Nazca is getting bigger!

This is Nazca - 6 months old and growing like a good 'un.

He has already had the halter put on several times, and handles very well. He's only been groomed, but he does enjoy having his back scratched. In a couple of weeks we'll take him for a short walk, only 40 or 50 yards and back, so he's aware of what he should be doing.

We learned our mistake with Cusco, who we let grow to a year old or more before haltering him, and at a year old he is quite large, and so quite difficult, but he also leads very well now.

Nazca's mum, Lima, has always disliked the halter, and she is a really awkward one to get sorted - but we cannot let her beat us, so a real battle of wills.

The next blog we're going to talk goats!

Now, they're fun!

The boy has got over it...

..poor Cusco, at 18 months old, thinking he was the only male around capable of doing anything, and cut off just like that.

Vicki has done very well in handling the llamas, much better than me - the camelid dynamics course she went on last year has really been good value for money, so when it was time to get Cusco haltered up, and ready for his pre-operation injections, he was calmly standing in his pen waiting for something to happen.

Mind you it takes three of us to contain him to have his injections - Vicki at the head keeping him calm, me doing the grunt work and catching him between two hurdles. At the head end the hurdles are joined and at the bum end they are squeezed together so he can't move. I stand against the moving hurdle - the other is fixed permanently against a fence post, and hold on. The vet has the needles and does her job. We've all done this several times now, and it all goes like clockwork.

A real concoction of drugs, some to make him drowsy, some to ease the pain, and some to make him not care, and 10-15 minutes later he's lying down ready. having said he's lying down, we have to keep his head up, so although he's asleep his head cannot drop, as we must leave an airway for the stomach gasses to escape by, otherwise he'll bloat up, and other complications arise. That was Vicki's job.

My job was at the mucky end - keep the tail out of the way, hind leg up, so to relax everything - the rest was up to the vet.

The vet did her job in about 10 minutes, all clean and tidy, plenty of warm water and disinfectant, job done!

The boring bit was next, just standing there, holding his head up until he came around - this took the best part of an hour. Once up though he was a bit wobbly for a few minutes, but then, right what was that all about, I'm hungry. He had to wait for an hour or so, and then hay, water and he was out in the field as if nothing had happened.

It's a week later, vet has checked him over, and he's fine, no infections, and he's carrying on as though nothing happened.

Six weeks the vet said, and then we can put all our llamas together - it will make our lives a little easier, but we couldn't do it while Cusco was entire, as we couldn't have him playing with his mum.

That's a major operation out of the way now, so once we get them all together it's training - plenty of halters on, halters off, and walking on the lead.

Spring is here, what a great season that is!

Worming next!

The vet is coming tomorrow...

.. to visit young Cusco!

We need a clean dry spot for him to have his "operation", so today was spent shifting wet, soggy hay from the ground outside and inside his field shelter (he shares this with Wilbur). Whilst we clean the hay up from and around feeders on a regular basis the ground outside the shelter tends to be left so about 6 wheelbarrow loads of hay was lifted and shifted.

The inside of the shelter was given a good dose of Jeyes Fluid, which has subsequently meant that the boys won't go inside to eat, wary of the smell, which should disappear by tomorrow morning.

Cusco, poor lad, is a shade over 18 months old, and the operation he's due to have is the "chop". This will stop him getting too bolshy, and will mean that we can put him and Wilbur and the girls back together again, if we want to.

I hope the vet knows what she is doing, she has castrated plenty of alpacas, but this will be her first llama!

2010 - the beginning!

Our animals have all been suffering from the miserable winter, first the rain which has turned our winter ground in to quagmires, then the cold that kept our goats and chickens in their houses, not wanting to come out. The ducks disliked the cold as well, as the ground was so hard they couldn't have a good root around in the mud.

The llamas though, enjoyed the snow, a chance to walk around on top of the normally soggy ground, munching at the fresh hay, you can tell how well insulated they are, as the snow on their backs does not melt as the body heat cannot get out through the thick fibre, and so when lying down they are very well camouflaged against the white snow.

Snow here hasn't been a normal occurrence here in North Devon the past 6 years, a few light coverings is all, but this year we had a good dumping just before Christmas, and in January we had a good eight inches of the stuff.

We had a good spell last week, where we had frosts at night, but no rain, and it is those spells of weather where everything feels springlike - the sunshine is starting to feel really warm on our backs.

Young Nazca is 6 months old now, his brother Cusco, over 18 months. Cusco has spent the winter in a small field with Wilbur, our gelded male, and himself is soon to be gelded. These two boys will start some training in ernest in the next few weeks, as we want them to do a few treks this summer, hopefully paid treks to earn their keep. Nazca will stay with mum until it's time for him to be weaned, and then he'll be introduced to the boys so that they can all play together. There will be a few fights and he'll be picked upon as a new pecking order will be established - he will of course be at the bottom.

