as the mill manager can tell us when the feed was milled.  This last load was actually milled on Saturday – pretty fresh feed!

Fortunately my drive was uneventful, with some good CD’s to listen to and some snacks for the trip I was able to sit back and enjoy the New Mexico scenery.  Ric was able to take care of chores for the day and so I was able to get a reasonably early start and was back home before dark – perfect.

With alpacas being a fiber producing animal to us it is of the utmost importance that their nutrition is the best that we can give them.  Over the years we have seen how much difference good nutrition makes not only to the alpacas fleeces but also to their overall health – we are what we eat and that phrase most definitely applies to alpacas too.

Rosemary

It’s Almost Time For…..

Open Farm Day!  This Saturday November 21 we will again be opening the farm to the public from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

We try to have an Open Farm Day at least once a quarter but with the holiday season rapidly approaching we will be having Open Farm Days on November 21 and December 19.  In addition to the Open Farm Days we will also be opening the Farm Store from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. every Saturday in December until Christmas.  So there will be plenty of opportunity for people to come out and do their Christmas shopping and also see the alpacas between now and Christmas.

There is always much preparation for an Open Farm Day, new products to be found, inventory to be priced and put out on display, copies of alpaca coloring pages to be made to help keep the little ones entertained, cookies to be baked and a general tidy up around the farm.

I am excited that we have recently started to offer a few new products, pretty Peruvian alpaca hats, needle felting starter kits in bright colors, handmade soaps covered in a felted alpaca wrap that smell divine and also alpaca bird nesting balls to help the birds build their nests in the spring.  It’s great that we have access to such a diverse selection of alpaca goodies and shows how people in the alpaca industry are becoming very creative in using our versatile alpaca fiber.

 

Alpaca Bird Nesting Ball (picture courtesy of Alpacas of the Covenant the creators of this neat alpaca product)

Of course we will also have plenty of alpaca socks in stock along with gloves, scarves, ski bands, yarn and rugs.   We feel it is important to have a nice selection of inventory on hand to suit everyone’s budget and so have products ranging in price from $10 to $200.

The alpacas of course always receive a lot of attention during Open Farm Days and hopefully will be on their best behavior.  They usually manage to easily entertain our visitors with their curious stares and cautious sniffs.  I can guarantee that they will have their pictures taken several times during the day and I suspect Theresa’s new cria will be the star of the show.

Hopefully our warm and sunny weather will hold out at least through the weekend, it’s always more pleasant for our visitors if they can stand in a warm, sunny pasture, but of course those colder days make people appreciate the warmth of alpaca fiber more.  Whatever the weather we will enjoy meeting those who come out to the farm and hope that they will enjoy meeting us and spending their time here too.

 

Rosemary

Where Does The Time Go To?

Windrush Chandra, February 2009 - she's grown a lot since then!

The past week just seemed to evaporate!  It’s hard to imagine where the time goes or is it?  Of course there was the distraction of Theresa’s new cria to keep us occupied.  Theresa’s cria is a sweet and lively little thing, exploring the pasture, coming up to see what we are doing, giving cria kisses and taking off on cria races around the pasture.  She is now up to 20.8 lbs and she and Theresa are back in with the main herd.  Theresa is a very protective dam and will not take any nonsense from the older crias who might think they are going to play rough with her baby!

Sunday (November 15) saw the end of the early bird discount for stalls at the TxOLAN Alpaca Spectacular which will be held February 12- 14, 2010 at the Will Rogers Memorial Center in Fort Worth, Texas.  We always try and enter alpacas in the TxOLAN Alpaca Spectacular and it’s great to be able to get discounted stalls and so we needed to make our decision this week as to which alpacas will attend the show.  We are lucky to have many alpacas to choose from but show expenses soon mount up and we can’t take them all.  We ended up registering our two new junior herdsires Biscotti and Champ and our Prince Regent daughter Chandra.   Show results from different shows and different judges can do a lot to enhance your Junior Herdsires breeding career, shows also provide an opportunity to showcase your junior herdsire in front of other alpaca breeders who might be interested in booking breedings to him.    With Chandra our motivation in showing her is a little different.  As our one and only Prince Regent daughter on the farm (the others have all sold or belong to our clients) we are curious to see how she places in the competitive white classes.  Our intention is for her to become part of our foundation herd so it will be good to get feedback from a judge as to Chandra’s strengths and weaknesses.  With her dense, fine fleece, correct conformation, graceful presence and her Prince Regent head (her sire has a beautiful head style which Chandra has inherited) we are hopeful that Chandra will walk away with a ribbon.

