Quarter House Alpacas
The challenge of seemingly endless rain and mud has now given way to the rather more picturesque challenge of deep snow. The Alpacas don’t really mind the snow though they do make use of the shelters and barn when the snow is driving horizontally and particularly deep. The problem is that the grass is frozen, so they are eating hay all day and night. Luckily, we had another load delivered just before the snow struck, as the girls are all happily staying the barn munching their way through bale after bale.
Unfortunately this makes them thirstier than usual, and with the water supply out in the fields, and all the outside taps, frozen, we have had to be creative. We use plastic barrels cut in half as water butts, which are tough enough to withstand the morning ritual of breaking and removing the layer of ice on top. Refilling the butts is tricky however, as buckets of water tend to be half empty by the time they get to the top of the field. We have converted our ‘Poover’ that we use to clean up the fields, so that we can carry large containers of water around. The poovering is not really practical when everything’s covered in snow anyway.
We still have a few characters in the herd that we are keeping a close eye on. Happily Tonto has now passed the magic 30 Kg marker, having refused to take a bottle any more, and is still getting feeds from Philly. Interestingly Philly (who weighed in at 120 Kg when she first arrived here) has now definitely lost weight, and as she is particularly tall anyway, she is starting to look much more shapely. She hasn’t lost her friendliness however and can still be guaranteed to offer a kiss when asked.
The extreme cold spell has left our smallest and oldest adult, Fleur, looking fairly bony, despite a special diet of soaked sugar beet which she loves. The really cold weather and thick snow persuaded us to fit her with a coat (the same one that we used for Hosta last Winter), which seems to have livened her up quite a bit. Alpacas don’t live for ever, but we hope to get her through the winter.
Hopefully, by the time you read this, the snow will be gone and the grass accessible once more so that we can move the herd to the fields we’ve been saving for them. That will give us a chance to spread the rotted down Alpaca poo (which is just like peat after a year or two) on some of the fields to fertilize them. All that seems a long way off just now.