News and Events

Alpaca Video - September 2010

Our ongoing farmhouse renovation project recently left us with a vast quantity of excess soil and so we decided to utilise this by adding a 'play feature' to one of our fields. We were unsure as to how the Alpacas would react to this pile of mud, but much to our surprise and pleasure they immediately investigated and explored their new mound and the young ones had great fun playing around taking turns to see who could leap off the furthest!
We have a short video clip showing the Alpacas first day on the mound:

Futurity Show - February 2010

We took four of our animals to the Futurity Show this year. Although we had been to the Futurity before we had never shown our animals before. We took Bess, a 7 months old brown female, Persephone our newly purchased fawn female and two black males - Barclay 9 months old and Bentley 7 months old. Four weeks before the event we started halter training. Barclay and Persephone were fine, but Bentley and Bess were very reluctant to move and Bess in particular dug her heels in and refused to budge while Bentley just laid down on the floor. However, after some gentle persuasion and a lot of patience we got them walking and after 4 or 5 days we were able to walk all four without any difficulty. We decided to give them as many experiences as possible while walking so that when they arrived at the Show they would not be fazed by the different environment.

It was certainly worth doing this as they went into the trailer without a problem and when we arrived and they had to walk over the disinfectant mats and into the hall they were absolutely fine. Phew!! On the day of judging all four animals walked into the ring without having to pull them and apart from Bentley, who took an instant dislike to the judge, they all behaved impeccably. There were four entries in the black junior male and we were extremely pleased that Barclay got a second and Bentley third. Persephone was in a large class of 14 and she got a fifth. Bess, unfortunately, did not get placed, but to get a second, third and fifth out of four animals we thought was pretty good. There were fewer entries this year at the Futurity, mainly because of the TB scare. However, the organizers had made sure that there was a 3 metre gap between each pen and disinfectant mats at the entrance so that animals and people had to walk across the mats to get in and out of the hall.

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The End of the Year - December 2009

Well, it’s the end of the year and one which has had its ups and downs. We had six successful births, 4 males (2 black, 1 fawn and 1 white) and 2 females (1 brown and 1 dark brown). We bought Holly; a beautiful fawn pregnant female, Purdy; pregnant and with cria and Darcy a young black maiden, so our herd has grown to 24. 10 of our females have been scanned pregnant so, if all goes well, we could have 34 next year. As for the downs, two of our females aborted and although the foetuses went to the VLA we were unable to find out why this happened.

Later on in the year one of our females went to the Cambridge Veterinary Hospital with a tooth abscess. She was operated on and appeared to recover well, but a few days later she took a turn for the worse and her liver stopped functioning. Unfortunately we had to have her put down and herrHer three month old cria, Bramble, was left without a mum. We brought her home from Cambridge and attempted to bottle feed. Although she was reluctant and fretful at first, with a great deal of perseverance she eventually started to accept the bottle and drink a little. To begin with it meant that we were feeding her 5 or 6 times a day and this was pretty exhausting, especially as to start with it took well over half an hour for each feed. However, in time we managed to get her to take more milk at each feed and reduced the feeds to three a day. She is doing very well now, although small for her age, she has become very friendly and follows me everywhere I go.

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A new cria - Saturday 11th July 2009

David has always wanted a Bentley. He has dreamed of owning one since he was a boy. So imagine his delight when yesterday morning a brand new Bentley arrived. Jet black and shiny. Yes, you have guessed, Bentley was our new male cria (our second this year) born yesterday morning, sired by Farquhar of Aszu Alpacas. A fine looking male.

Hard luck David, keep dreaming!

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Kenilworth Show - Sunday 7th June 2009

We went to the Kenilworth Show on Sunday 7^th June with 3 males and 1 female + our new stud male (Marley) that we have recently purchased in association with Morden Hall Alpacas. This was the first time that we had shown our animals and we were very nervous. Our biggest fear was whether they would behave themselves in the ring. We had spent several hours training them on the halter, but had no idea how they would behave once they got in the ring.

Sunday morning arrived and the weather was absolutely terrible, cold and heavy rain. Hasty arrangements were made so that the judging could be moved under cover. Judging started and to our relief our alpacas all behaved themselves very well. We were delighted when our young brown male, Atlas, got a first in the Huacaya Intermediate Male Brown class and another of our young males, Apollo, got a third in the same class. Atlas then went on to win the Huacaya Best Brown. Our new black stud, Zarza Marley-Rizardo II, also got a first in his class. We arrived home late Sunday night, very exhausted but pleased that our first experience of showing had been so successful.