Of course the TxOLAN Alpaca Spectacular also has a fleece show and we will be sending in entries to that too, but I have a little more time to get those entries in the system.  Once entered though I then need to get busy skirting the fleeces in preparation for the show – February will soon come around.

We also had several enquiries during the week from people interested in learning more about alpacas, the alpaca lifestyle and what it takes to start up and run a successful alpaca business.  It’s always great to spend time talking to people interested in alpacas and to share with them some of the knowledge we have gained over the years.  I still remember the excitement Ric and I felt in the days when we were researching the alpaca business and the kindness of the alpaca breeders we spoke to at that time.  It is nice to now be able to “pay it forward” and share our knowledge with those looking into bringing alpacas into their life.

Add to those activities the daily chores, some behavior tests of bred females, some toe nail trimming, work on our websites, preparation for next weekend’s Open Farm Day, and work on a knitting project that someone has asked me to make and I guess it’s hardly surprising that our week disappeared before our eyes.  No complaint here though as it is fun work, a great lifestyle to be living and beats shuffling papers in an office any day!

Rosemary

Alpaca For iPod owners?

While in England I came across a short magazine article that mentioned that Apple has issued a warning that some people listening via iPod, iPhone or Mac Computer have received small electrical shocks through their ear buds – ouch!  People using the devices in areas where the air is very dry (such as ours in New Mexico) sometimes build up static electricity and receive a discharge of this static through their ear buds.

To be fair I am sure that the problem is not confined to users of Apple products, but rather is a possibility for anyone using a device of any make with ear buds, but Apple has taken the initiative to the address the problem and has listed on their web site some steps people can take to reduce the problem.  Amongst the steps listed is:

“Try wearing different clothes. Try clothes with natural fibers since synthetic fibers are more likely to hold a static charge.”

Whoopee – commercial giant Apple is suggesting the use of natural fibers.

Of course when I read the words natural fibers I think of alpaca.  It would be great to think that we could convert all iPod, iPhone or Mac computer users to wearing alpaca – even better still to hope that we could get all people who use ear buds to wear alpaca.  I am sure the other natural fiber producers would also want a look in at the new market of opportunity, but there should be enough people to share among us.

Natural fibers are a much better option for reducing static in your clothes.  Natural fibers are not entirely static free, but do offer a more static free experience.  Natural fibers tend also to be better for your skin as they allow your skin to breathe and often wick any moisture away from the skin too.  Remember though that garments often have some nylon or elastic blended in with them and to guarantee the best chance of being static free everything you wear would need to be made of natural fiber.  Still the wearing of natural fibers such as alpaca generally makes for a more comfortable experience.

So thank you Apple for encouraging the use of natural fibers – and for all of you out there starting to think of Christmas shopping think alpaca when it comes to a gift for the ear bud users in your life!

*Note – I don’t own an iPod (sorry Apple) but do own an MP3 player and to date I have never experienced a static shock through my ear buds, but of course I wear alpaca!

 

Rosemary

A Small Fiber Distraction

Inca's The Llama's Fleece - Washed

While looking for a document on my computer the other day I came across some instructions for washing alpaca fleece that I had kept from a couple of years ago.  Usually we don’t wash our fleeces before sending them to processing.  Often when I prepare alpaca fleece for hand spinning I don’t wash the fleece until after the yarn is processed, but I tend to use the cleaner fleeces for hand spinning projects.

The article I had kept had piqued my interest when I read it.  I know that prior to preparing sheep’s wool for spinning washing the fleece is a must in order to remove the lanolin from it.  As alpacas don’t have lanolin in their fleece that is not an issue with alpaca fleece.  Still that doesn’t mean that I couldn’t wash alpaca fleece prior to processing for fiber arts projects at home and the article had some points on what to do and (probably more importantly) what not to do.

I have one alpaca fleece in mind to wash, that of our black alpaca Queen, but I thought that before I tried my hand at washing fleece that I really wanted to use for a specific project, perhaps I should find some other fleece to practice on first.

Down in our shearing area are several bags of llama fleece from shearing customers who just didn’t want to take the fleece with them.   I hate to see all of that fleece just thrown away, some admittedly was not the best or is too laden with vegetable matter to be useable, but other llama fleeces had a nice soft hand and were relatively clean.  Those llama fleeces make good candidates for experiment and I will probably get something nice as a result too!

