Moving On

First, we cancelled the 2 shows we were going to go to this spring. Since we can't show Remington we only had Sommerfield to show. Maddie is old enough now, but has not had the necessary blood work for registry, and that cannot be done in time for the spring shows. We did not feel it worth taking just Sommerfield. Though we do plan to attend the Indiana show in early April. Victoria's first cria, Contessa, and Kateri's first cria, Princess, will be shown by South Haven Alpacas. We are very excited to see how they do!

The other thing we will do now is move Snowstorm, Sommerfield and Maddie into the small shelter (the "boy" barn). Many farms do separate the maiden females from the maternity ones. Sancha is due mid-April and I think Sancha would like some distance from the younger girls. Sommerfield appears very attached to her mom. She follows her around, and has tried to nurse. Sancha will spit her off though. Maddie at times follows Sancha around too, like she's her surogate mother. I can already see Sommerfield being a milk snatcher. And I worry if Sancha's cria is not strong from the start those 2 girls could push it around. So why risk that chance? We have the space to separate the 2 younger girls, where they will share a fence with the older girls so they are not so far away. We plan to make that change this weekend. Friday the vet comes for a visit so we were waiting until that is over. I will be gone for 2 weeks and it would be easier for J if the pregnant girls were together apart from the others so he can do a quick morning feeding of just the pregnant ones. We have openned up the fence to the new barn and pasture. I have been feeding the girls in that area, and I started a poop pile (I took a small scoop from the other pile and put it where I wanted it in the new area ;) ). I think this will be a fairly easy transition, but we will wait and see for sure.

We will be getting Maddie's blood drawn when the vet is here so that we can finalize her registation. We really want to show her, and while we would have loved to do so this spring, fall will have to do.