Herd Health Day

On Saturday we held Herd Health day. This was the day for immunizations, weights and general overall assessment of the alpacas. We check their spine score to see if they are getting the right amount of grain, and we check for any problems. Everyone looks good and healthy.

We were suprised at some of their weights, not surprised at others. Sancha has been looking thin and weighed in at 156, for as tall and big boned as she is that's thin. Plus we can see her ribs. We did wean Lightning ::( He seems so young to me to wean but the Vet told us to do so last month given how big he is and how thin Sancha is. Lightning weighed in at 62 pounds! He's only 3 months old. We had been separating him from mom during the day, then letting him in with her at night. But as of this weekend, he's a big boy, in with the boys. Now Maxito, Snowstorm and Lightning are in one barn. All the girls are in the other.

Maddie weighed in at 73 pounds, at 11 months old. Maxito at 92, at a year old. Sommerfield did suprise me, because I was sure she was quite a bit bigger than Max, but she weighed in at 96 pounds. We need to get some weight on her so she's ready to breed this fall. I've heard different rules on when they are old enough and big enough to bred but I'd like her at least over 100 pounds. She's 1 year 4 months old now. We were hoping to bred her in October.

Kateria and Victoria continue to remain near the same weight. Their builds are so different that Victoria is a big on the heavy side (per her spine score). Kateria was 135 pounds, Victoria 133 pounds.

We didn't weigh Snowstorm. As a gelded male it's not essential he be weighed and he's so stubborn, we couldn't get him to the scale. He's really just a big baby.

The two babies, Shelby and Tehya are growing very well. At 1 month old Shelby is 28.4 pounds and Tehya is 32 pounds. Tehya has been consistently slightly bigger than Shelby, they have a different build. Both are a great weight and growing well.