Looking over the llama fleeces I decided to first try one of our own.  Our silver gray llama Inca has a lovely soft fleece in a pretty color (that’s her fleece in the picture) so I pulled out an amount of blanket fleece from her bag and off to the kitchen I went.

Before anyone starts to get concerned about the hygiene of washing fleeces in the kitchen sink I have to explain that our house has two kitchens.  One we use as our food kitchen.  The other is used for our alpaca medical supplies and various craft projects.  This second kitchen is large and has a large center pedestal making it a great work area.  I love having the two kitchens and if we were ever to think of moving I am afraid I would want to kitchens in the next house too!

The llama fleece washing commenced and the first step involved setting the fleece in hot water that had either shampoo or a soap such as Dawn dish soap or Orvus.    I have a lovely soap that I use for washing my fiber arts projects and so I decided to use that.  You should have seen the color of that water!  It was a lovely shade of Clovis orange (courtesy of the fine red sand in our area).  I was amazed at how much dirt came out, so amazed that I decided I had better repeat that step just to make sure all the dirt was removed.

The rest of the process went smoothly; I did find that some of the fiber felted a little.  Perhaps I had a little variation in the water temperature, or perhaps I had too much fleece in the water at one time.  Next time I think I will try the process in cold water just to see how different the results are.

So now I have a nice quantity of washed llama fleece sitting on the work surface in the big kitchen.  I have already decided that I am going to use my five point English combs on the fleece to produce roving.  From there my intention is to make some felted balls that can be used as cat toys, but… if that roving looks really nice when I have finished it then I may just have to spin it into yarn.  On that note excuse me while I go off to the kitchen to play whoops I really meant work on that fleece.

Rosemary

It’s That Time of The Year Again

When the temperature starts to cool a little, the sun sets earlier and the spinning wheel starts calling me!

Having knitted several projects recently I think it is time for a change, so the spinning wheel will be getting a workout

Right now my spinning wheel has some alpaca fiber on it that has been spun but that has also been grabbed by puppy Blue and entangled.  I really need to untangle the yarn and ply it then I will be able to move on to a new project.

I have some white roving ready to go and recently have been viewing some pictures of blended fibers (thanks Theresa and Nichol!) which have set my imagination going and are tempting me to try blending something with the alpaca roving I have.  I still have that really pretty lilac colored tussah silk which I think would look nice against the white roving I have on hand; I just need to pluck up the courage to give it a try.

Within a few months I hope to have a large supply of gray roving on hand as I have finally got around to skirting my collection of blanket fleeces from our one and only gray alpaca Ma Cushla.  Cush is not the softest alpaca in the world but her fleece has a beautiful even silver gray color to it.  I am sending Ma Cushla’s fleeces in to be dehaired and put into roving, some of which I will spin into yarn for knitting and crochet projects and some I want to use for felting (a nice nuno felt scarf maybe).   It will be fun to work with Ma Cushla’s fleece during the cooler months and while I am waiting for it to return from the mill I can start to think about some potential fibers to blend with it.  (I can also think some more about the small rigid heddle loom I have my eye on – but don’t tell Ric who claims I already have too many fiber arts toys as it is!)

That’s the thing with fiber there are so many different things to do with it and so much fun to be had trying new techniques.  The real trick is to find the time to do it all, but it’s amazing what even 15 minutes a day will create.

Rosemary

We Have Ribbons

Our Latest Ribbons From The AFCNA Continental Fleece Show

 

Last Thursday we received a delivery via FedEx – our fleeces that we had submitted to the AFCNA Continental Fleece Show.

 

We were surprised to see our fleeces back so soon after the show, the show had concluded the Sunday before and sometimes it takes while for fleeces to be shipped back to their owners following a show.

 

It is always an exciting moment when you open your box of fleeces wondering if you have won ribbons and for us the answer was yes!

 

Our Windrush Zindel’s Atlas had placed 1st in his class and our Windrush White Blast placed 6^th in his class. Unfortunately there were only four entries in Atlas’s class, Atlas has a gorgeous fleece and while we were happy to receive our blue ribbon it would have been good to see how he would do against more competition.

