Sadly no babies, I am not sure where I am going wrong, but I guess this is what nature decides and I must just accept it.
Anyway my small herd is still lovely, Fuego (last years cria) is continuing to grow well, she is a bit of a live wire and does love to throw herself around in fact completely knocked the food bowl out of my hand the other day in her excitement for breakfast and does get told off by the adults quite a lot for her boisterous ways. Inti is also still growing well and despite being a very calm, chilled alpaca is starting to challenge the other boys. Cusco just spits at him however Jester will rise to the occasion and as he is a very tall alpaca tends to put little Inti in his place. I would like to show Inti at some point so this means he needs to be entire, so I shall try and enter him later this year at some show and if he shows well this might be the way forward for him, if he doesn’t I shall have him castrated and make the most of his floof. Once a male has been castrated, he can no longer be shown as the floof doesn’t age as fast and you will have a much better yarn in the long run.
Reeya and Polly seem to spend most of their time asleep, very chilled and happy in their own company. Imogen and Lucha (mother and daughter) are still close and are nearly always together. Coca however has developed her mother’s habit and, unusually for an alpaca, is often seen on her own grazing contentedly although they all come together to sleep.
They have also had their annual haircut, with Cusco misbehaving spectacularly, not only would he not lie down he screamed a lot and I’m afraid to say that everyone involved in the shearing was showered in copious amount of smelly green gunge that he spat out at high speed! To add insult to injury just as he had been released from his ordeal and I turned around to open the gate he felt he had one more spit in him, I was covered from top of my head, down my t-shirt, shorts, back of legs and not forgetting my shoes – you really can’t appreciate how much this stuff stinks, but at least that’s over for another year.
It was, of course, Fuego’s first shearing and she behaved beautifully although was completely shell shocked and didn’t move for a full 5 minutes after being released but the floof that came off her was amazing, a gorgeous mix of gingery brown and cream. I really hope that the mill can process this as both my son and I had spent several days trying to remove the straw and debris from her coat running up to the shearing. She does however now look more like a guanaco (her wild cousin) than ever.
I am also hoping that as they were sheared early this year their floof will have grown back sufficiently for a show at the beginning of September, where I will hopefully enter Coca, Inti & Fuego.
Other than the shearing I am still trying to improve the grass in the middle paddock, and courtesy of poop from the alpaca and the recent rain it is looking much better and will hopefully be in good shape to reintroduce the boys in a few weeks, I just need to keep digging out those weeds!
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