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It is the end of March and April is fast approaching. One of my New Years' goals was to lose weight and get fit. I have lost weight, but not as much as I would like. I will work on getting another 5 pounds off over the next 3 weeks. Below is my tracker.
We had ultrasounds done on the girls and both of our girls (Carina and Lacey) who were due this Summer held their pregnancies. They are due the beginning of June. Both girls are bred to our herdsire, Gaston. I am looking forward to these babies, although I must admit all babies are exciting. We also have two females (Shawnie and Madison) due in November.
April 27 we will host an after shearing open house from 10 am to 2 pm. |
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Posted by Nobella Alpacas at
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Well we are well into 2008 and have begun thinking about the upcoming shearing season. I have set our shearing day for April 26 and plan on having an open house the day after on April 27 to showcase our fleeces, alpacas, and alpaca products. I have decided since we will be shearing even more alpacas this year, I need to drop some pounds and get fit. With that in mind I joined Nutrisystems. In the first week I lost 4 pounds, but I am sure things will probably slow down. I set a goal to lose an additional 10 pounds before Valentine's Day. I will see how it goes.
http://www.TickerFactory.com/weight-loss/wcxLEqE/ |
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Posted by Nobella Alpacas at
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Yesterday, was Friday the 13th. We have waited for weeks for Madison to have her cria. It seemed like she was never going to have this baby. Last year she had her baby at day 345, which would have been July 3rd. We waited around the the 3rd and the weekend as well, but she still hadn't had her baby. Then on day 350 I was sure she would have, her baby. She had gotten huge and the baby always seemed to be moving to the point I thought her sides would bust.
This past week we had 4 days in a row over 90 degrees and the humidity was oppressive, but Madison just hung in there hanging out by the water buckets and the fan. Then Thurday the heat cycle broke and I thought well maybe today will be the day. However, Madison must have been listening to the radio in the barn and decided that Friday would be an even better day for a baby and indeed it was. Is she smart or what?
So Friday morning, which was day 355, Madison decided to come out of the barn and lay around the field. She was looking bigger than ever and the baby was moving up a storm. I kept an eye out on her, but was wondering if she was going to keeping me waiting another day or more. At 11:17 Madison decided to get the show on the road and have this baby. By 11:35 her cria was born. The cria is a ...... BOY! And what a handsome sweet boy he is. Initially, he looked very white, but as he has dried it looks like he maybe a very light beige color. He has lots of pigment around his eyes and lips. In fact, the way his lips are outlined in dark pigment, it looks like he is always smiling. We will be calling him Simon.
Madison is a great mom. She is very protective of her baby, but has allowed us to handle him. When he was first trying to get on his feet, I helped him get up a few times. Madison would kiss me as if to say "thank you for helping my special boy." He has gained a full pound in less than 24 hours so she has a good milk supply.
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Posted by Nobella Alpacas at
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Speed is doing well. He has handled all the stress and treatments involved with his dog attack injury (outlined below May 26, 2007-"Tragedy With a Livestock Guarding Dog) with aplomb. Dr. Lizas came to see him this week and said he no longer needed weekly visits and he was actually cleared from her calendar unless we had any concerns, yipee! He will continue to need daily cleanings and ointment applications, but we should take him off the antibiotic at the end of this week. He is refered to as "The King" of Nobella Alpacas. Java thinks is accomodations are really nice and decided to join him.
The skin is pink and healthy- it just needs to close over the muscle and tissue now, which also looks healthy. |
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Posted by Nobella Alpacas at
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It has now been 3 weeks since Speed was attacked. He continues to need a great deal of daily care, but is able to walk short distances on a lead line without limping, in spite of the tremendous damage to his left rear leg. This leg was torn and punctured both inside and outside and has needed drains. The inside has always been the most involved and had to be opened right away to allow the infection to drain off. We thought we were going to be able to save most of the skin on the outside thigh, but midweek last week, it began to swell and the skin was becoming thick and irregular. On Friday, Dr. Lizas began removing the dead tissue and found the area underneath enlarged with pus. She had to open it further to drain and clean it. We have also changed his antibiotic from Nuflor to LA200. I think he is responding well to this because the area has improved over the weekend. I am grateful that Speed is able to get up and walk. He is eating well and eliminating fine. Initially he lost about 20 pounds right after the attack. He was eating grain fine, but was not eating as much forage because he was spending the majority of his day cushed. We have pushed the forage and created several small enclosed grassy areas to rotate him on, while he is on the grass he mostly stands and grazes. He gained back 6 of the lost pounds. We will keep pushing the forage.
Below is this weeks photo.....
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Posted by Nobella Alpacas at
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I have often read about the importance of protecting our alpacas because they have no natural defenses against predators. We don't seem to have a bear, mountain lion, or other wild predator concerns where we live, but I was always concerned about neighborhood dogs wondering over and harming our alpacas. I looked into a llama, but felt other than size, they did not have any other advantage in terms of defenses than our alpacas. Most llama people say llamas can help guard, but are not meant to be the sole defense system.
With that in mind, I decided a livestock guardian dog would be best for us. I joined the Maremmma list and Great Pyrenees list in order to learn more about these dogs. I let a fellow alpaca breeder know about my interest, because she has been so happy with her two Great Pyrenees guardians. She put me in contact with another breeder who is part of a non profit group that evaluates and places trained guardian dogs. I contacted them and they felt they had just the dog. He was two years old and had been under their care for approximately a year. He was an Anatolian/Great Pyrenees cross. He was currently living with goats and doing a fine job of taking care of them. I decided this would be an ideal dog and made arrangements to bring him to my farm. He was slowly introduced to the alpaca group and had his own place for eating so the alpacas could not bother him while he ate. We watched him carefully over several days. He did not chase them or show any signs of aggression. By midweek, he was out with the herd and moving from my female paddock to my male paddock as he saw fit.