His mum Lima and Clara who lost her young one at just a week old last year are still open (ie not covered by a male and therefore are not pregnant) and so they will be trained up to get in the back of a trailer so that they can be mated, probably June time! It'll be 11 and a half months later before we get to see young cria gain here - end of May 2011 - seems ages away.

On the goat front we have acquired our own stud billy - a young lad called Titan - he is undergoing his quarantine time at the moment, but that will be completed on Sunday, and he will be introduced to the girls one by one, and a short 5 month wait and we'll hopefully have a series of young kids - that'll be our challenge in 2010 - a complete learning experience coming up.

So, 2010 has had a quiet start, but things on the land are about to get really busy - seeds are already in the propagator, some of our vegetable beds need digging, animal summer paddocks need treating before the grass is ready to be eaten, so we'll have lots to talk about in the coming weeks and months.

I'm not very good at this!

Just realised that it is over two months that I last posted anything meaningful.

A New Year's resolution ought to be that I must blog at least once a week, but I know I'll break it.

I'm glad to say that the llamas are all doing well, although the weather in October & November was just too wet for anybody to enjoy it. Nazca is quite large now, big eyes, and the fur around his head makes him look like he has a hood on. His mum Lima is quite happy for him to wander off and explore, and Clara who shares the paddock/shelter is very placid, except when it comes to feed treat time.

I'm glad I got a really good stock of hay in, they munch their way through it though, particularly as the grass has stopped growing.

Wilbur & Cusco have got used to the bachelor life in the other paddock, but we have put some extra fencing up to cut the paddock in two as they were starting top mess just too much of it up! Wilbur though really does not like the wet, and has had a real sulk on for a while, and while we have had 3-4 days of dry weather where he perked up quite a bit, it is back to raining and him cushing down in the shelter, where he just munches on the hay!

Good investment those shelters!

Hoping the weather brightens up for the weekend, must take some more photos and get the website updated, and then time for another blog!

The changing of the clocks...

I know, I know, it's a long time since I blogged, but as the days get shorter(I also know that each day still has 24 hours in it, but I meant the daylight part of the days getting shorter) there just seems to be so much to do, and in the evening I feel too exhausted to want to do much, other than send the odd tweet, or comment on someone else's Facebook status.

But now the clocks have changed, a recognition that the days are too short to get any real work done outside, certainly after a day in the office there isn't any daylight left, and that will just leave weekends, and that will depend on the weather, as to whether I can actually get anything done.

However there are chores that need to be done every day, most twice a day, and that is the interaction with the animals - llamas, goats, chickens as well as the cats and dogs!

They of course aren't bothered by the clocks changing, to them the days have gradually been getting shorter, and that means that meals come out later in the morning, and of course earlier in the evening.

The grass is not growing either, so the llamas turn to hay to eat during the day, and that is good, because they come up to the workshop more often, and that means we get to see them more often. They share the workshop area with the goats, who have munched hay most of the year, and out of all the animals have the same diet all year round. The goats however do not like the rain and tend to stay indoors on wet and damp days.

The chickens roost about an hour before dark, and like to have their corn an hour or so before they roost, so they are the ones that start the feeding session for all the animals.

During the summer, the animals get fed after I have finished the office work, but now I have to take a break around 4pm to sort the animals out, and go back to work after. 4pm gets closer to 3pm as the days continue to get shorter.

This does mean though that I now have time to think about blogging and doing a bit of my office work in the evenings after it has got dark.

It also means that I have to be careful about organising business meetings in the afternoons, because I have to be back by 3pm, or else the animals don't get fed. that isn't strictly true, as the animals have food and water on tap all day, it is just the treat food that they are in danger of missing out on - corn for the chickens (they have layers pellets to eat as and when they are hungry), and feed for the goats and llamas (but they'll happily keep munching hay).

So that's where we are now, and hopefully more to follow, now that I have time in the evenings!

Nazca

Here he is, sitting quite serene in the paddock on a nice quiet sunny day - he's now two weeks old (this picture was taken when he was 12 days old), and he's put on 5Kg (11lbs) in that time.

He is such a treasure, he is very inquisitive and enjoys the odd tickle under his chin, and plays by coming up to you and then running off.

Yesterday was injection day for the llamas, they needed 3 each, two under the skin and one into muscle - they have to have a "blue tongue" vaccine, the clostridium (I think that's how you spell it) and they all had a vitamin one as well. Young Nazca (it'll be Naz for short) took his better than the grown ups.

We're allegedly due a week or so of sunshine, and that'll see him come along quite quickly, and that will also mean more photos. We've got our own website now, and lots of photos are already uploaded there - check it out - www.ashwoodllamas.co.uk.

See you soon - we're going off on holiday soon, so housesitters are moving in for a week, need to work up a list for them! that could be a blog in itself.

See you soon!