alpaca life

Saturday Morning Check In

2012-02-11T07:25:00.000-05:00

Last weekend I posted: February Goals. It is a list of goals I have for the month of February. I said I would check in every Saturday morning with an update of my progress. I thought Saturday morning was a good time to check in because I would still have all weekend to really work on the goals to help me stay on track.

1 ~ halter train our alpaca juvis: Thunder, Shamballa, Lady Bing and Dutch: result 2/4

The good news is that Zack and I got in 5 halter training sessions this past week. Saturday was a quick session with just juvis (Lady Bing and Dutch, Shamballa and Thunder). Sunday was a full session with everyone (when we did herd health). On Tuesday we haltered the girls with a friend, meaning we put Lady Bing and Dutch on a triple lead with Twilight (so Twilight could show them how it's done). Wednesday we haltered Thunder and Shamballa with a friend (Gabe). I also spent some time alone with Dutch since she is not taking to haltering very well. Thursday was Lady Bing and Dutch again.

I would say I have 2/4 trained. But unfortunately that includes 2 who are 1/2 trained. Shamballa is completely training (though I use the term "trained" loosely as I really had nothing to do with it. He was one of these compliant young things who just took to the halter without any coaxing from me). Lady Bing would be the next best on the halter, she might be closer to 3/4 trained rather than 1/2 way. I have taken juvis to a show trained as good as she is and it was fine. But I'd like her to be a little bit less hesitant. Thunder is 1/2 trained. Yeah I've taken some trained at his level to a show, but it wasn't fun. He does ok most of the time, but sometimes bucks and holds back. Dutch on the other hand is ZERO trained. We have had the halter on her many times, all she does is pull back and/or buck. I can make her move her feet if she walks with another alpaca, but she walks pulled back and defiant. At this rate she'll look terrible in the show ring. I do know if an alpaca cannot walk ok on halter, they can receive a worse place in an alpaca show because the judge cannot see them walk right to judge their confirmation.

We have lots of work yet to do. But I'm not worried, as I've trained alpacas like this before. I have a lot of tricks left in my bag. I'm more frustrated about how much time this is going to take. If she only knew that if she just walked fine, we'd leave her alone, which is what she clearly wants. The irony.

2 ~ spin a skein of yarn a week: result .7/4

This goal I am a bit behind on. I would ideally have 1 skein completed, which I don't. I plyed two very small skeins last Saturday and I started a new skein (a very large skein of Tehya's fiber). I have one strand spun and the 2nd strand about 1/4 of the way spun. I will finish spinning that today, but it makes me behind for a skein for next week. I need to work harder on this goal in order to achieve 4 skeins by the end of February (and no cheating making smaller skeins, as that is not the point, the point is to have plenty of yarn to knit up hats while riding to and from alpaca shows).

3 ~ run 60 miles this month: result 18/60

I am super happy with my progress on this goal. For the month of February I have run 18 miles so far. The breakdown was:

Medium 4 mile run on Saturday,
Long 6 mile run on Sunday (typically this one is 7 miles but I cut it a bit short)
Short 3 mile run on Wednesday and
Hills 5 mile run on Thursday.

I got in all four runs this past week. I did cut my long run short to 6 miles but that was for a few reasons (I very rarely cut a run short, as I believe what I set out to do I can and should accomplish). But it was a combination of my having not run much prior to that run (I took 10 days off of running, then ran 4 miles the day before). I worried what pain I might be in. And it was busy out there on the roads, which meant I was running in the ditch a lot (something I hate to do). I figured 6 miles was great in itself :) And actually I figured with everything else I have going on that meeting my typical 19 miles a week wasn't realistic (which is why I set my goal low at 60 miles for the month).

My Yarn

2012-02-09T19:36:00.005-05:00

Finally there is yarn at oakhavenalpacas on Etsy!!!

The yarn would come in a ball like this:

That yarn was made from fiber off of our male, Tucker, a light silver grey.

Here's a closer look at some of my yarn (this is yarn made from fiber off our male, Greyt Exxpectations, a medium rose grey male):

I love a yarn with a twist, this is a two color ply (a mix of medium rose grey from our male, Greyt, and a fading fawn from our female, Tehya):

Production Line

2012-02-08T16:04:00.002-05:00

A couple weeks back we went for a weekend trip to Ann Arbor (where my cousin got married). When we left for the trip, I noticed I have several balls of yarn sitting around. I decided to take them with me and see how much I could knit on another hat.

As it happened, I knit almost an entire hat on the way to Ann Arbor. I knit the rest on the way back:

I didn't bring a needle with me, so I couldn't finish up sewing it together, but if I had had a needle with me, I would have had time to complete this entire hat.

It got me thinking, we have 4 spring alpaca shows where we travel much further than Ann Arbor. What if I knit a hat on the way there, and knit one on the way back? I could always sew it together in the evenings at the hotel. There would be plenty of time to complete a hat on each of my drives. By the end of show season I'd have 8 hats in my collect!?! This would 8x my production line.

This is what sparked my idea to get a ton of yarn spun up during the month of February, so that come show season, I have a ton of yarn to work with. And actually we only have one show in March, I would have the rest of March and some of April to spin up more yarn.

I always knew if I had yarn, I'd knit up stuff. Knitting is fun. Knitting is portable. There is never a loss of what to knit. But seeing first hand how I could go from left over balls of yarn to a knit hat brought it to life for me.

I sewed the seams on this while waiting at the eye doctor with Zack:

Paybacks

2012-02-07T16:09:00.003-05:00

For my typical farm chores, I try to clean up after the alpacas everyday. I find that then I have less than a wheel barrow full of alpaca beans to pick up and push to the woods. I prefer to do a few minutes each day rather than save it all for a big chore. I have tried doing it every three days (which I understand fits with the parasite cycle, leaving them in the pasture longer than three days can cause more difficulties with parasites, since they have time to hatch and a new cycle begins). I did not care for how much work it was after those three days. I've come to appreciate my typical daily routine.

My whole planned schedule gets thrown out of whack when a snow storm hits. The day it is snowing, there is no point in trying to clean up. I would spend so much time hunting and trying to locate the beans. Then there are days when all the alpaca beans are frozen to the ground, again, no point trying to get them. There was a time I dug alpaca beans out of snow, even hacking them out of ice and frozen ground. I soon learned this really wasn't productive. I spent more time looking for alpaca beans, hacking at them, and spraying beans all over (when hacking at them) rather than actually cleaning them up.

My rule in the winter is that I will sweep up alpaca beans if there is enough that I can see outside of the snow that would almost fill a wheel barrow, and if they are loose enough to sweep (not frozen). I typically do clean up almost everyday, but the days the snow is coming down hard, or if there is freezing rain, I skip that day. But I do leave the frozen buried beans until a thaw comes (I only sweep up the ones that come easily).

The payback is that when there is a thaw, I have a lot of beans to clean up.

Last week we had a thaw. It was a huge wet mess:

On Monday I counted 7 wheel barrows full of alpaca beans that I extracted from the pasture land.

Then on Tuesday I did another 3. By Wednesday it was 2. I was so glad when by Thursday I was back to my usual 1 wheel barrow trip.

Calling my fiber friends

2012-02-05T19:21:00.002-05:00

I am in search of some dark blue roving or batts. It does not have to be alpaca, but I would like to mix it with alpaca (which pretty much any fiber could be). The only requirement being it has to be a dark blue (like navy blue not baby blue or a purple blue) a manly looking blue.

I have looked around on ETSY and did find some roving that would work. Just as I was about to order it, it occurred to me that I have many fiber friends. What if one of them has some for sale? I would so much rather buy from a friend. So I am asking all my blog followers, if you or someone you know has for sale some dark blue roving or batts, please post the link in my comments section.

February Goals

2012-02-05T15:12:00.001-05:00

I have all these goals and hopes and dreams floating around in my head. I thought I would try to organize them and verbalize them. I find I am better held accountable when I do that. My idea was to check in on the blog every Saturday morning in February with an update on these goals.

1 ~ halter train our alpaca juvis: Thunder, Shamballa, Lady Bing and Dutch

2 ~ spin a skein of yarn a week

3 ~ run 60 miles this month

Number 1 is essential as The Best of the US Alpaca Show is March 10 & 11. All of our alpacas have to be walking well on the lead in order to go to the show. The good news is that we have already had a few halter training sessions. Shamballa and Lady Bing walk really well, and Thunder walks ok (I've taken worse to a show before). But Dutch, oh is she a stubborn girl! It's going to take some more work with her. While we are at it, we might as well work some more with Thunder too. We have also been doing a refresher course with Challenger, Chaska, Gabe, Twilight and Rose. That's our show string of 9 for this spring.

Number 2 I will talk more about in some posts later on this week. I have a great idea of increasing our alpaca product production line. The biggest slow down we face is not having yarn on hand to use or sell. I am looking short term right now, and going to aim to create 4 skeins this month. I'm not counting the one I plyed early Saturday morning, but by Monday I hope to have skein 1 done. (I say this is short term because creating a skein a week long term might be more than I can accomplish, but for a month, I totally can do this!).

Number 3 is a personal goal. I have signed up to run in the Fifth Third River Bank Run, the 10K, in May. I'm not nervous to run a 10K as my typical Sunday run is 7 miles (longer than a 10K). But I do want to keep up a level of running fitness. It's easy this time of year to get caught up in farm stuff (spring shows, spring cleaning, etc.) and forget that I need to do some things for me too. 60 miles is actually a low goal, but with all my other goals of halter training and yarn spinning, I think 60 miles is realistic (I can always run more, beating the goal would be great). My typical run week schedule is 19 miles (long run of 7 miles, shorter run of 4 miles, hills run of 5 miles, and intervals at 3 miles). If I stick to my usual routine, I should run 76 miles this month (making 60 miles a low goal).

Happy Couple

2012-02-04T06:54:00.002-05:00

In their alpaca hats:

Washing and Blocking

2012-02-03T15:34:00.003-05:00

When taking pictures for this post it appears I was more enthralled with my new kitchen features than I was in the washing and blocking process. I appologize for that. We are still in process of our kitchen remodel. The sink and facet are in, some of the tiles are in, but it's not all done (so please ignore the rough edges).

To wash any knit product, I fill the sink with warm water and dish soap. Let soak for about 20 minutes:

Isn't my new farm sink beautiful?

This is my new facet:

(in those two pictures you can see that the tile work isn't finished, but what is in, doesn't it look beautiful?)

After a good soak in warm soapy water, I drain the water, and put plain water in the sink (no soap). I soak for maybe 10 minutes, drain water, repeat until the item doesn't feel as if it has soap.

Then I gently squeeze the item, careful not to stretch or felt the item. I pull out a big towel, and roll the item in a towel a couple times. This really gets the water out so it doesn't have to lay to dry so long.

Then I lay the item on a dry towel, careful to shape it as it would be for an end product (hat shaped like a hat, sweater like a sweater and so forth). This shaping is what is known as blocking. I lay it there for a couple days, until dry.

Now it is washed and blocked, ready to wear!

Use what you have ~ ties

2012-02-02T16:16:00.003-05:00

From:

To:

I thought it would look best if these hats had ties. The only directions I had for ties called for double pointed needles. While I do have a set and have used them, I don't care for them (I tend to put my knitting down a lot and dogs and kids tend to bump it and it has happened where the entire knitted project is pushed off the double pointed needles and then the dogs play in it and soon the entire project is un-knitted). And actually the set of double pointed needles I have are a much smaller needle size than what I used to knit these hats. So I tweaked the directions to do these on regular straight needles.

I did all 4 ties at once (2 for each hat), this way I would know for sure each one had the exact same number of rows. It did mean managing 4 balls of yarn all at once:

These are supposed to be knit on double pointed needles, with the idea that you knit, push it across the needle and knit again. Well, on regular straight needles I can't do that (no pushing across, as you can't knit past the end knob). So after each knit row, I would transfer it back to the other needle, then knit again. It created the exact same effect. I know some would not like transfering, but I didn't mind. And I tend to be a use what you have person rather than a run out and buy kind of person.

Here are all four ties, almost done:

This is how the ties look attached to the hat:

I think they turned out neat! I debated putting a fluffy yarn ball at the end of the ties, but I just didn't think these hats called for that. The hats are more sleak, not fluffy and puffy.

contrasting hats

2012-02-01T19:03:00.001-05:00

The hats are exactly opposite with color background vs stripes:

another look at the ear flaps:

I wasn't done yet, I decided these hats would look best with ties.

2nd Hat Project

2012-01-31T15:29:00.002-05:00

The second hat was knit just like the first, only in reverse color order. I took my ball of Tehya and Greyt mix for the main color, and the ball of yarn of just Greyt for the contrast stripe color.

I find it easiest to knit both ear flaps at the same time. This means I have to have 2 balls of the same color.

I added the 2nd color as a stripe:

The bigger look (note the 2 balls of yarn, one of each color, I keep those nearby for the rest of the project):

Almost done:

You can see in the background of some of these pictures my pattern notes. I used several different ideas from various books to create my own unique pattern. I love how these turned out! My best pattern creation yet.

