We are open for llama business!

We've taken our first booking of the season today, for Wednesday afternoon. Doesn't give us long to get ready, but luckily there isn't much to get ready!

We call it the Ashwood Experience , a chance to come and meet us and our llamas!

What we offer -  Up to two hours of our time, both Vicki & Kevin will show you around our smallholding, and giving you the opportunity to get up close and personal with some, if not all of our llamas.

• First, we’ll do a short introduction, including the essential health and safety rules. We’ll give you some history of llamas in general, some useful facts about the way they will behave, and what you should expect from handling them.
• Next, we’ll bring some of the llamas up to the holding pen, where you can all get to say hello!
• Here, we will show you how to halter the llama, and each member of the party (one at a time) can groom a llama and have that one to one photo opportunity.
• Next, we will take two llamas for a short stroll around their field and you can have the opportunity to lead them.
• On our return, it will be treat time, the llamas will be rewarded and you’ll have the chance to give them their treats.
• Then, a chance to wander over and see our other llamas, our goats, chickens, and we may even be joined by the cat!
• A quick, but thorough wash of the hands and it’ll be time to say goodbye!

Check out our website for more details - www.ashwoodllamas.co.uk - and come and say hi!

We went to collect a new goat today!

No pictures yet, far too gloomy to do the little chap justice!

A best part of a 360 mile round trip to the other side of Southampton & back to collect Nero, our new stud Pygmy goat! He is only 14 weeks old, so a little bit of growing to do before he can start to fulfil his duties, but surprisingly he can start work at 7 months old, so can look to cover some of our younger girls this autumn!

On the way we went via Salisbury, but what a time consuming event getting through that picturesque little city was. We were making good time until we got there, so on the way back we came the more scenic route via Dorchester in Dorset, a few miles extra but probably 40 minutes quicker!

The movement license means that coming back, there was no stopping for any great lengths of time, a quick stop for a drink & a bar of chocolate to keep us going & one of us stayed in the car for the three minutes that took! Quite a long haul with no real chance to stop and stretch the legs, but the goat was happier with someone in the car with him I am sure. Mind you, he wasn't that happy being there in the first place, but tucked into some feed once we got him home, so we knew he was going to be OK.

Tonight he is in a small pen away from some of our other goats but within talking distance. Tomorrow, he will meet the boys and be introduced to his new quarters which a far roomier albeit a little spartan than where the girls sleep.

All is quiet now, and photographs & proper introductions will be made tomorrow.

They wouldn't have let us do that 10 years ago!

12 years ago we moved to North Devon! It was always an ambition of mine to own a house in the country with a little bit of land, and after being made redundant in 2002, decided it was time to do that. But it took us a couple of years to decide that it would be quite good to have a few animals.

Vicki is a farmers daughter, so I had an expert in the house, but we started with a few chickens, had 5 pigs for a while, then came the llamas, followed a few years later by the pygmy goats. 2 years ago now, we decided to have a go at fattening our own lambs and this year is our third season and we have got 8 little ones to look after.

Most animals have to have medication and injections. There is the regular six monthly ones and there are the occasional antibiotic as one of the animals catch something they shouldn't, the occasional pain killer if they bruise or hurt them selves in some way.

An expensive business, having to have the vet out to all these injections, but now, the vet trusts us to do it ourselves. We just have to ring up, explain the problem, the vet suggests a remedy and we collect it and administer ourselves. Saves us a lot of money in vet fees, and now that we have got the knack to it, it isn't that difficult.

They wouldn't have let us do that 10 years ago!

April is cria watch!

Cria is the name of a young llama (and aplaca)!

This year we have 9 believed pregnant llamas & the first cria are due as early as the 7th April!

The first 5 girls have already been moved to the paddock nearest the house where we can keep an eye on them many times a day!

Cria are born during the day and nearly always in the morning, so unlike the lambing & kidding season where lambs & kids can be born at any time of the, no sleepless nights for us!

This is Wispa as a cria, probably just a few months old! She'll be three this year and is one of the, hopefully, expectant mums!

Time to resurrect this blog!

Blogging has been off the agenda the last few years, but now, I think, the time is right to have another go!

A quick reminder, we are llama breeders based in North Devon, UK. We also breed Pygmy goats, keep lambs for short periods, have 4 dogs & a cat! Oh, we also have a small flock of chickens!

These little lambs are our latest additions!

Only 3 and a bit weeks old & drinking milk three times a day!

They will be with us until the autumn! While here they will be looked after very well & will have llamas as neighbours (who are already bored with them).

This chap isn't.

This is Lladdie, who we hope will assist us in rounding up the llamas when needed, but he prefers to keep an eye out for the lambs!

The big spit off!

We have collected our two girls, Clara & Lima from Llamalland in Cornwall and they appeared to have a great time, and were a little loathe to come home.

After some enticement, a food bribe, they both got into the horsebox, and we made our way home.

The big spit off is an event that occurs when the girls are re-introduced to the male and won't let the male approach them, as hopefully they are already pregnant! Clara gave Prince Charles, her suitor the spit on the first re-introduction, but Lima wanted another go, so we had to wait another two weeks to see if that was successful, and yes it was, so home they have come.

The re-introduction to the boys was made with some trepidation, as we have had problems in the past. We put the boys in one half of the main paddock, in fact they were haltered and had a short walk as we moved them, and as we have a fence that splits the main paddock into two halves, we hoped to re-introduce the girls in to the empty half so that a fence between the two groups would stop any problems.

Apparently, llamas have a long memory when it comes to knowing other llamas, and will remember faces (and smells) for a very long time!

Anyway, we needn't have worried, the two girls fair jumped out the back of the horsebox into their bit of paddock, ambled over to the fence - had a rubbing of noses, and then set about eating some grass.

That was it then - back to full compliment!

Are the girls pregnant?

I really wish that I could be a bit more proactive in making this blog a bit more regular.

News here - well, we have sent our two girls off to the stud farm.

Lima gave birth last year towards the end of August, and Clara a while earlier in mid-July.

Having lost our own stud male, we decided that it was too late in the year to have them covered - with an 11.5 month gestation period and adding a month for nursing the new cria and getting pregnant it would be a winter birth which we thought wouldn't be a good idea, so we left it to the spring, so at the end of April our two girls went off to Cornwall to stay with a few llamas and have some fun with a stud - Prince Charles no less....

The news is, Clara has taken, as the second meeting has resulted in a spit off, which normally means she is not that interested anymore, but Lima, having turned down her first suitor appears to have turned down her second. So, we have another 10 day wait - Camelids are induced ovulators, which means they shed eggs only in response to mating. They don't have seasons like most mammals. Ovulation takes place 24-48 hours after mating. - and 10 days give the sperm chance to fertilise before we try for the next spit off (the female is not interested because she's pregnant).

So, two more weeks, and it should be time to bring them home.

By the way, Nazca was weaned when mum, Lima, went off, and he has coped very well, and mixes with the boys as if he has always been there.

Until the next time!