 

Blast’s fleece definitely had competition as he was 6^th out of 15 in the ever competitive white classes. I had not been happy with Blast’s fleece when I sent it in as it had become tangled up prior to my skirting it. I didn’t feel that it looked as good as it could do, so I am happy to know that Blast’s fleece placed in a large class despite the mess it was in!

 

I don’t know if I will show Blast’s fleece again, it will depend on how it looks when I take it out of the bag. Maybe I will have got lucky and the fleece show volunteers were able to do a better job of straightening it out than I did! Atlas’s fleece will definitely be shown again.

 

Blast (Left), Biscotti (Center) and Atlas (Right) enjoy some hay, oblivious to Atlas and Blast's latest accomplishments

So our two up and coming junior herdsires have some more credentials behind them. Atlas at just over a year old is not ready to breed yet, but we have some good news on Blast. It looks as if Blast has got a female pregnant at his first breeding attempt. We still have to confirm the pregnancy by ultrasound, but Dona is spitting hard and fast at any males that come near her so we are pretty confident she is pregnant. How exciting – now all we have to do is wait the 11 ½ months or so for the cria to be born, but if this year is anything to go by the time will go by in a flash!

 

Rosemary

Keeping The Bugs At Bay

Natures Defender Alpacas and Llamas Insect Spray

With our recent rains and warm weather the fly population is rapidly increasing. As we live in an area that is highly populated with dairy cows flies are a part of life. The dairies do their best to keep the fly population under control, many of them use fly predators and some spray for flies but the flies still manage to repopulate. The other insect of concern is the mosquito who is no doubt laying eggs like crazy in any water that has collected as a result of the rain.

We use food grade diatomaceous earth as a top dressing for our feed (it is most important it is food grade and not pool grade) and that helps not only with the flies but also with other internal parasites. For our stock tanks we use something called mosquito dunks which effectively kill mosquito larvae while leaving the water in the stock tank safe for our horses to consume.

With alpacas being fleece animals there is always the risk of lice getting your herd. We have unfortunately experienced lice in the herd in the past when some alpacas brought to us for shearing managed to pass them on to our herd. That was in the pre-quarantine days when alpaca owners would casually allow visiting alpacas to intermingle with their own herd. Now we know better and visiting alpacas are quarantined for three weeks prior to joining our herd and we are careful to clean our shearing mats and equipment after shearing visiting alpacas or llamas.

We are always on the lookout for new products that are helpful in keeping the bugs at bay and recently came across one that really has impressed us. “Natures Defender Alpacas and Llamas Insect Spray” is an all natural topical insect spray. Made from Cedar oil and Silane Fluid this spray is USDA approved and safe to use on most animals (it is not suitable for exotic birds). To us one of the best features of this product is that you can safely use it on pregnant alpacas and llamas.

Our past experience with lice in the herd has shown us how difficult it is to eradicate lice when you have pregnant females. Most lice treatments are not safe for pregnant and nursing alpacas which means that your pregnant and nursing alpacas cannot be treated for many months, preventing you from being able to treat the herd 100%.

The Nature’s Defender spray though allows us to spray pregnant and nursing alpacas if needed and as it is safe to use on crias we have been able to provide some fly relief for our crias whose beautiful young eyes often attract flies.

In addition to killing flies and lice the spray also kills ticks, mites, bacteria and fungal infections. You can also use it around the house to repel and kill insects. Actually we are finding more uses for this product every day – we have sprayed the alpacas, sprayed the dogs (including our puppy Blue), we have even sprayed Ric (well we sprayed his t-shirt before he did chores and the flies left him alone). We have also used the Nature’s Defender product on our alpaca products to keep moths away including lightly misting our fleeces that have not yet been shipped for processing. We didn’t experience any staining on our products as a result of using the spray and everything has a nice cedar scent to it.

You can read more about Nature’s Defender Alpacas and Llamas Insect spray at http://www.alpacasllama-insectspray.com/ and if you check out the distributors page you will see we are listed as distributors. We like this product so much we decided that we wanted to be able to supply it to our clients and friends.

** (August 28, 2009) You can now purchase the Nature’s Defender Alpacas and Llamas Insect spray through our AlpacaNation Farm Store at

http://www.alpacanation.com/alpaca-stores/03_viewstore.asp?name=11586

If you are looking to keep the bugs at bay try Nature’s Defender Alpacas and Llamas spray, I’m betting you will like it and will soon be using it for many things as we do!