Hat Project

2012-01-30T19:38:00.001-05:00

This past weekend my cousin got married. I wanted to give her and her new husband alpaca hats. They are outdoorsy people, who enjoy things like winter camping. I figured they would get use out of these unique hand made hats.

I decided I needed a new hat pattern for these hats. We have made pixie hats, but found these are hard to make in adult size. I couldn't find exactly what I wanted in a pattern, so I created my own. I used ideas from several different hat patterns, but only used very small portions that way. The majority of the pattern for these hats was my own creation.

I wanted to use contrasting yarn for these hats, to make them a matching set. I decided to use Greyt's yarn, a beautiful rose grey. For the contrast, I used a mix of Greyt and Tehya's yarn. To give a bit of background on these alpacas, Tehya was born on our farm the first year we had alpacas. I saw her birth from beginning to end. I have seen Tehya grow up from the time she was born until now, as a 3.5 year old young lady. She is now bred to Greyt, our herdsire. Greyt came to us as a two year old. He was already a young man when we met him. This year Greyt is bred to Tehya. I can't wait to see that cria!!

In a way this story of our alpacas mirrors the wedding of my cousin, whom I have known since she was born, and her now husband who we only just now met.

First I cast on and knit the ear flaps (I love ear flap hats). Then I cast on the entire hat, with the ear flaps knit in:

I wanted to put some stripes in the hats, so they would contrast each other:

Now it's starting to look like a hat:

and:

What was most exciting about these hats is they seem to really be a One Size Fits All. At our house we have a variety of size heads. We believe Emma and I have normal size, J and Zack have over sized (as a toddler Zack needed a man's XXL size hat, oh and he had to have a head scan done because his head was so big it was off the charts - no worries, he's perfectly healthy, just has a really big head). We all could put on this hat and felt like it fit great. The knit purl pattern is perfect for giving it stretch to those who need it. Some other pattern hats I've made were not versatile like this. I hope they fit the recipients well.

My Other Love

2012-01-29T15:10:00.001-05:00

Knitting!!

I do a lot of spinning yarn, rarely do I have time for knitting, though I love knitting just as much.

Over the last couple of weeks I completed this hat set:

These are a wedding gift for my cousin and her new husband. They are outdoorsy people (who even go winter camping!). I hope they love these hats.

farm attire

2012-01-28T08:10:00.001-05:00

In the winter months, farm clothing is all about layers. Layers keep you warm, and layers can be shed to cool you down. I've learned that just as important as being warm, in cold weather, is not letting myself sweat, because once you do (in the cold) you can't get warm again. I actually have more of a problem of being too warm doing chores than I have of staying warm. Once I am out there moving around, it's not hard to be warm, and actually sometimes get too hot. I've been known to even shed my jacket out there on a winter's day.

The trick to layers is to make sure they overlap. By this I mean, I wear regular sock and pants (as would be typical for me on the weekend I have on running pants here):

Then I take a thermal sock, that goes over my regular sock and my pants get tucked into it ~ overlapping layers.

Then I put on my snow pants. I use the term "snow pants" loosely here, as these really aren't snow pants. They are a pair of nylon pants, over sized so they will fit over my regular pants. They keep dirt and water off my regular pants, and offer another layer of protection (mostly from wind and water) but aren't as warm as regular snow pants. The truth is that when I'm doing farm chores, I would get way too hot in regular snow pants.

I have gotten rather picky about gloves. These are the new ones I got for Christmas, and they work great:

What I have gotten picky about is the cuff. My old gloves had a cuff that just went out at the end. I have found most of the gloves sold in stores are this way. While the average person does not deal with hay everyday, I do, and those cuffs that go out invite hay into your glove. I don't care for hay in my glove. See the difference in the cuff:

I like the one with an actual cuff, not the one that just goes out and ends. For those who handle hay regularly, this makes a huge difference.

I also have my muff. J hates this muff. He has told me it's ugly and stupid, he even knit me a new one out of alpaca yarn. While this muff isn't a sight of beauty, it works exactly how I need it too. It goes around my neck ~ I can stuff it down if I'm warm, or pull it over my face if I'm cold. Some days this is the exact extra layer that I need. It can be the difference between being comfortable out there or being cold. I love my muff:

I know, it's not pretty. I don't where it out to the store or anywhere in public. It is purely farm attire.

Winter farm attire is quite different than summer wear. I find I prefer the winter wear. It covers up all my clothing, so by the time I get inside and take off those layers, I am free of hay and farm dirt. In the summer it's not unusual for me to find hay in my shirt or dirt on my shorts. Under my winter layers, I could be wearing pajamas or a suit or whatever I need to for the day.

Halter Training - Session One: Desensitizing

2012-01-25T16:03:00.002-05:00

Our halter training session on Sunday was to get a halter on all the newbies (those not halter trained), and if we could easily get the yearlings, we'd halter them too. We used it as an opportunity to remind them about halters. It's been awhile and sometimes it can be scary. We find the more we halter them, the more desensitized they become, and the more routine the whole process becomes.

The whole point of this first session was for them to get a feel for the halter on, and to get used to people touching them all over.

We put a halter on Thunder, our 2011 cria (a beautiful dark rose grey):

Zack desensitizing Thunder (disguised as a hug):

With our yearlings, they already know the feel of the halter and can walk on lead. I wanted to work on desensitizing them, as the judge will need to touch them all over. Here is a judge type touch picking at our yearling, Challenger:

You can see in the background both Chaska and Shamballa with halters on tied to the post. This is a way for them to have the halter on for bit, and get used to the feel. Some of the feistier newbies will buck when in this position. These are the same ones who will buck when we hold the lead. In time they learn they can't buck out of the halter (a good lesson for them to learn before we are at a show). We would NEVER leave them like this unattended. Alpacas breathe through their nose and if a halter doesn't fit exactly right it can block their nose. We are very picky how their halters are on for this reason, and are careful to make sure the halters fit right. We have been amazed how many other alpaca farmers don't have right fitting halters. But even though we are so careful about halters, I still would never leave them tied up without being right there. For training, when we are right there to monitor them, it can be a useful tool that helps them learn about the lead.

Haltering in Sessions

2012-01-24T19:43:00.002-05:00

We break up halter training into sessions. We have learned that it can be a difficult process for some alpacas, so we have to take it slow. We can't expect them to walk across the pasture the first time. I have tried it different ways, and found that doing more sessions, but shorter sessions, to be most useful. In time, the alpacas get so used to being caught and haltered that it's second nature to them. This makes an alpaca show much less stressful for them. Our goal this year is to halter them three or four times a week through show season. In no time they will be walking like pros.

Session One ~ desensitizing

Session one is all about getting them used to the feel of haltering. We put the halter on them and let them get used to the feel of it. I try to leave the halter on for a few minutes (even 5 minutes to a newbie feels like forever).

We also do touch them all over their blanket and into their legs. They have to be used to the vet, color check person, and judge touching them.

Session Two ~ steps and staying still

For the next session we do the same as the first, as far as getting the halter on, letting them get used to the feel, and desensitizing with touch.

We move on to:
~ having them take a few steps (even if they are side steps or trying to get away steps while on the lead)
~ taking a walk in a circle (which at this point means we walk in a circle and the alpaca pivots, but at least they will have to move their feet, sometimes even that can be tricky),
~ and start practicing standing still.

It wasn't until after our second show season that I realized I never practiced standing still, yet there is a lot of that at shows (waiting for the class, standing in the class etc.). The ability to stand still is as important at the ability to walk.

Session Three ~ walking with a friend

For this session we link a newbie with an experienced walker and have them walk around together. Last year we link Twilight to her mom, Maddie, and her mom showed her how to walk on lead.

We also go back over all the things from session one and two. For the ones ready, we will attempt some walking on their own.

Session Four ~ walking

By Session four many of the alpacas are able to walk a short distance on the lead. This is where the individual alpaca's personality really shows though. Some alpacas are so stubborn, others take to haltering easily. Last year by this point Twilight could walk on lead quite well. Challenger did the slump and lay on the ground play. Given the different personalities, we start working with each individual. We go back to use any of the past tricks that worked (such as linking them to a friend if that seemed most helpful, or doing the circle step).

Session Four and Beyond ~ repeat again

By this point, so much depends on each individual alpaca and how well they are talking to haltering. Some do so well, others really struggle. We taylor what we do with them to how they are reacting. Last year I had to incorporate many tricks to get Challenger to walk on lead. He sure was a tricky one.

We do a lot of repeating what we've done. Alpacas love routine and expect the same thing. If we can get haltering to be routine, they do so much better.

We do mock show rings, lots of mock show rings, so the routine is very familiar to them.

We add in new things, just to continue to desensitize them. For example, we work on walking in different places, like a walk down our driveway (taking them out of their comfortable pasture area). We keep going back to desensitizing, touching them all over, standing still, and walking. If they can handle our doing this, they can hand an alpaca show.

Halter Training

2012-01-24T07:27:00.002-05:00

We halter train all our cria, because who wants an older bigger alpaca who they can't lead somewhere? However, we always are a bit under pressure to get them halter trained as alpaca show season approaches. Our first show is in about 5 weeks!!!

The Best of the US Alpaca Show is March 10 and 11. This means we need to have these cria walking very well on the lead by then.

This past weekend Zack (my halter training helper) and I headed outside with halters and leads. We've learned to have low expectations the first few times, as this whole process can be very scary for them.

Zack is convinced that the alpacas are more receptive to halter training if we remain calm, and if he says to them in a calm voice while rubbing their neck "calm, calm, calm". I have to say, his tactic works. That's why he's my halter training helper.

Our Juvis to train:
Thunder
Dutch
Lady Bing
Shamballa

Our Yearlings to remind:
Rose
Twilight
Challenger
Chaska
Gabe

And we are halter training Gigi. While she is a yearling, she came to our farm a few weeks back and was never halter trained. We will not be taking her to any shows, but we'd still like to have her be able to walk on the lead. Zack and I find that the older ones can be more difficult to train. But we got the halter on her on Sunday and we were able to do all the same desensitizing touching. She'll get there too. And I know come shearing time we'll be thankful she can walk on lead.

taxes

2012-01-22T17:23:00.002-05:00

A big part of having a business is managing the financial part of it. This can at times be stressful.

We decided back when we started our farm that it would be best to hire an accountant to do our taxes. We had always done our own, but the farm adds enough additional dynamics that we felt it was better to hire it out. We found a local accountant firm who was familiar with alpaca farming. Ever since our first year working with them, they now send us a booklet each January to fill in our expenses. J and I keep folders all year around to store our receipts, so when this booklet arrives, it's only a matter of adding up the expenses and filling them into the booklet. More of the frustration is that we don't always have all we need. Right now we are waiting on one W-2, and we can't find the receipt from one of our alpaca shows. I also stress about "what am I missing?" But I know we do a good job of keeping track of everything all year around so this time of year isn't that stressful.

We have our appointment with our accountant tomorrow and I have everything set to go. What a relief to have that out of the way!

Spinning Fun

2012-01-21T07:42:00.001-05:00

what better way to spend a snowy day than spinning yarn:

I love yarn from fading fawn alpaca fiber!

If you are wondering about the boxes and construction materials in the background, J has undertaken a rather large home improvement project of remodeling our mud room, dinning room and kitchen. It's a mess in progress and it's going to be beautiful when it's done. In the mean time, our house is in a bit of disarray.

hey you

2012-01-19T20:55:00.001-05:00

Shamballa was trying to sniff the camera when I took this shot.

still a princess

2012-01-17T20:34:00.001-05:00

I can't hide the fact that Tehya is one of my favorite alpacas. She was born on our farm that very first year we had alpacas. I saw her entire birth. I really have known her since the day she was born. I have seen her grow up from a newborn cria to a yearling to an adult. At almost 4 years old, she's still an incredible alpaca. It doesn't hurt that her sire is the famous Goldsmith and that she won many ribbons for us in the show ring.

I've been spinning her blanket into yarn, I love the various shades of fawn that come through her beautiful yarn.

This year she is bred to our male, Greyt, for a June 2012 due date. I can't wait to see what beautiful cria they create! Tehya is fawn color, Greyt is rose grey (brown with grey) ~ together they could produce any color from fawn to rose grey to brown to black. I love all those colors so any one of them is great!!

New is always better

2012-01-16T20:12:00.000-05:00

as soon as I put out new hay, the alpacas swarm the hay feeder:

The ironic thing is that this isn't new hay. It's the same hay they have been eating. It was seeded at the same time, grown at the same time, harvested at the same time, delivered to our farm at the same time. It might even be from the same bale I got hay from at their previous feeding, but they are just sure the new stuff I just put in the feeder is better. To them, new is always better.

I can't take credit for the line though, that I heard on one of my favorite TV shows, How I Met Your Mother. It's one of my favorite Barney quotes.

Keeping the tradition

2012-01-14T08:21:00.006-05:00

While spring is a very busy time for our farm with all the spring alpaca shows, last year I challenged myself to run in a 10K event. I participated in the Fifth Third River Bank Run, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I had considered running a 5K, but knew I already ran 3 miles regularly. I wanted a challenge. So I pushed myself to train for the 10K. I had NEVER run that much in my life! I started training last year about this time, and not only ran the 10K, but I have made a 7 mile run part of my usual weekly running routine.