After he had lived with us for just over a week, we found our rooster dead one morning in the empty paddock, where our guardian dog mostly hung out because he could easily view both the male and female paddocks from. We were upset and concerned, but were not certain the rooster was killed by the dog, perhaps he even scared the predator away that killed the rooster.
Two days later, I heard screaming coming from my barn area. I ran out to find the dog attacking one of our alpacas, while he screamed and tried to run from him. I called the dog's name. He stopped, turned, and came running to me wagging his tail. I quickly secured him in our barn's tack room. Then I ran out to assess the damage done to our alpaca, Speed Racer. Initially, I saw several areas that were bleeding, but the did not appear to be bleeding much so I was hopeful that the damage was minimal. I quickly put a call into our vet and swabbed the bleeding areas with a beta dyne mixture. What concerned me most was Speed was just lying there and would not get up. The vet arrived and we moved Speed into the barn aisle. He did get up on his own. We began shearing away the fleece and that is when we began to realize just how badly he was hurt. His whole left leg was bit and chewed up so severely, there was no way to ascertain just how many times he had been bit. He had large, deep open puncture wounds on the inside and outside of the thigh. Our vet felt that these would be fatal and he would loose all the skin inside his leg and die. His skin was already within hours pulling away from the body and feeling "crinkly" to the touch. I asked her to do her best and that I would too.
We made a small pen for Speed in the aisle and in the stall. We covered it with blankets, which we change many times a day. His wounds are flushed several times a day. Medications are applied into the punctures and on top of the abraded skin. Fly spray is applied liberally and Speed is hand walked through out the day because we can not allow him to lie on the bare ground and get dirt into his open wounds. He also receives multiple injections for pain and antibiotics to ward off infection. As of this writing it has been 13 days since Speed's attack. He is still alive and the vet is more optimistic about his recovery, but feels it will be a lengthy recovery. He has had to have 3 procedures where she has had to cut away the dying tissue. She has been out to see him 5 times and will continue to see him for a while longer at least one to two times a week.
The lessons I have learned are that if we ever decide to add an alpaca guarding dog again, it will have to meet the following criteria
1. Be a puppy under 12 weeks of age.
2. Been raised with alpacas at an alpaca farm.
3. Be a purebred livestock guardian dog.
Below are pictures of the injuries that Speed Racer endured. This attack occurred in less than 20 minutes. I am certain of that because the alpacas had slept inside a barn stall while the dog was outside of the barn stall and I had just let them out 20 minutes before I heard the commotion.
Warning!
The following pictures are graphic.
The first two photos were taken the day of the attack. The third picture is taken of the inside of the leg two weeks later.
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Posted by Nobella Alpacas at
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As I woke up this morning and looked out the window, it appearred we were having a late April Fools joke. I could not believe my eyes. There was snow on the ground. My girl, Shawnie, from New York, was out and about first. You could almost see by her smug expression that she thinks the other girls are wimps. They were all cozied up in the barn while Shawnie was out seeing what's up.
Meanwhile Cloud Walker is not impressed with this cold snap since we sheared all his fiber off last week. He keeps looking at me in the most pathetic way. I swear 3 days ago people were wearing capris and shorts. Two weeks ago we made sure the fans were running and hosing the alpacas down to avoid them becoming overheated. I keep telling him he looks dashing in his orange coat.
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Posted by Nobella Alpacas at
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On Saturday, March 31st we woke up bright and early to attend a shearing clinic at Fireweed Alpacas. I took two of the boys, Speed and Cloud Walker. In the morning we went over the equipment, resources for buying shearing equipment, and places to send fiber. We learned the difference between shears and clippers and how to put on blades, combs, and cutters. There were many makes and models of shears and clippers. Then we broke for lunch and visiting. After lunch we hit the barn. There were two set ups- one with a mat and floor tie down and another with a tilting shearing table. We veiwed both in action, but spent most of our time at the mat and floor set up because that is the set up we will be utilizing at our place. After some demonstration, Teri and her helpers let us try our hand at the shearing process. We worked a great deal with Linda and she was an awesome mentor and teacher. Below is a picture of Cloud Walker being shorn. He was very sweet, relaxed, and content.
Ben, Patty, Cloud Walker, Linda, and Veronica
We worked quite a bit with Ben, Linda, and Veronica through out the day. We worked well together. Linda is from King William Alpacas and Veronica is from Mada Vemi Alpacas. |
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Posted by Nobella Alpacas at
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Well, after a long wait our 2006 yarn has come back. It was worth the wait! Last year I sent my fiber to a mill in New York. Once I checked on it's safe arrival, I learned the mill went bankrupt. I thought I would never see my fiber again, but it was finally returned after 3 months.
Then it went off to New Aim Fiber Mill in Maine. The owner, Nancy, was a good communicator and kept me up to date. I was a little leary of using a mill again, but I really wanted our fleeces prepared into yarn, because the previous year's yarn I had used for two projects and sold the remaining yarn quickly. Fortunately, I can say it was worth the trials and the wait! Nancy does fabulous work. Nancy did the browns and black pictured below and my friend, Kristen, and I hand spun the gray fiber.
Here is a photo of the black yarn. It shimmers and is oh so soft. It is Gaston's cria fleece. I will use it for a special project.
Next is our brown yarn, which is a huacaya/suri blend. I love it! It has a nice handle and is a good weight for various projects. I will offer this for sale to others. In fact, Lynda has bought up 14 skeins of it already.
Next is handspun yard that Kristen and I have been working on. This is Shawnee's fleece and it has come out beautifully. I have enjoyed working with it.
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Posted by Nobella Alpacas at
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