Rosemary

To The Fleece Show We Go

 

 Well not us, but two of our fleeces headed off to the AFCNA Continental Fleece Show this afternoon.

 

If truth be known the fleeces probably should have left earlier, they will still arrive at the show with a day or two to spare but I hate taking a chance on something going wrong with the transportation and the fleeces arriving late. Also having been a fleece show superintendent myself I understand how nice it is to receive entries and fleeces well in advance of the show. (My apologies to all involved with the AFCNA Continental Fleece Show this year!).

 

So which fleeces did we send? After some discussion we settled on Windrush White Blast and Windrush Zindel’s Atlas.

 

White Blast did really well in fleece shows last year winning the white color champion at the TxOLAN Alpaca Spectacular against some stiff competition. Blast has a beautiful fleece with tiny micro bundles, high frequency crimp, superb brightness and a soft, soft hand.

 

When I went to prepare Blast’s fleece for the show I discovered that it had somehow become entangled within the bag and it took me a while to sort it out. That doesn’t happen often but when it does it is quite a challenge to unravel the puzzle of which piece of fleece needs to be turned in which direction. I had one heart stopping moment when I wondered if the fleece I had prepared was Blast’s 2008 fleece which had already been shown several times. That would have explained the twisting but would also have meant I had wasted my time and would have to start over on the 2009 fleece. I checked the fleece bag and “phew” the bag was marked Blast 2009! I did my best with Blast’s fleece but with it having become twisted I wonder if the judge will stumble across a piece of fleece that should have been skirted out. I wouldn’t’ be surprised if I get the “needs more skirting” comment on my scorecard.

 

Atlas did well in his first year of halter shows and this shearing was his first. Atlas also has a beautiful fleece in a bronzed light brown color. Atlas is really consistent with his fleece, with his crimp style extending all the way down to his belly and upper legs. Like Blast Atlas has a super bright fleece with high frequency crimp micro bundles. Atlas’s fleece was thankfully not tangled and so skirting it was a little easier, although I did start to wonder who allowed him to roll in the straw before shearing!

 

With the fleeces on the way to the show, now I can sit back and wait for the results. The really nice thing about this particular show is that you also get a DVD of the judges oral reasons on each class and of the seminars held at the show. If your fleece places, you get to see and hear the judges comments about it, which is great fun and a good addition to your herd records.

 

If you are thinking that you missed a great opportunity to show fleeces in the AFCNA Show then think again. The show deadline has been extended and late fees waived. Go to http://www.alpacawebsite.com/ for more information and then get your fleeces on the way to the show!

 

Rosemary

More Visitors of a warmer, fuzzier kind

The Visiting Llamas sporting a newly shorn look

 Just when we think there can’t be any more shearing to do someone calls and asks about shearing. So it was we found ourselves shearing six llamas on Thursday evening.

One of the llamas we had shorn for his owner last year, a good looking solid black male llama whose coat is a little suri like in appearance. The owner says that the male llama is the best cowboy he has, the llama not only protects the owners cattle, but also brings the cattle in to water and helps round up cattle when the owner is out working cattle on horseback. The llama is quite remarkable in his ability to sense what the owner needs and is a very good guard llama.

The other llamas in the group were three older females, a juvenile female and a juvenile male. Considering these llamas spend all year in the pasture with little to no handling they took the shearing process well. We did have to sedate two of the older females, we could see they were very nervous and the sedation helped them to relax and accept the process without a lot of fuss and stress.

 As each llama was shorn we took them out of the barn and tied them to trees around the barn and to their trailer so that they could nibble on tree leaves or weeds. Two of them even decided to have a roll after shearing no doubt enjoying the feeling of being cooler and able to feel the ground on their skin.

Fortunately we closed the driveway gates as part way through the evening the adult male llama decided that it was time for him to go exploring. He somehow managed to get his halter off and when we went out to check on him all we could see was an empty halter and a hanging lead rope. It didn’t take long to find him though as he had wandered over to visit with our three guard llamas Maya, Inca and Griffin. Our girls were most excited to have a male llama call to visit.

 

As the evening went on some storms rolled in bringing with them a lot of lightning and we decided it would be best for us to load the llamas back into their trailer before the storms and lightning got too close. Later that evening the llamas owner came to pick them up and take them home, happy to have his llamas shorn and comfortable and anxious to get his”cowboy” back to his cattle herd.

 

Rosemary