My current running schedule includes 5 runs:
~ a short run (3 miles max, at a fast pace),
~ a medium run (4 to 5 miles),
~ the hills run (different incline levels on the treadmill for 5 miles),
~ an interval run (alternate every 1/4 mile from walk to run at various speeds)
~ a long run (7 miles).

If I have to push one of the runs off my schedule, it's the short run. I've done a really good job of getting in the most difficult runs each week, the long 7 mile run and the hills run (by the way, I would much rather run the 7 miles than the hills, oh are they dreadful! but what a workout they give me).

So this year I will keep up the training I've been doing. I'm not anxious about being able to run the 10K. This year's anxiety will be around the fact we have an alpaca show the last weekend of April, again the first weekend of May, and that next weekend is this 10K. One alpaca show leaves me exhausted for days. Having two shows two weekends in a row is brutal in itself. We have a great time at shows, but the exhaustion afterward always catches up with us. But I am determined that I can do this, and will train so that I will make this happen.

By the way, two weeks after the run is the AOBA National Alpaca Show that we are planning to attend. What this means is that May is going to be a busy and exciting month for us!

Fiber work continues

2012-01-11T16:42:00.002-05:00

While I haven't done as much with fiber lately as I would have liked, I have been plugging away when I do have a bit of time.

This past weekend I plyed a strand of yarn from Tehya with a strand of yarn from Greyt. I love the variety of color ply:

Here it is being knit into something:

New Additions

2012-01-09T19:20:00.005-05:00

Any time you bring new alpacas into your herd, it tends to shake things up. We've had a variety of responses, from older males who instantly get mad and start a fight, to timid little ones who want to hide and can't wait for the rest of the herd to stop smelling them.

On Saturday we brought home ATA Peruvian Lady Bing, ATA Peruvian Shamballa, and ATA Peruvian Gigi. Lady Bing is of course the girl I have been bragging about for some time now. We are so excited to get her home! Shamballa is a young male who we are hoping will prove to do well in the show ring and become a herdsire for us. Gigi is actually who we were looking at when we discovered Lady Bing a couple months back. Gigi is a few days younger than our own Rose, both of whom will turn 2 years old this April.

Lady Bing is very alert and is watching everything that goes on. She watches me and seems to want to follow me, but if I take a step towards her, she will run off. She still isn't sure of our place.

Here is Gigi (a yearling white female):

Gigi took to our herd like she's been here all along. She just walked up to the hay buckets and eats, no one else seems to mind. We've had times when the herd won't let a new one by the hay so this is actually something to take notice of. I haven't seen her fight with anyone, which is actually kind of odd. Usually the herd has to sort out a pecking order.

Shamballa was placed with our yearling and juvi males. He was born in June of 2011 just like our own Thunder, so we figure those two would do well together. While Chaska is the leader in this pen (every alpaca herd has a leader and each pen has their own 'herd' status), he only briefly showed Shamballa that he is the leader (this amounted to Chaska trying to mount Shamballa and Shamballa giving him a little kick and then spit at him). Sig and Challenger welcomed him with a few sniffs and that was about it. I'm surprised there hasn't been more tossling at the boys pen. It was a very smooth transition for all. Shamballa had no problem figuring our grain time:

I was most concerned about grain time since at our farm we separate all the alpacas for grain. We taylor how much grain they get to their body score and health status. The first night Lady Bing insisted on trying to eat with our full figured girls. As could be expected, Lady Bing did not get any grain that night. I tried to separate her by herself later and gave her a bowl of grain but she was too leary of all her new surroundings and wouldn't eat. By Sunday morning I was able to get her and Gigi together with their grain and they both ate well:

I knew Lady Bing is a good size girl, but I wasn't expecting her, having been born this past summer (2011), to look the same size as our yearlings, Twilight and Rose, who were born in 2010!! But do keep in mind that Lady Bing has never been shorn, so she does have a lot of fiber on her body.

2012 Spring Show Schedule

2012-01-08T13:11:00.000-05:00

We are beginning to sign up for spring alpaca shows. Our plan at this point is to attend 3 regular spring shows, then depending on how the shows go, attend Nationals this spring.

March 10 & 11, 2012: Best of the US Alpaca Show Columbus, Ohio

We have attended this show every year and love it! It's always been our first of the spring show season, the first time our juvis are getting in the ring. There is always lots of excitement!

With our show string of these girls:
Enlightenment's Rocky Rose
Smokey's Twilight
ATA Peruvian Lady Bing
JLFA Leonardo's Dutch Harbor

And these boys:
OHVNA Chaska
OHVNA Challenger
Gabriel Star of RobAsia
Our Peruvian Thunder
ATA Peruvian Shamballa

This gives us 4 females, and 5 males. Rose, Twilight, Chaska, Challenger and Gabe are the yearlings, the rest are juvis. As for colors, we will have black (Gabe), brown (Lady Bing), fawn (Dutch and Shamballa), beige (Chaska) and many greys (Challenger and Thunder being rose grey males, Rose being a rose grey female, and Twilight being a dark silver grey female).

April 28 & 29, 2012: Great Midwest Alpaca Festival Madison, Wisconsin

We have attended this show twice now and really enjoy this show. The venue is a bit different, but we love the people there and enjoy the city of Madison.

Because by this point Dutchess will be joining our herd, we are sure we want to get her to a couple of shows, so she will join the show string for this show.

With our show string of these girls:
Enlightenment's Rocky Rose
Smokey's Twilight
ATA Peruvian Lady Bing
JLFA Leonardo's Dutch Harbor
Dutchess

And these boys:
OHVNA Challenger
Gabriel Star of RobAsia
Our Peruvian Thunder
ATA Peruvian Shamballa

May 5 & 6, 2012: Buckeye Alpaca Show Columbus, Ohio

We have never attended this show, but have heard lots about it. We thought this year we should attend this show.

We plan to take the same alpacas to this show as we did to GMAF in Madison. Though this could change depending on how they do at the shows.

With our show string of these girls:
Enlightenment's Rocky Rose
Smokey's Twilight
ATA Peruvian Lady Bing
JLFA Leonardo's Dutch Harbor
Dutchess

And these boys:
OHVNA Challenger
Gabriel Star of RobAsia
Our Peruvian Thunder
ATA Peruvian Shamballa

Depending how well our alpacas do at these shows, we are seriously considering going to Nationals this year:

May 26, 27 & 28, 2012: AOBA 2012 National Show Louisville, Kentucky

Our plan would be to take 6 of our own to this show. Full disclosure of that line up is pending. While we have a feeling who we will be taking, some of it depends on how well they do at the other spring shows.

I updated "Our 2012 Events Schedule" on the right side of the blog with each of these shows, along with their dates, location, and a link to their official web page.

2012 Show String

2012-01-07T07:43:00.000-05:00

Even though the snow is just starting to fly, it's time to get our spring show season line up ready to go. Many alpaca shows are already open for registration, and we know some of these shows sell out within a day (GMAF is famous for that!).

For our show string we have several yearlings (those born in 2010) and some juvis (those born in 2011). Rose will actually turn 2 the end of April, so at some of the spring shows, she will show in the 2+ age group.

2010 Yearlings:

Enlightenment's Rocky Rose (light rose grey female)
Smokey's Twilight (dark silver grey female)
OHVNA Chaska (beige male)
OHVNA The Challenger (dark rose grey male)
Gabriel Star of RobAsia (true black male)

2011 Juvis:

Our Peruvian Dark Thunder (dark rose grey male)
ATA Peruvian Shamballa (light fawn male)
ATA Peruvian Lady Bing (light brown female)
JLFA Leonardo's Dutch Harbor (medium fawn female)
Dutchess (dark brown female)

Since most shows allow 3 alpacas per stall, it would work best for us to take 9 rather than every one of the 10 listed here. As we get to be a bigger farm, we have the luxury to be selective in which alpacas we take with us. When we were really small, every cria was put into our show string. Now we can pick and choose and take those that we think will do the best. We have gotten better at predicting who will do well and who won't, but often that first show of the season is a surprise. Last year we had some do better than we anticipated (always a welcome surprise!). We have high hopes this year, with some exciting alpacas in our show string.

The next step is to choose which shows we will be going to, and which of the 10 alpacas we will bring to each show.

By the way if you are wondering who Dutchess is, her story is yet to be told. We know she's coming, the contract is signed, but the actual arrival is still pending. She is with her mom and not yet ready to be weaned. As always, we are spicing up our herd genetics in one way or another.

Who's the sire?

2012-01-05T18:54:00.001-05:00

I sort of wanted to put as my blog title "baby daddy" but I thought better of that. In the alpaca world, sire is the right term for the dad.

Our aim in breeding this past year was to get some cria on the ground for our males. Both Tucker and Greyt have cria on the ground, but we only have 1 for each of these males. While we love their cria, 1 isn't enough to determine if they have what it takes to be a super stud.

ARF Our Peruvian Tucker

+ already gave us OHVNA The Challenger

For 2012 he is bred to:

~ Victoria (who he already had Challenger with)
~ Latte
~ Jewel

SA Peruvian Greyt Exxpectations

+ already gave us Our Peruvian Dark Thunder

For 2012 he is bred to:

~ Sancha (who already produced Thunder by Greyt)
~ Maddie
~ Tehya
~ Miss Kitty
~ Snickers

We bred only one girl to Smokey, because at this point we know what Smokey can produce (he sired our own Smokey's Twilight, along with many offspring at other farms) so it wasn't a matter of wanting to see, it was a matter of matching him up with a girl where they can produce a great offspring.

NL Smokey is bred to:

~ Kateri

And we traded breedings to have FCA Incan Alchemy bred to:

~ Bay for a little diversity to the genetics in our herd

What I haven't mentioned is that we won't actually have 10 cria this spring. Snickers and Kateri are leaving us this spring to go to another farm. I'll post more about that another time. So that leaves us with 8 cria, but we also have promised one 2012 cria in a past deal, so one of those 8 will also be leaving us (who it is has not yet been chosen, they get to pick after the cria are born). This gives us a 2012 cria gang of 7, our biggest cria gang yet.

Positive Pregnancy!

2012-01-04T16:15:00.001-05:00

After last years disappointment with two open girls (Maddie and Snickers) and a retained CL (Kateri), we decided that this year we would have the vet ultra sound any girl we questioned if she really was pregnant. We would rather know now that they are open then wait for their due date and have disappointment.

With J's new work schedule, we decided that it would be better for the vet to come to our farm. In the past we have hauled our animals there, figuring it was cheaper. But then he worked off shift and getting to the vet wasn't an issue. We decided this time it was worth the extra money to have her come to us. Also, two of the girls we wanted to ultra sound do not halter well. Miss Kitty is a full figured girl who would rather cush than walk on lead. And Jewel was never halter trained. I meant to work on that when she arrived at our farm last spring, but it just didn't happen.

We wanted Miss Kitty ultra sounded because due to her full figure, it is impossible to see a pregnant belly. And Jewel is a maiden, they often don't spit test well nor do they show much (I remember when Maddie was pregnant with Twilight we often doubted if there really was a cria in there). We also wanted to ultra sound Bay, given she is new to our farm we did not know how to read her spit testing behavior, and she is older so she always has a pregnant belly. In addition, we wanted to ultra sound Rose. We did not believe her to be pregnant, but she was bred ever so briefly early last fall, she *could* be pregnant. We definitely would not want to take her to any alpaca shows if she is pregnant, but if she is not, we'd love to show her off some more.

Our other girls we have a pretty good handle on how they act when pregnant. For example, Maddie becomes quite crabby and fights with everyone. Latte starts to ignore us (when not pregnant she becomes a little too friendly). This year we can see a cria move inside Kateri, no retained CL this year, that is for sure. So we did not feel the need to ultra sound each girl. Also, as with any business, you have to keep cost in mind. To give a frame of reference for this, it costs about $30 per girl to have them ultra sounded. We have 10 pregnant girls, so it would have been $300 plus the farm visit fee (about $75) to do that! If we already know from spit testing and our experience with that girl that they are pregnant, we don't need to spend money to confirm what we already know.

The vet first ultra sounded Rose. She was open, not pregnant. We were happy about this because we would like to be able to continue to show her this spring. We likely will bred her late spring, giving her a chance to strut her stuff a couple more times at a show.

Miss Kitty was confirmed pregnant! Jewel was confirmed pregnant! Bay was confirmed pregnant! YEAH!!!

Top 10 for 2011

2012-01-01T11:12:00.001-05:00

Top Ten noteworthy events from 2011 for Oak Haven Alpacas

Note: I tried to link back the original blog posts about all these events (there are usually more pictures on the original post).

10. Surviving our roughest year yet.

We lost 3 alpacas this year ~ little guy, Cheyenne and Maggie. And, we had our first retained CL (blog post about that here). Despite all this, we pulled through and are pushing our farm to the next level.

