Quarter House Alpacas
May 2009
Our plan for weaning the cria worked out well, though it took over a week before Hamish caught on to eating the solid food with the others. We’ve now split off the two girls to rejoin the female herd, leaving the 3 boys to join Dali and Doogle. Marmite and Monty, the two studs, are in adjacent fields however so that the two boys don’t feel isolated from the rest of the herd and they often seem to be chatting over the fence with the little ones. We don’t want to take a chance of them bullying the cria as we get nearer to the mating season. Alpacas can in fact mate at any time, but late Summer is the period we choose for them so that the babies get the best weather when they arrive but have time to grow a warm fleece before Winter.
We decided to bring out a couple of baths for the animals in the hot weather. These are large plastic Plastering baths and are just the right size for them to dip their feet in, or occasionally to sit in completely and are much in demand on a hot day. I understand that the early oak growth presages a hot Summer, and we have certainly noticed an abundance of oak flowers this year, falling like confetti in one corner of the field that the cria were in. Unfortunately, the Cria’s coats are so fine that they attract anything like this, and Hamish changed from fawn to brown as he helpfully rolled in the fallen oak flowers and covered himself. We have to pick out any hay, twigs, seeds or other vegetable matter from the fleece once it is sheared before it can be used, so Hamish will certainly give us a challenging job this year.
Jane’s broken ankle has posed a few challenges over the last two months, so we had to ask someone else to help us give the 6 monthly worming injections, but that all went well, and there is now just the annual Heptovac vaccination before the births. Birthing is due to start in late June so we are just about to move the female herd into the best fields near the house which have plenty of shade, and more importantly are very visible so that we can spot the birthing signs.
We’re currently preparing the barn for the shearing due in mid-May. It is a long hard day as we have to gather up the fleece as it comes off, grade and label it, as well as tidying up after each animal and catching the next one. The animals all look so different afterwards that it is always a shock. The fluffy woolly cria are transformed to skinny deer-like creatures with incredibly long thin necks, and are just left with top-knots as a memory of their former glory.
There are new pictures and all the Criary Diary entries on our website www.qhalpacas.co.uk if you have access to a computer.