Little Guy ~ July 18, 2011 to July 19, 2011 (link to birth and passing story):

Cheyenne ~ May 17, 2011 to July 24, 2011 (links to birth and passing stories):

Magnolia (Maggie) (her welcome and loss):

9. Adding new genetics to our farm.

This year several alpacas joined our farm:
Dodge City Miss Kitty
MPAF Jewel
ATA Peruvian Harley
ATA Peruvian Boppana
Gabriel Star of RobAsia
Butterscotch Bay
JLFA Pot of Gold's Northwester (AKA Sig)
JLFA Leonardo's Dutch Harbor
ATA Peruvian Shamballa
and ATA Peruvian Lady Bing

The arrival of Miss Kitty (story here and more pictures here):

I can't find the post about Jewel's arrival. I fear I may have never blogged about it!

The boys, Boppana and Harley (Bo's story, Harley's story)

Bo:

Harley:

The arrival of Gabriel Star of RobAsia (blog post here):

The arrival of Butterscotch Bay, Sig and Dutch is here.

Bay and Dutch:

Sig:

Shamballa (story here):

The addition of Lady Bing (story here):

8. Sheared our own alpacas!

This is a goal we had for some point in the future, but as it turned out, we did it ourselves already this year. And I have to say, given it was our first year, I think we did a great job with it. There were several blog posts about shearing, the main one here.

Our shearing station:

7. Developed a new tag line:

Breeding Brightness You Can Feel

6. Becoming known as a farm with a "grey program".

While I fought this notion for quite some time (we breed for all colors), we gave into this fame and accept it as a compliment that our greys are so well known.

5. We had an incredible show season during 2011.

During our 2011 show season we came home with 7 1st place ribbons!!

Enlightenment's Rocky Rose
+ 1st in the fall of 2010
+ 1st at GMAF
+ 1st at MBS

Smokey's Twilight
+ 1st place at Best of the US
+ 1st place at GMAF
+ 1st place at MBS

OHVNA The Challenger
+ 1st place at Best of the US

Gabriel Star of RobAsia
+ 1st place at MBS

Here are a few of the official 1st place pictures:

We never did get our official 1st place pictures from MBS (we only recieved the ones with Gabe as color champion, not the first for all our others). And at the Great Midwest show in Madison WI they only take pictures of the color banner winners, not the 1st place.

4. Adding Lady Bing to our herd (did I mention this already? I just know she is going to provide a huge boost to our breeding program. We are so excited to have her as part of our herd).

3. The birth of Our Peruvian Thunder ~ not only is he our one surviving 2011 cria, but he is the first cria from our male, SA Peruvian Greyt Exxpectations. We had high hopes for this cria, and we are so excited how incredible he turned out. Birth story here.

2. Finished paying off our alpacas ~ what a relief!! A huge milestone, indeed!

1. Our Color Championship ~ Gabriel Star of RobAsia won us a Color Champion in blacks at the Michigan Breeders Show in May of 2011. Our first ever Color Champion. Blog story here.

Links to past years:

10 for 2010

10 for 2009

The end of the year (2008)

We began our farm in 2007, with our first alpacas arriving in November of 2007. The top 10 for that year was starting our farm (with more than 10 things involved in that preparation).

fiber process ~ the good and bad

2011-12-30T15:29:00.002-05:00

The part of the entire fiber processing that I most dislike is picking hay out of the alpaca's fiber:

The big pieces like in this picture isn't so hard to pick out, it's the small peices that get to be a pain.

But it's all worth it when I see fiber being made into yarn. That is by far my favorite part.

Fading Fawn

2011-12-29T16:12:00.002-05:00

One of my favorite colors for an alpaca is fading fawn. Fading fawn is when the alpaca is one shade of fawn at her top line, then fades to lighter colors throughout her side to her belly. Our own Tehya is a fading fawn. She goes from medium fawn at her top line, to light fawn and even beige by her belly.

What I love about the variated color, is to spin it with the different colors, making a variated yarn.

You could mix her blanket all together and make a solid color yarn. The color would be the middle color, as the lightest and darkest of the color mix together and balance each other out. But, to me that's not as fun to spin. I have some solid color alpacas and I do spin their solid color fiber into yarn, but the fun part to me is watching how the different colors combine.

This is Tehya's fiber, a bundle of medium fawn and a bundle of beige:

I make clouds with each color, careful not to mix the clouds (as that would end up completely mixing the color into an average color). Here is a cloud of the lighter beige color:

When I spin it into yarn, I grab clouds out of the bin in a random order. I may spin a cloud of light color, then a dark one or several light ones in a row. It's completely random, making the yarn completely unique.

I often take two strands of this yarn and ply them together for the finished product. This plying adds even more color and texture to the yarn. For this skein I am going to ply a strand of yarn from Tehya's fiber with a strand of yarn from Greyt's fiber (he is a medium rose grey). I will show pictures of that in a future blog post.

The new routine

2011-12-28T17:42:00.003-05:00

A few weeks back I posted how J was starting a new job which meant for the first time since 2003, he was working a regular day shift. This meant huge changes for our family. For the last 8 years he's worked some form of 2nd or 3rd shift (mostly 3rds). Given Zack is only 9 years old, and Emma 12, the majority of their lives has been spent with odd shifts being normal.

The kids don't generally do well with change, and J would add that I don't generally do well with change.

And this particular change did mean a lot of changes for me specifically. When J worked off shifts, he was able to manage the morning farm chores. I was able to get myself and the kids up and out the door each morning without having to worry too much about the farm. I did the evening chores, given I came home from work when the kids got out of school. Well, with J's new job, he'd be leaving earlier in the morning than I do. And, given his commute and responsibilities, he'd be getting home later than me. Way back when we started our farm I did both morning and afternoon chores, but back then I only worked part time. I was a little concerned how this would all work out.

Now several weeks into it I'm happy to say things just seemed to fall into place. J adjusted to his new schedule (and loves being normal sleeping at night). Other than eating dinner later the kids haven't noticed a huge change to their daily life. They do notice J is home every weekend (he used to work on average every other weekend). And surprisingly, I quickly adjusting to doing the farm chores. The ironic thing is that I was most worried about the morning routine. I am NOT a morning person. I have issues getting out of bed each morning (to put it mildly). I was worried how I would manage everything. But what I forgot is that once I'm up in the morning, I'm up. It's that first step out of bed that is horrible, after that, I'm fine. I also stressed way more than I should have about whether I should shower first then do farm chores or do farm chores then shower (do I do the chores in my pjs?). The concern being the earlier I did the farm chores, the darker it would be outside. I couldn't picture how it would all work. As it is, J gets up before I do, but the fact he's already up makes it easier for me to get out of bed. I put my farm layers over my pj's and get right to the farm chores. When I come inside, Zack is up making his lunch, and he starts his chores of letting the dogs out and getting their food together. Then I shower. By the time I'm done, Emma is slowly emerging from her room. Somehow each morning we are all ready on time.

What has been a bit more of a struggle is that when J worked off shift, the kids and I were kind of lazy about supper each night. I would make the meal at different times, based on if I wanted run or what we had going on. I had plenty of time each night to complete the farm chores, and do my own exercise. Now with J being home each night, we aim to eat just after he gets home from work. Sometimes it's a bit of a stretch for me to finish the farm chores and get in a good run. Since all along I've been doing the afternoon chores, I was surprised that it was the afternoon chores, not the morning ones, that have been more difficult to arrange well.

We are thankful that everything has fallen into place and is working out well for our farm and our family.

Alpaca Street

2011-12-27T09:08:00.000-05:00

We decided to add our farm to the web site Alpaca Street:

Oak Haven Alpacas, LLC

The site created this page for us off our OHVNA Alpaca Nation Farm Page. I would have NEVER put a picture of myself on the front page!! But there I am. I do have to say the picture of Emma having Victoria eat out of her hand is so precious. But Emma looks so young! It is 4 years old, she was only 8 years old then (now she's a 12 year old). She's changed but Victoria is pretty much the same :)

Happy Holidays!!!

2011-12-25T07:14:00.003-05:00

Whatever holiday you celebrate, I hope you have a happy and blessed one!!!

We celebrate Christmas and this year we have had the incredible opportunity to marvel in what blessing we have. I am so blessed!

Snow!!

2011-12-24T13:57:00.006-05:00

While I'm not the biggest fan of winter, it's actually the cold I don't like. I love snow!!

This morning we woke up to only about an inch of snow, but being that we haven't had any accumulation up to this point, it was a welcome surprise. Typically by this time of year we've had several inches of snow (in addition to lots of shoveling and even missed days of school).

For this mornings chores, I was greeted with this outside:

Our youngest alpaca, Dutch, eating hay (the snowless spots around the hay bin are where the alpacas laid overnight):

One of my favorite alpacas, Challenger, in the snow:

And this is my baby, Zack, going sledding with the alpacas:

What you can't see is that around the corner there is a nice sledding hill. The alpacas don't mind when we sled back there. But I will never forget the time Zack talked me into getting into the sled with him, we started down the hill, and next thing we know Spot jumped into the sled with us!!! That was the most interesting sled ride I've ever had.

Huge Milestone

2011-12-23T18:38:00.005-05:00

Back when we were thinking about starting an alpaca farm, we were most curious how farms got started. I mean, it takes a lot of $$ to begin this adventure. Of course, as many farms as we asked this question to, we got that many different responses. Based on these ideas, we developed our own plan.

Our plan was to use what cash we had on hand on our facility and supplies. The facility meant a barn, fence, fence post, and grass (which we have to plant, water and grow). The supplies included hay buckets, water buckets, hoses, grain bowls, grain, hay, and of course all the medical supplies. As you can see that all quickly adds up.

To purchase the alpacas, we first picked which alpacas we wanted to purchase. This meant visiting many farms, going to alpaca shows, and deciding what sort of alpaca we wanted. There can be a big difference in regards to buying a fiber alpaca vs buying an alpaca who will do well in the show. We chose to buy the most expensive females we could, ones proven in the show ring. We knew we wanted to show our alpacas, and wanted breeding females who could give us that show star. We made sure they came with breed backs, so at least the first few years we wouldn't have to worry about having a male.

To pay for the alpacas, we gave the selling farm a down payment, then financed them through the selling farm. This meant paying that selling farm a monthly payment, as arranged in a signed contract.

We originally purchased two bred females who came with a gelded male. This sale we paid off early and actually have had paid off for some time now. We purchased a second group of alpacas, in December of 2007. This package we agreed to a long term payment plan in order to keep the monthly payments low. This contact has just been completed this month ~ which means we now completely own all the alpacas in our back yard!!

It's funny how when beginning alpaca farmers get together, it is often the topic of conversation if you have your initial investment paid off. I am so excited to be able to say "YES!!!"

Now we start a new phase on our farm, where we completely own all the animals and anything is possible.

Alpaca's Name

2011-12-22T16:56:00.001-05:00

I mentioned in my last post about how the farm identifier is used. Our farm identifier is OHVNA (for Oak Haven Alpacas).

I maybe should back track to explain that there is an Alpaca Registry, where most alpacas are registered. Not every farm registers all their alpacas, some farms likely don't register any, other farms register all of them. If you want to show an alpaca in an alpaca show, they have to be registered. I imagine many of the fiber alpacas out there are not registered.

As part of registering the alpaca, you gather a sample of their blood so that the Alpaca Registry (ARI) can do genetic testing. They determine if the dam (mom) and sire (dad) match the cria (baby). If they don't match, ARI will let you know.

Outside of the official name, most of our animals have a farm nick name. For example, on the farm we call OHVNA The Challenger "Challenger" and we call Gabriel Star of RobAsia "Gabe". What often surprises people visiting the farm is that the alpacas know their name. If I am putting out grain bowls and I want Snickers in the pen and Kateri out of the pen, I will say that and they will comply. It's almost scary sometimes how well they do understand me!! Not that they always listen to exactly what we say. They are more like a two year old toddler, they listen when they want to (for example if you are putting out grain, they listen well, if they think you might be trimming nails or giving shots, none of them listen worth anything).

Not to be overshadowed

2011-12-20T20:24:00.003-05:00

In addition to purchasing Lady Bing, we also purchased a juvi male. This boy's mom we believe is a harlequin grey: YO Peruvian Ginger Snaps. While her blanket is brown, her face and legs show grey and spots, a sure sign of a harlequin. Her sire is 5Peruvian Silverado, a famous silver grey (so there is clearly grey in her lineage). This boy's sire is PCA Accoyo Shangri-La. This means his genetics include a lot of accoyo and grey!

We looked up the meaning to Shangri-La: an earthly paradise. Another name for Shangri-La is Shamballa. This led us to name this little guy: ATA Peruvian Shamballa.

Doesn't he look macho?

If you are wondering why these names begin with ATA (when our farm is OHVNA) this is because when you buy an alpaca that is already born, but not officially registered, most selling farms allow you to name the alpaca, but ask that you use their farm identifier. We have done this with several alpacas we purchased this past year, we picked the name but used the selling farm's identifier. When you buy an alpaca already named and registered, you take them with the name they come with (though what you call them at the farm is up to you). When the alpaca is born on your farm, you get to name them and use your own farm identifier.

Introducing ~ ATA Peruvian Lady Bing

2011-12-19T08:10:00.001-05:00

we are very excited to announce that she is the newest member to our herd!!!

Her face (I love the brown tipping by her nose):

Our story in acquiring Lady Bing goes back to this summer. First, as my regular readers know, we lost several cria this year. It was a rough summer for us. We had high hopes for an incredible show string, to have only 1 of our 2011 cria survive. While we do have some incredible yearling to take to shows (Challenger, Gabriel, Twilight, and Rose), we only have 2 juvis ~ Our Peruvian Thunder, and Dutch Harbor (who we purchased a few months back). While that is 6 alpacas, J would prefer 9.

A couple months back we were visiting a friend's farm. We were in one pen looking at an animal when Emma got my attention and pointed out a baby in the neighboring pen. Emma was smitten. I agreed, that baby was adorable. But with fiber animals, just because they are cute doesn't mean their fiber has what it takes. J and I are at a point we are looking for a specific fiber type. We are building on our breeding program with specific goals in mind. Later on we were in the pen with this adorable little girl, we grabbed her and opened up her fiber. It was as if light came down from heaven! She is bright and shiny with a very nice consistent crimp. And while she looks light fawn on the outside, way down by her skin she is light brown. It's as if her fiber has been frosted in a lighter color. Beautiful!!!!

We didn't go to this farm with the intent on buying anything. We came for other business. We didn't even approach the topic of purchasing the girl, but we sure did stand in awe of her. Then on the ride home J mentioned that beautiful girl. We both agreed she embodies what our breeding program is all about. She is exactly what we want.

Buying an alpaca is usually a significant expense and I often freeze a bit when money is brought up. So I sort of shut down. J proceeded to come up with a plan to purchase this girl. This is why we such a good team: he makes the plan, and I come up with all the possible pitfalls (he helps us move forward, and I make sure we are making good choices). In the end we make things happen.

While mulling over all the details, J came up with the perfect name for her. Her sire is 2002 Peruvian Lord Stanley, so, in keeping with the hockey theme, J thought Lady Bing was perfect. I love it!

On Sunday we officially purchased this girl. She is just barely six months old and not yet weaned, so we will bring her to our farm in a few weeks. I can't wait!!

A New Chapter

2011-12-17T16:06:00.002-05:00

Right now our alpaca farm is entering a new chapter. To signify this, I thought it would be fun to give the farm blog an updated look.

I'll post more about our new endeavors in future posts, so stay tuned.

Christmas?

2011-12-17T08:01:00.002-05:00

Since becoming a farmer, my Christmas wish list has changed dramatically. This year the top of my list is new farm winter gloves. The ones I have are now not only thread bare in the finger tips, but there are actual holes. I also requested thermal socks, as all of mine have holes in them. It works out perfect, I have two main requests, and two kids to give suggestions too. I made it clear this is what I want and I will be sad if I don't get these things. I told them to work out who gives me what :)

J has also requested warmer socks, and he mentioned something about work boots and coveralls, but there is something bigger that I have plans to get for him this year. I'll post more about this another day.

Not so quick fix

2011-12-15T20:10:00.000-05:00

A few weeks back I broke our poop rake. Not wanting to run to the store in the middle of chore time, I grabbed the poop scoop rake that we usually take to shows. I worried it would be a pain to use because it's shorter. As it turns out, the fact it's short isn't the problem:

The problem is that the teeth on the rake bounce around and don't grab well. This is the worst poop scoop rake I have ever used. I can't wait to purchase a different one. The problem being, every time I'm in the store I forget about it, and everytime I am doing farm chores I curse the fact I have forgotten.

Another Easy Fix

2011-12-13T16:28:00.000-05:00

One of my pet peeves when it comes to alpacas is when they waste good hay. I understand if they toss aside some of the bad stalky hay. I don't really want them eating that anyway, since it has next to no nutritional value. But when I pay premium for good hay, and they proceed to stick their head in the hay bucket and dump it all out on the ground, that annoys me.

We got these grates from another farm a few years back, but didn't use them. Actually I think we used them for a bit, but the alpacas would scrap their noses on them and it actually took fiber off their noses. J didn't want them to look that way so we put the grates away. After watching the old girls dump out bucket after bucket of premium hay, J decided the grates were a good idea after all. He put vet wrap around the grates so they aren't so harsh to take off the fiber from the alpacas' nose. These round grates are made out of metal, they are very heavy:

One of our hay bins that J made is a rectangle shape, so J built a rectangular grate for it:

The alpacas eat just fine around these grates:

And we have no more issues of them dumping out full bins of premium hay.

Zinc

2011-12-12T19:35:00.000-05:00

At our last vet visit the vet noticed a spot on one of our girls' back end (on her skin under her tail) that she thought looked like a sign of Zinc deficiency. Unfortunately I did not see what she was pointing at and still don't see it, but I trust her assessment.

We do know that being deficient in zinc can be an issue for alpacas. In their native environment, South America, there is more zinc than is available in our area. We also know that a zinc deficiency can lead to hair loss. For a fiber animal, their hair (fiber) is everything.

We figure if one of our alpacas is showing signs of a deficiency, likely more of them are also low. So J started reading up on ways to help provide zinc to alpacas. He read a theory that started, I believe, in Australia. What happened there is that it seemed all the sudden many farms were having problems with zinc deficiency. After some detective work, they realized this happened after there was a change in their water system. For years their water had been piped around in galvanized pipes. It was shortly after they switched to PVC piping that they started having problems with zinc deficiencies. The theory is that zinc leached off the pipes and into the water, giving the alpacas zinc. A solution was to put a piece of galvanized pipe in the water buckets. It's no more harmful than if all your water came to you piped in that way. And for years, many of us have consumed such water.

So J went out and bought some small galvanized pipe pieces:

And we dropped them into the water buckets:

I love a quick fix to a concerning issue. And best yet, the risk of side effects or consequences is small given for years water was piped this way. But of course, this is our alpacas we are talking about, we are sure to watch for any problems. It's been a few weeks and so far, no issues.

I am curious to see if this makes any difference to the alpacas. They drink the water just fine so that hasn't been an issue. I wonder if having more zinc might help them keep some of their facial coverage that often is lost over time. It will be interesting to watch and see.

Expendable Body Parts

2011-12-11T15:22:00.001-05:00

On Saturday we had 200 bales of hay delivered to our house.

First we cleaned out the hay barn (it's more like a hay shelter or hay tent):

It's amazing how stuff can accumlate in there, that you didn't intend. This meant we had to find places for this "stuff". It lead to our getting junk out of the garage and basement (some stuff was donated, some stuff went to the dump). Then we could rearrange the stuff we needed (wanted) to keep. While it made for a lot of work on Saturday, it resulted in my having a hay tent full of hay and a clean garage and organized basement! I love clean and organized.

That picture is taken from the back of the hay shelter, where we stack the hay. For my day to day feeding of the alpacas, I enter through this end:

The fence and gate is to keep our house dogs out of the hay shelter. This is right in our backyard, where our house dogs go outside.

We ordered our alpaca hay from a supplier a few hours away from us. Since we can only haul about 50 bales of hay in our truck and trailer combination, we asked that they deliever the hay (there was an extra charge per mile for this, but we still felt it was worth it to have all 200 bales arrive at once).

Around mid-morning the hay truck with flatbed arrived:

They pulled the flatbed as close to our hay shelter as possible:

We all dumped the hay bales off their flat bed. The cost doesn't include their stacking the hay at our farm, that is all up to us.

After this point I didn't get many more pictures (I was quite busy the rest of the day). We moved and stacked these bales of hay into our hay shelter.

Emma and I did most of the moved of the hay bales, while J stacked them (I have a heck of a time stacking hay bales). It wasn't too far into our day when Emma and I noticed how the rope ties on the hay bales pulled on our hands. We joked "we don't really need finger, right?" As the day went on there were times we thought an arm was in the way or a leg and those are expendable body parts too, right?

I did have to take a picture of Emma and the chair she created out of the hay bales:

She was quite upset when we had to move and stack the bales that created "Chairee". I was shocked she would let me take her picture while she was dressed in her farm clothing, but she agreed, Chairee was that important to her.

We filled the hay shelter with 177 bales of hay. We then took the remaining bales up to our boy's barn. I can't believe I forgot to get a picture of the hay shelter stacked full (ok, I can believe it, we were beat and ready to close it up, no time to stop for pictures).

Now we are set with hay (and a clean garage and basement) for a few months.

A Workout

2011-12-10T20:36:00.001-05:00

Today was a real test of a work out. I've often advocated that having a farm is a great way to stay in shape. I do exercise in addition to doing farm chores, but that's more my own thing. My blog followers wouldn't know this, but there was a time in my life when I was very out of shape and overweight. In 2003 as a family we made a complete life style change (I lost 70 pounds in 8 months time, an accomplishment I am still so proud of, and best yet, I've kept my weight in a healthy range since losing all that weight). Ever since, I have made exercise a regular part of my life. I run several days a week to get in cardio workouts, and I also use the Shake Weight so that I have upper body strength. This upper body strength is essential to farm work (hauling hay, wrestling alpacas, carrying water and so forth).

Today we moved 200 bales of hay into our hay barn. It was a tough workout! These are really heavy bales of hay, at least 50 pounds each. We also cleaned out the garage and got rid of some other junk that had been accumulating. I'm most impressed that the kids were so very helpful!

I have pictures of our hay hauling day but tonight I am way to tired to post them. I'll be sure to post them tomorrow.

Matriarch Attack

2011-12-09T16:14:00.000-05:00

The leader of our girls' herd is clearly our first alpaca, Victoria. She is in charge and makes sure everyone knows it. Every once in awhile one of the other girls will challenge her. I was shocked this past week when I found Maddie had done so! That's not like Maddie. I do wonder if it had something to do with Maddie's daughter, Twilight, since she was also present for this.

From a distance I saw this neck wrestling begin:

Up closer:

Here is Maddie post fight with her spit lip:

And the queen, Victoria, with spit lip:

Weaning

2011-12-08T16:18:00.002-05:00

We only had 1 2011 cria from our own herd: Our Peruvian Thunder. So this year we don't have a cria gang to wean. (We do also have Dutch, who came to our farm when she was less than a month old, but she's still too young to wean so I'll talk about her another day).

I guess I should back up to say that our preferred method to wean would be self weaning. I would love it if the dam (mom) and cria (baby) would on their own decide to wean. I do believe nature knows best, and would love to let them do it on their own. However, it's not always practical to do that. For one, we have dams who will nurse to their own detriment. They will become so skinny that their own health is compromised. We can't have moms getting so thin that they are at risk of health issues. Also, we do take our cria to alpaca shows, which is stressful in itself. If you add on to that them being away from their mom for the first time, that's too much stress for a little one. We want weaning to be done well before show season starts up again.

I know different farms have different guidelines of when to wean. I've heard of farms that always wean at 6 months old. Once the cria are 6 months old they are taken out of the mom's pen. I've heard of 60 pounds being the cut off to wean. I've also heard of combining the two, a 6/60 rule, 6 months and 60 pounds (or it could be 6 months or 60 pounds). We like to do the AND rule, of 6 months AND 60 pounds. We also like to see that they are eating hay and grain well. Thunder just turned 6 months old, and is almost 60 pounds (he weighed in at 59 pounds). He has been eating grain for a long time now (and eats a good bowl of grain eat feeding time). He chows on hay with no issues. So we feel comfortable weaning him now.

There have been times we can't do our ideal. We have had situations when the dam got to thin and we had to wean earlier. You do what you have to. But I have to admit that we've always regretting having to do that. Our approach is to do whatever possible to keep the dam's weight up so that we don't have to wean early. In the past couple of years we've managed to do that and haven't had to wean early.

Sancha is an older mom who has been through weaning before. She handled it like a pro. Poor Thunder though, it was the worst day of his life.

Here he is, now in the young boy's pen:

Funny how he used to not want anything to do with me, but now that he's in the boy's pen, he follows me everywhere. I think he thinks I might be the one who can let him back by his mom.

I wish we had a better place to wean, because sharing a fence line between cria and dam is not ideal. He cries by the fence (note his mom is the white alpaca looking over at him, but she is at a distance. She's been through this before and I can tell by her behavior she agreed it was time):

My funny Sancha story from weaning day is this. We were a bit worried that Chaska who dominates the boys' pen might be a bit rough on Thunder. As boys will do, Chaska did try to mount Thunder. We kept an eye on it to make sure it was just normal boys play and not anything aggressive or harmful to Thunder (if it was at all concerning, I was ready to take Chaska up to the big boy's pen up the road. I even told him he better watch it or he will be the little one with the even bigger boys). Everything seemed to be going ok, so J and I went into the garage to finish putting stuff away from our herd health day. While in the garage we could hear a spit fight, which isn't unusual so we didn't even peak out to see what was going on. When we were done in the garage, I walked out to see the biggest spit lip on Sancha I have ever seen! I look over and through the fence she slathered Chaska with spit to the point his head and neck were green! She did not like him trying to mount her baby and she sure showed him!! He hasn't tried it again :)

Since Thunder is low man in his new pen, I opted to feed him his grain in the same area as Gabe (who has struggled with low weight so he is fed separate):

They are so wet it's hard to tell our black Gabe from our dark rose grey Thunder. In fact, in the morning in the dark I have a really hard time telling who is who until Thunder cries to me.

In one area is Chaska, Challenger and Sig, and in the other area is Gabe and Thunder:

To me there are three stages to weaning: first deciding when (for us 6/60), then how (take the cria out of the dam's pen, decide where to put them), and lastly, monitoring how they are doing. The first couple of days we watch that cria very closely. We want to make sure the new pen mates aren't hurting them. It is also essential that the cria is eating. If they are not eating hay, their gut can shut down and that is a horror story. I made sure to watch and see if Thunder was eating his grain, and we monitored that he was eating hay. Grain is not essential, but knowing he ate it shows he's doing well. There was one meal on his second day of weaning when he did not eat grain. I was assured to see that he did eat hay, and the next meal he ate up his grain. All was ok, as missing one meal of grain won't hurt him. We put a couple extra bins of hay out because sometimes the older ones in the pen will keep the new ones from getting to the hay bin (they will spit and push the new one away). Having extra bins out works really well whenever there is a new alpaca in a new pen.

You sure can tell by these pictures how wet it's been. The alpacas look very wet, but really, when you open up their fiber they are warm and dry by their skin. What I hate about the rainy cold weather is that the woods and ground look so bleak and blah. Snow would actually look prettier.

Herd Health

2011-12-07T16:05:00.001-05:00

This past weekend we set aside Saturday for Herd Health Day. We try to set aside a day each month, though it doesn't have to be done that often, but that way if something else comes up we are still doing everything we need to for them.

On Herd Health Day we weigh all of our alpacas under 2 years old. If they are gaining rate at a fairly steady weight, we know they are doing well. If they slow down in their weight gain, stop gaining, or worse, have lost weight, we know we need to assess what might be going on. Often stress can cause their weight to slow or stall. This means show season can be rough on their weight, as can times like weaning. If we have an alpaca that is slowing down in their weight gain, or stopped, we assess them more frequently to make sure their stress is gone and they are back to gaining. If we have an alpaca who is losing weight, that is an emergency and we order a fecal right away. No healthy young alpaca should be losing weight, even if they have been through some stressful stuff.

On Saturday our young girls, Twilight, Rose and Dutch all were gaining well. We also body score them (by feeling how much meat is around their spine by their back hips) and they all seemed great. The boys, while they have been gaining weight, did not gain as much, and some body scored as thin. Given the boys are in an area with only yearling boys, I always give them a ton of hay. Growing young alpacas need hay to grow and thrive. So I knew hay wasn't our issue. We opted to up their grain intake to 1/2 a cup at each feeding. We will see how this works for them. I know typically hay has more of an impact on weight than grain does, but putting out more hay will just mean more sitting out in their bins. If upping the grain doesn't help, we will look into adding alfalfa to their hay. Alfalfa is a great way to help them put on weight, but it can affect their fiber by making it less fine. So for our young alpacas, we really don't want to compromise their fiber, unless we have tried everything else to address their weight.

Now it's weaning time! We aim to wean alpacas at 6/60 meaning they are 6 months old and 60 pounds. We also like to see that they are eating hay great and eating at least some grain. Thunder has been eating grain for a long time, and eats hay great, so no concerns there. He is 6 months old. He did weigh in at 59 pounds, which we felt was good enough, given he is meeting all the other requirements very well. His mom, Sancha, often has a hard time of losing weight while nursing and we want to bulk her up for her next cria that is due this summer.

I will write more about weaning in the next blog posting.

In addition to weighing them, we give AD&E shots to all our alpacas under 2 years old. Then we trim everyones toe nails. And we body scored all the alpacas older than 2 years old (as a loss in weight can indicate a bigger problem).

Herd Health Day went well. Each time we are amaze how when we first started our farm, even though we had fewer alpacas, it would take us all day. Now, even though we have more alpacas, it takes only a few hours, half a day. We've become so efficient at everything our time is cut in half.

Wet and Cold

2011-12-04T08:55:00.002-05:00

We have had some very wet and cold temps lately (not cold enough for snow though, which is more typical December weather for us.) When I went out to do farm chores on Saturday, this is what greeted me:

Once they heard me out there moving around, some starting looking over towards me hoping I was bringing food:

I often say when wet, they look like drowned rats:

Alpaca shows we have attended

2011-12-01T19:05:00.002-05:00

I created a new separate page listing all the alpacas shows we have attended. My goal is to keep up this record so that over the years we will have a full report of where we have been. I only listed what place they took if it was 1st or 2nd place. The link to this page can be found on the left side column under "Our Alpaca Herd."

Here is the page:

Alpaca Shows we have attended:

2007

Michigan International Alpacafest (MIAF) in Birch Run MI
~ paid a down payment for our 1st alpacas (Victoria, Kateri and Snowstorm) from South Haven Alpacas

2008

Indiana Alpaca Invitational in Fort Wayne IN
~ helped South Haven Alpacas show their animals. It was a GREAT introduction to alpaca showing!

Michigan International Alpacafest (MIAF) in Birch Run MI
~ we took Sommerfield, Maxito, and Maddie (all showed in the shorn class, much to our disappointment)

Heartland Classic in Indianapolis
~ we took Sommerfield, Maxito and Maddie

2009

Best of the Midwest Alpaca Show in Columbus OH
~ we took Shelby (2nd place!), Tehya (2nd place!), Maddie, Lightning and Maxito

Indiana Alpaca Invitational in Columbus OH
~ we took Tucker (2nd place!), Shelby, Tehya (2nd place!), Lighting

Michigan Breeders Show
~ we sent Lighting with another farm to attend this show

Michigan International Alpaca fest (MIAF) in Flint MI
~ we took Shelby (1st place!!), Tehya (1st place!!), and Lightning

2010

Best of the US Alpaca Show in Columbus OH
~ we took Shelby, Tehya, Lightning, Lily, Cavalier and Pocahontas (1st and color champ!!)

Indiana Alpaca Invitational in Fort Wayne IN
~ we took Tehya, Pocahontas (1st place), Cavalier, Greyt and Lightning

Great Midwest Alpaca Festival in Madison WI
~ we took Tehya, Café and Pocahontas

Nationals in Fort Wayne IN
~ we took Tehya and Pocahontas

OABA Alpacafest in Springfield OH
~ we took Cavalier, Pocahontas and Rose (1st place)

2011

Best of the US Alpaca Show
~ we took Twilight (1st!), Rose, Challenger (1st!), Chaska, Harley and Copper

Indiana Invitational in Fort Wayne OH
~ we took Twilight, Rose, Challenger (2nd place), Chaska, Harley, and Ginger

The Great Midwest Alpaca Festival in Madison WI
~ we took Twilight (1st!), Rose (1st!), Challenger (2nd!), Chaska, Ginger and Gabe (2nd!!)

Michigan Breeders Show in Davisburg MI
~ we took Twilight (1st!), Rose (1st!), Challenger (2nd!), Chaska (2nd!), Bo (2nd!) and Gabe (1st and Color Champion!!!!)

Michigan International Alpaca fest (MIAF) in Grand Rapids MI
~ we took Gabe, Sig, Challenger, Chaska and Harley

Wall of Fame:

Fiber ~ drying the skein

2011-11-29T19:32:00.000-05:00

I hang skeins by our fireplace (in the cold weather months) to dry:

After it's dry, I can put it into a ball and start knitting!

Fiber ~ washing

2011-11-28T16:47:00.000-05:00

I've had some comments asking when I wash the fiber. There are many ways to do this, and different spinners will do things in a different order. There was a time I washed the fiber after skirting it and before flicking it. After doing this quite a few times, we've settled on waiting to wash it until it's in yarn form. For one thing, you should wash it at this point anyway, to set the twist in the yarn. The other thing we found is that washing it earlier on messes up the organization of the alpaca fiber, making it harder to flick and spin.

Anytime you wash alpaca you have to be careful about not felting the fiber. The combination of heat, water and aggitation can felt the fiber. I've read this can happen very easily, so I have always been careful of this. But I also should say that in the three years I've been working with this fiber, I've never had it accidentally felt on me. But as a caution, I do try to be careful of this.

I fill the kitchen sink with hot water (about as hot as I would for washing dishes). I put in about as much Dawn dish washing soap as I could for a sink full of dishes. I gently put the skein of yarn in the sink:

I let it sit in this hot soapy water for about 20 minutes. I make sure not to aggitate it, just let it sit there.

After those 20 minutes are up, I gently pull the skein out, squeeze it very lightly. I hold the skein while I drain the sink. I then fill the sink with hot water, no soap this time. I sit it in there for about 5 minute. I gently squeeze the skien, and hold it while I drain the sink. I fill the sink one more time with plain water (no soap) and let it sit for about 15 minutes. The time on these can be changed, you just want to make sure the soap has a chance to get the grim out, and the yarn has a chance to sit in water with out soap to get the soap out I find a lot of the dirt sifts out during those two water only soaks.

This is what the yarn looks like by this point:

Fiber ~ a skein

2011-11-27T07:41:00.000-05:00

I make a skein of yarn with my swift. I find it easier to use than a niddy noddy.

I made hash marks on the post of my swift, marking where the bottom lever needs to be so that I can make either a 1 yard, 1.5 yard, or 2 yard skein:

I take the yarn from the spinning wheel:

And wrap it on the swift:

I tied the skein in three spots with a separate strand of yarn so that when I take if off the swift it stays as a skein.

Fiber ~ plying

2011-11-26T13:23:00.000-05:00

You can make single strand yarn skeins, doubles or triple ply. I'm pretty boring in that I always make a double, a two plyed skein.

I take two bobbins (it's best not to let these get too full with the single strand on there, since once they are plyed, they will take up more more room):

I ply the two strands together:

I did a little too much on each strand, I barely could fit the two plyed yarn on one of my bobbins:

Another Way to Buy Local

2011-11-25T19:07:00.003-05:00

I have posted a lot about how to buy from small local businesses, but that focus has been mostly on products one can buy. I've skipped over a big way one can support local alpaca farmers, and that is to buy ALPACAS!!

We love our animals and take pride in producing quality fiber producing alpacas. But, it is a business, and part of a business is sales. We have been thrilled with the sales we have made so far, and are eager to help others begin (or continue) their adventure with alpacas.

I would encourage anyone thinking about getting into alpacas to contact local alpaca farmers to take a tour of their farms. Knowledge is very important, so learn as much as you can before that first purchase. Many experienced farmers regret some of their earlier purchases because they didn't have the knowledge to make an informed choice on which alpaca to purchase. Meet as many alpaca farmers as you can. Along the way, you will make many friends, you will then have someone to call when a crisis comes up, and you will choose who you most want to purchase your alpacas from.

We love farm visits! So please, email us or give us a call to schedule a time, we'd love to show you around our farm. These visits aren't about pushing sales, so don't worry about a sales pitch. Sales happen when you find the alpaca you want, and that may be at our farm, but it may be at another farm also. You don't even have to want to buy an alpaca to come and visit. We can talk alpaca, fiber, or whatever interests you. These visits are about educating and having fun talking alpaca (which I LOVE to do). So please, give me an excuse to gab about my passion, alpacas!

We have our sales list
on AlpacaNation: Oak Haven Alpacas, LLC
and at Open Herd: Oak Haven Alpacas, LLC

Both of those websites, AlpacaNation and Open Herd, list many alpaca farms around the country, so look around to find farms local to you. Call them up and arrange a time to visit.

J keeps very informed on what alpacas are out there and has become a pro at finding whatever it is that we are looking for. If someone has a particular alpaca in mind, and we don't have that on our farm, J will find it. Alpaca farmers are a network and we work together to help each other. Whatever I have wanted, he has found and brought home for me. He is happy to use that skill to help others also.

Free Shipping

2011-11-25T07:48:00.003-05:00

Use this code at our Oak Haven Alpacas, LLC Esty Shop for free shipping! This code is good from now until Dec. 1, 2011.

Code: oakhavenfreedelivery

This code is good on anything listed in the shop. Here are some of the products we have at our shop:

Infant's Ear Flap Hat:

Children's Ear Flap Hat:

Teenager's Ear Flap Hat:

All three hats were made completely at our farm. We owned the alpacas who grew the fiber, which was shorn off them in the spring. I took this shorn fiber, prepared it, and spun it into 100% alpaca hand spun yarn. Then we knit this alpaca yarn into these hats. Alpaca is a wonderful product: soft, warm and comfortable to wear.

Black Friday

2011-11-25T05:05:00.001-05:00

While I am not one to go out shopping on this Black Friday, I do want to encourage those who are beginning their holiday shopping to consider buying from small local businesses. This could be a mom and pop store in your own town, or a small company selling on-line. It could be from your neighbor, or sister or friend.

Many hand made things can be found on Etsy.com

While we don't have a lot of products on our web site, there there are a few:
Oak Haven Alpacas

Note: I wasn't actually up at 5 a.m. to write this. I wrote it ahead of time and had blogger post it for me. It just seemed fitting, when thinking about Black Friday shopping, that it would post in the wean hours of the morning. I, in fact, will be asleep at that time :) When I do get up (on my own, without an alarm clock), I will feed my alpacas, and spend my Friday off of work spinning yarn. I have some of Twilight's fiber already on my spinning wheel waiting for me to spin - I can't wait!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-24T10:00:00.000-05:00

I hope you and your family have a very blessed Thanksgiving.

I will be eating lots of food, and afterward, spinning lots of fiber.

Fiber ~ drafting

2011-11-23T16:14:00.000-05:00

Drafting is how you go from a cloud of fiber, to a strand of yarn. Of course the spinning wheel spins, and that's what twists the fiber into yarn. But I don't usually think about what the spinning wheel is doing. I get a nice rhythm going pedling the spinnig wheel, which doesn't take much thought. It's the drafting that gets my focus.

I take a cloud of fiber:

I put the cloud of fiber in my lap, pushing it up with where the strand is coming off my spinning wheel. On my lap is a cloud of fiber, on the spinning wheel is a strand of yarn, with my hands in the middle. Between my two hands is where drafting is taking place:

There are different techniques to drafting that will create different kinds of yarn. I admit, I'm not that experienced of a spinner for any of that. I know I could do it, I just haven't ventured to learn it yet. So far I've stuck with basic drafting of pulling the fibers smoother between my hands, and letting them twist after it goes through my 2nd hand, closer to the spinning wheel.

All this creates a strand of yarn:

Fiber ~ getting out the spinning wheel

2011-11-22T18:50:00.003-05:00

Finally after all this prep work, I am ready to get out my spinning wheel.

On my wheel I have a string attached to each bobbin:

The string stays on the bobbin, it's how one starts with attaching fiber to the spinning wheel to spin it into yarn. The string is tied so that it has a loop at the end.

I feed several strands of fiber through the loop of the string:

I pull those strands straight so that I can being to draft the fiber:

Drafting is the big magic part of making yarn, it's the whole key right there! So, I will save that for my next blog post.

Fiber ~ flicking: part 2

2011-11-21T15:53:00.004-05:00

I received a lot of great questions about flicking raw fiber, so I wanted to talk a little more about it. It's really hard to explain, so much easier to show someone in person, but I will try my best with words and pictures.

In reply to what is a flicker, it is a small brush with metal teeth, like a mini carder:

The idea of flicking fiber is similar to carding it - both methods take a bundle of fiber and loosen it so that it can be spun into yarn.

This is a bundle of Twilight's fiber:

I take the flicker, and brush down the length of the bundle (I was home alone so had to take a picture of this myself, not the best, but I think you can see how it goes):

I brush in one direction, down, which separates the bundle on one tip end, but not the tip end that is in my hand. I flip it around so that I can get the other tip end too. That way the entire length of the fiber is flicked.

Flicking it makes the fiber feel smooth, so that it can slip into a twist and make a strand of yarn:

Here is it flicked:

I make it into a cloud (which can be used similar to roving or batts for spinning into yarn) (note the cloud is of Greyt's fiber, so if you thought the color looked different it is):

Age old question

2011-11-19T10:15:00.003-05:00

If a tree falls in the woods, but no one is there, does it make a sound?

Well, this past week I learned if I fall in the alpaca's pasture and scream, no one in the house will hear me!

This past week was an entirely new routine for our family. J started his new job, which means a regular work weeks schedule, day shifts Monday through Friday (after 9 years of him working off shift, this was a huge change for our family). Part of my new routine is to get up a little earlier so that I can feed the alpacas in the morning. When I get out there, it is still dark. One morning while carrying a big load of hay, I stumbled on a tree stump and fell flat on my face! Of course mid fall I let out a very loud scream. I wasn't hurt, thankfully, but definitely embarrassed!! I sort of thought someone from inside the house would look out to see if I was ok, but no. Later they told me they never heard a thing. The alpacas sure heard me. They ran as far away as they could, when I screamed. But the interesting thing is that when I was getting up, they came near me, as a herd, and a couple of them sniffed my back. I'd like to think they were checking to see if I was ok. But really, I think they just wanted me to get that fresh hay in their bins.

Fiber ~ flicking

2011-11-18T16:25:00.003-05:00

I know many people prefer carding fiber to prepare it to be made into yarn. To be honest, initially that was my plan. But when I found out I could flick the fiber instead of carding, I decided to try that first. A flicker is cheaper than carders, and it's quicker. But, it doesn't produce the smooth end result that carding does. This means I create worsted yarn, rather than woollen yarn. Although, reading this description, I think I do a combination of these two:

Handspinning Woollen and Worsted Yarn

Woollen and worsted yarn are two types of yarn that can be handspun. Both types require different fiber preparation on spinning techniques.

Woollen Yarn
Woollen yarn is spun using a short staple fiber that is prepared by handcarding and rolled into rolags. A drumcarder can also be used. When spinning the fiber the long draw or medium draw technique is used to allow the fiber to wrap upon itself while trapping air in the center. This makes the yarn soft and bouncy. This yarn is best used for garments that will not be subjected to harsh wear, such as light weight knits. It can also be used for garments that will later go through a fulling process, such as blankets, coats, and jackets. Fulling is a process that contracts the yarn in a knitted garment and makes the fabric stronger.

Worsted Yarn
Worsted yarn is spun using a long staple fiber that is prepared by combing with dutch combs or a flicker carder, to keep the fibers parallel, and to remove the shorter ones. When spinning, the worsted technique is used, in which, the fiber is first drafted and then twisted using the thumb and forefinger to flatten the loose fibers. This makes a stronger yarn that can be used for hard wearing garments, rugs, blankets, and warp for weaving.

The focus of flicking or carding is to take a bundle of fiber, and separate it so that it can be spun into yarn. A bundle intact would make for lumpy yarn. It's the separated fibers that mix together that makes a strand of yarn. If the bundle remains together, it wouldn't mix and there would be lumps and bumps and tender spots between bundles in the yarn.

Here is my bag of unflicked fiber from our herd sire, Greyt:

Here is my basket of flicked fiber:

This picture shows the contrast, first the flicked bundle, then the intact bundle:

It was impossible to take a picture of myself flicking the fiber (I only have so many hands), so here is the next best thing. I have the flicker in my hand, ready to flick. I put a bucket (the orange bucket) underneath where I am flicking because bits of hay and other debris does fall when I flick it:

Next weeks blog posts will be about spinning this skirted, weighed, tumbled and flicked fiber into yarn.

Fiber ~ tumbling

2011-11-17T19:48:00.001-05:00

You can send your alpaca fiber to a mill where they will do all these things for you. But since I've been doing this all myself, J made me my own tumbler. He took a dryer that someone was selling super cheap because the heat didn't always work. Well, we won't ever hook this up to heat (heat would felt the alpaca fiber).

My tumbler in my fiber room:

The tumbler not only tumbles the fiber, but there are long nails on magnets that pull apart and help separate the alpaca fiber, making more dirt and debris fall out. There are three lines of these nail prongs:

Up closer:

The point of the tumbler is to clean out the fiber. Since we have sandy soil, it's especially important that we take this extra step.

After tumbling, the next step is flicking (some people do carding instead, which is very similar but I have found flicking easier for me to do). I'll post about this in tomorrows blog entry.

Fiber ~ two batches

2011-11-16T18:45:00.001-05:00

After skirting the fiber, I then weigh out a bunch of fiber, usually two bags of 6 ounces each. I make 2 batches because when I make it into yarn, I like to have two strands plyed in my yarn. And, if I do my best to have them the same weight, then I have a chance of making the two strands the same length so my yarn will match up (or at least close to matching up). I sometimes do a bit bigger skein of yarn, but more than 8 ounces per batch isn't worth it because it won't fit on my spinning wheel. I used to do mostly 4 ounce batches, but I found there was a bit of time saving in going a bit bigger in the 6 ounce batches. These two 6 ounce batches, by the time they are plyed together makes about a 10 ounce skein of yarn (by the time everything else is done it does lose some weight).

Here are two batches, weighed and set aside:

Next step ~ tumbling the fiber. This I will talk about in my next blog post.

Fiber ~ skirting

2011-11-15T19:10:00.005-05:00

I thought I would use this week to write about preparing alpaca fiber to make it into yarn. Next week I will focus my blog posts on spining that prepared fiber into yarn. Maybe the next week I can focus on knitting, but I may be getting ahead of myself already.

Fiber is the name for the alpaca's fur/wool/hair. It is the ultimate end product created by alpacas.

Each spring we shear our alpacas, and collect this wonderful fiber. After our yearly shearing, we put their fiber in a bag.

When I want to make something with the fiber, I grab the bag that has the color I want. I took these pictures with Twilight's fiber (she is a dark silver grey, though her fiber looks black in these picture).

The first step is skirting. Here is our skirting table:

J made this skirting table for me out of wire shelving (like what you would use in a closet). It works perfect for skirting!

I lay out the fiber and pick out any debris, like this seed head:

Or bits of hay:

Another trick we do, during skirting, is to hold onto one end of a handful of fiber, and shake it:

I then flip it over, hang onto the other end, and shake it again. What this does is shake loose the dreaded 2nd cuts. Second cuts are shorter fibers that happen during shearing when the shearer has to go over one spot more than once. The better the shearer the less second cuts, but even an accomplished pro will have some.

In this picture is a regular bundle of fiber (middle of the picture), and the shorter second cuts (in the lower right corner). Sorry the lighting on this picture is so dreadful, I actually retook this picture several times and this is the best I could get. This is why I am not a professional photographer LOL:

You possibly could use second cuts but most people skirt them out. I skirt them out and throw them into our refuse bin. When that bin is full, we throw it in the woods. I figure birds and small rodents can use these to help build their homes/nests.

Once I have most of the debris picked out and the second cuts removed, I am done skirting.

Next step ~ weighing out batches of fiber

Deer Day

2011-11-15T09:29:00.000-05:00

As a child growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, I was quite sheltered from the concept of "Deer Day." To my county kids, this means a day off of school (while they love school, a day off is a nice treat too). Deer Day is what they call the first day of Open Season on Deer, this day is the opening of riffle season (as opposed to bow season which was several weeks ago, and never gets the same publicity). The kids' school district actually gives them this day off school. I have heard there was a year they tried to have school and it didn't go over well. In a community like this, you have generations of people who grew up spending deer day as a family. It's more than just a hunting trip, it's a yearly event.

My concerns on Deer Day center around the fact I have alpacas in the my back yard, some of whom are brown/tan/fawn color and *could* look like deer from a distance. Add on that our land butts up against many acres of state land, and you can see how I would be concerned about a confused hunter (hunters are allowed to hunt in state land). Each year I feel less concerned, being we have never had an issue. But I will say Spot was barking an awful lot this morning, and I did hear several gun shots before I got out of bed. I did a quick head count of our alpacas and everyone is accounted for.

My former self, that suburbanite, would have thought deer hunting was rather barbaric. Now having lived in the country for several years, I have a different take on it. The fact is there are deer. Eventually these deer will die. I would rather it was fast, by a hunter who will eat the meat and mount the head, then have these animals die by starvation or by hitting my car. So on that note I will wish all the hunters "happy hunting" and hope they find the perfect buck.

Tag Line

2011-11-13T13:02:00.001-05:00

As I mentioned in a previous post, we've been working on a new tag line that encompasses the goals we have for our farm. We are excited to have come across a great way to put what we've been doing all along:

Breeding Brightness You Can Feel

Like all alpaca farmers, we are aiming to breed alpacas to produce superior fiber. J has read that if alpacas have very bright fiber, it comes along with other qualities that makes their fiber feel good, such as a low scale height. Our focus has been on the handle of the fiber, because the end result is that we want fiber that feels good, and can be made into quality alpaca products. That brightness and the excellent handle that comes along with it is exactly what we have been doing.

Wall of fame

2011-11-12T18:52:00.000-05:00

In our basement we set aside a wall to display our alpaca's ribbons. This isn't even all the ribbons. The alpacas we are still showing (Rose, Twilight, Gabe, and Challenger) we kept their ribbons out to display at show, and some of the alpacas we have sold/trader we gave their ribbons to their new owners.

November ~ new beginnings

2011-11-12T08:10:00.001-05:00

I know November isn't typically a time of year we think of new and renewed (usually that's more of a spring phenomenon). But, it seems our family has had a lot of changes that happen this time of year. While not exactly November, our first child was born in October. Of all the changes, becoming a parent was by far the most life altering. December is the month when J and I got married, another big life event (and if you average October and December you get November).

In 2000 we started building our house in November. This time of year makes me remember coming back here to see the foundation and slowly the progress being made on our house. Since J did most of the work on the house, it took until August of 2001 to finish (I did some of the work, like painting, but Emma was little back then, so I spent my time taking care of her).

In 2007 our first alpacas arrived at our farm! It was such an exciting day. In some ways it feels like just yesterday, and in other ways, I marvel at how much has changed since then. We started out with 3 alpacas (2 bred females and a gelding). Now we have a farm of 22 alpacas!

This year, 2011, J is starting a new job in November. It's a big change for him in that he will be going to a different hospital, in a different city (about the same distance he was driving to his former job). It's a huge change for our entire family because for the last 9 years he's worked off shifts (either 3rd shift or 2nd shift). For the most part he picked working off shift (there are benefits such as a shift differential in more per hour pay, and the hospital is less busy at night). But as the kids have gotten older, and J has moved up into management, the idea of working days has had it's appeal. The kids don't remember a time J worked days (Zack was 6 months old, and Emma was 3 years old, when J went back to school and we started down that journey). It's going to be a lot of changes at our house! For one, we've been used to J working every other or every 3rd weekend - now no officially scheduled weekends. In addition, he'll be home every night, and sleep a regular night (I'm less happy about sharing the TV at night but that's only one small sacrifice).

Also this year, as we begin our 5th year as alpaca farmers, we decided to change our Tag Line. A tag line is the theme and goal you have for your farm. Most farms publish it as part of their advertising. When we started looking into alpacas, we were encouraged by many people in the business to come up with a tag line and focus our farm towards something. The big thing right then was to specialize in Grey and Black alpacas. There were also farms that specialized in whites, but it was well known that the white classes were the hardest to compete in. (And right away from the start I was drawn to the variety of colors of alpacas, white never had an appeal to me). I didn't want to focus on only one color. I love ALL the colors, and wanted a farm of many different colors. We had people discourage this line of thinking, saying it's hard to do that. Now after being in the business for a few years, I stand by our original idea to breed for all colors. It is possible, we've been doing it! And really, it's hard not to (since every alpaca has two color genes, what color they are is not what they will pass onto all of their offspring). Our original tag line focused on the fact I wanted alpaca fiber in lots of different natural colors to use in crafts, and J's focus has always been on the superior and diverse genetics. This lead to our original tag line of: "Combining the best genetics to produce the best alpacas in a variety of colors for crafters." After we had business cards made and our farm signs made with this tag line, we quickly decided there were problems with it. While it is our goal, it was way too long! And I think it was an over reaction to the idea we shouldn't do all the colors. Instead of focusing on "hey we are doing all the colors even though some of you said we shouldn't" we should focus on incredible fiber, since that is our main goal anyway. Over the last four years we have been working on ideas for a new tag line, something shorter that captures our niche. We wanted it to really fit our farm, so we've been slow to develop it, to make sure it's right. We finally figured it out, but more on that in another post.

Pictures

2011-11-06T09:13:00.000-05:00

I apologize for the lack of pictures on the blog lately. I know pictures are worth 1000 words. We have had some technical difficulties, but hope to have pictures up and running sometime this week.

The Kicker

2011-11-05T14:02:00.001-04:00

Alpacas are very passive and stoic creatures. They are rarely if ever aggressive. Their initial instinct is to run. And let me tell you, if you need to get a hold of one to do herd heath or halter them to take them somewhere, their running instinct shows! Some of them will spit if they are cornered. We find it is usually the older pregnant girls who do this. Usually the younger ones do not spit. We have had a male spit at times but that seems more rare. Pregnant woman in general are more ornery, it only makes sense that they are there to protect their young. Don't mess with a mama bear, or a mama alpaca.

My favorite alpaca response are the ones who growl. Our own Maddie will do this sometimes during herd health. I will hold her so J can give her a shot and I can feel and hear this growl in her throat. Her daughter, Twilight, also does this. It's an unusual cute sound, though I do feel bad that they are upset enough to growl, it's more like a whimper I would make when having to have a shot.

I would say alpacas never bite, but we had an incident of biting a couple weeks ago. We were trimming nails on the older boys. I was holding Greyt while J clipped his nails. While clipping Greyt's nails, Tucker came over and bit J on the ear! Alpacas only have one set of teeth so they can't do much harm by biting, but it is a pinch and can hurt.

Other than running or spitting, their other main defense is kicking. I have had my fair share of being kicked, usually during herd health. I can hardly blame them when we handle them to give them shots. I don't care for shots either! Occasionally we'll have an animal who kicks a lot. They will even do an air kick when you walk by, as if they were hoping to catch you. We have discovered that Sig is one of those kind of alpacas. It is a fact that he was used by a vet school for training on starting IVs. I can't help but wonder if that experience traumatized him to the point he doesn't trust any humans. In many ways that is sad.

At the alpaca show last weekend I was trying to get a hold of Challenger so that I could let some people feel his fiber. While trying to catch him, Sig thought I was after him and he gave me a good kick. I still have a huge bruise on the back of my leg from that! Sig is only about 80 pounds, so it's not that their kicks are dangerous (nothing like a horse kick), but they do hurt and the bruises they make are not pretty.

When we were haltering all the alpacas to leave the show late Sunday afternoon, Sig was still on the defense. I should have known better, but I let Zack lead Sig and Gabe out to the trailer. As you might already guess, while walking, Sig gave a back kick and hit Zack square on his upper thigh. I should back track to explain that Zack is a very sensitive guy. He's also an animal activist (and a vegetarian of sorts). He has already told me that he does not think alpacas enjoy going to alpaca shows and he does not think we should take them. I would agree that alpaca shows can be stressful for them. We have found the more shows we go to, the more used to it they get, and the less stressed they appear. This fall we only went to one show, and it was Sigs first show. Being kicked by Sig only enforced to Zack that he would not take alpacas to shows. I should add that while that is Zack's opinion, J and I do not share that with him. We will certainly be attending many alpaca shows in the future. We believe that we take extremely good care of our alpaca livestock, more so than most farmers do with their livestock. Like most alpaca farmers, we go above and beyond to care for them in the best way possible. Alpacas in general are cared for better than just about any other livestock. The stress of an alpaca show is nothing like the stress they would feel left in the wild, or living in less than ideal conditions. But, I do hope not to be kicked at the next show, which means work with not only halter training, but also building trust with our own alpacas.

Mystery Solved

2011-11-04T19:48:00.000-04:00

This morning we had an alpaca mystery.

We've had to juggle around our schedules since J is in the process of transitioning to a new job (he's put in his notice at his current job, his new job starts on Nov. 14). He's been working odd hours (even more so than usual), these last couple of weeks at his job. It's going to be an even bigger transition when he starts his new job, but the good news is that he will be working 1st shift! He hasn't worked 1st shift since 2003!!! Zack was 6 months old when J quit his job to go back to school and we started down a whole new path. He's worked either 3rd or 2nd shift since that point (by choice for the most part). But, J felt it was time to start sleeping at night like a normal person, and is very happy to have found a job that he wanted and is 1st shift. It all fell into place just at the right time.

J's been on 3rd shift this week, so I have been doing the morning alpaca feedings (and once he starts his new job on 1st shift, he will have to leave earlier than I do so I will be on morning feeding then too). This week is the last week before the time change so it is especially dark in the mornings. When I went outside this morning, it was pitch black out there. We have lights but they don't shine everywhere and actually make it harder for my eyes to adjust to the dark parts, so I feed them in the dark. I only use lights in the garage to scoop out the grain.

I got outside this morning with the grain bowls, starting in the young boys area. I fed Spot first, then put out bowls for Gabe and Sig, but I couldn't find Sig. It was so dark I figured he was back in the pasture and left his bowl for him. I put out bowls for Chaska and Challenger, but still Sig had not come to his bowl. I was starting to get a bit concerned. It was too dark to look far, I couldn't figure out what would keep him from eating. I feared the worst.

I then fed the girls: Twilight, Rose, Bay and Latte. They were all right there and went to their bowls. The next area I put out bowls is the full figured girls area. I had bowls for Victoria, Miss Kitty, Snickers and Jewel. I noticed an extra alpaca came into the area, in the darkness I thought it was Tehya. Then I fed the last group back by the fence: Maddie, Sancha, but then Kateri was not there, then Tehya was there - but I thought she was in with the fully figured girls? Kateri is much darker in color than Tehya so I wasn't confusing the two of them (even if they are mother and daughter). It was all a confusing mess. I had 2 missing alpacas, Kateri and Sig, and one alpaca that I saw twice, Tehya. It was like someone swapped alpacas with me but didn't tell me.

It wasn't until I went to collect bowls and let them all back into the main pasture that I figured out the mystery. When I went into the full figured girls area there were 5 alpacas in there: Victoria, Miss Kitty, Jewel and Snickers, but there was also this smaller lighter one, but it wasn't Tehya since I could see her just over in the other area - it was Sig!!! It was so dark I couldn't tell it was Sig even when I was right there next to him, but once it occurred to me that it was him, it was clear that was what happened. Somehow overnight Sig got through the fence between the boys area and the girls area. That's why he wasn't by Gabe in the boys area and that is why we had an extra alpaca in the girls area. Thankfully he's young and not interested in breeding, so no harm done.

I never did figure out where Kateri was. J called me later in the morning to ask me why Sig was in the girls area. I explained the story of the mysterious morning and that in the dark I wasn't catching and moving Sig back to the boy's area. I asked J if Kateri was there, and she was. I must have just missed her in the darkness this morning, I was pretty distracted by the entire mystery.

Who knew alpacas were such a mystery!

Great Show!

2011-11-02T20:15:00.002-04:00

We loved having the Michigan International Alpacafest in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

The venue worked really well for the alpaca stall set up. We got a lot of foot traffic through the venue on both Saturday and Sunday. It was very fun meeting people interested in alpacas and having a chance to talk to them. One of my favorite things to do is to talk alpacas!

While our own animals did not have their best show, we didn't go to this show for that reason. We had a rough summer, and knew our animals weren't in ideal shape to show their best. While they are healthy and back on track now, we would have liked to have waited until spring, when they have had a few healthy months under their belt. We would not have chosen to travel for a show. But, given we finally had a show in our own area, we just had to support it. We hauled out all our boys, even ones we weren't really planning to show again. We came home with two 2nd place ribbons, and two 5th place ribbons. Certainly not our best show, but not our worst either.

While we loved having a show so close to our own farm, we did discover the down side is that I didn't have two evenings in a hotel room with wi-fi to write up nice blog posts about our show days. Coming home each night, we had barn chores and regular family activities to attend to.

Very excited!!!

2011-10-25T19:26:00.002-04:00

I am so excited that the next alpaca event we have scheduled to attend is an alpaca show very close to our home!!

Typically attending alpaca shows mean traveling to other towns, usually other states. While we enjoy traveling, we have often wondered how it would be to have an alpaca show close by.

This year Michigan International Alpacafest is being held in Grand Rapids, Michigan. This is less than 45 minutes from our house! In the past this show has been held in Birch Run, or Flint, Michigan. Being close is a real benefit, but I also think the venue will work well for this show.

For all my Michigan readers, please come out and see our show. This is your chance to see building full of 300+ alpacas. It is a sight to behold.

16th Annual Michigan International Alpacafest

October 29th & 30th, 2011
DeltaPlexArena
2500 Turner Ave. NW
Grand Rapids, Michigan

Herd Health

2011-10-23T17:16:00.002-04:00

Today we set aside some time to go over the herd, to assess their health.

We:
+ weighed all the cria, juvis and yearlings
+ body scored every alpaca (by feeling their level of body fat over their spine)
+ gave AD&E injections to all cria, juvis and yearlings
+ trimmed the nails on all alpacas (we have 22 on our farm right now)
+ assessed teeth, top knots, and tails on all our alpacas going to the show

It amazes me how fast we can accomplish herd health. I remember when it used to take us all day, and sometimes we wouldn't finish in a day. Today we tackled the entire herd in less than 3 hours. No one got hurt (usually J or I sustain some injury). It was was a good day!

We were quite pleased that our skinny boys, Gabe and Sig, are putting on weight. We did have to adjust grain for our older boys, they all seem on the thin side. Everyone else appeared to be right where they should be (well, we still have our full figured gals but we are doing what we can to trim them down, there is only so much you can do).

Everyone looks good and healthy. I am so glad to see a healthy herd!!

Three?

2011-10-20T18:51:00.004-04:00

I don't know where the saying comes from that things happen in threes, but I am hoping it's right. After losing both Little Guy and Cheyenne this past summer, now we have also lost sweet little Maggie. We got Maggie thinking she'd be the third 2011 cria to run around our farm with Thunder and Dutch, and go to alpaca shows this spring. Instead, she is burried next to Little Guy and Cheyenne. Three little graves.

While three losses like this seems like a lot to happen in a few months time, they are completely unrelated, a bad coincidence. Also, keep in mind that alpacas are stoic creatures. They rarely get sick, but when they do, it's usually too late by the time it's realized. We've known this to be true, but this past year has shown us how quickly it can happen. Little Guy was born with problems. We noticed that the placenta wasn't right, and I believe he was blind at birth. We believe he was deprived oxygen while in utero and had extensive brain damage. He lived just over day. Survial of the fittest at it's bleakest. Cheyenne suffered from a intestinal blockage. As we have learned, alpacas have a very complicated and delicate intestinal system, any small problem can lead to a big problem. I don't know how often alpacas get a blockage, but I know several other farms who have dealt with this also. Unfortunately, it's not that rare and often has a poor outcome. Maggie was born fine and did not have an intestinal blockage. She was thin, but we were addressing that. At the end, she was running a temperature which indicates either an infection or a virus. We did all we could, bottle feeding fluids into her, giving her medication and even taking her into our house.

Here is the bed J made for her that last day, that last step before taking her into our house:

Playmates

2011-10-17T19:04:00.000-04:00

Thunder and Dutch love to run and play. Of course, once I get out there with a camera they stop and pretend to just be standing there:

I swear they want to play on the swingset:

Quit Fighting It

2011-10-16T10:34:00.001-04:00

We all have plans for our lives, and often life goes along and we meet those goals. Other times, life fights us and pushes us in directions we were not looking to go.

This past weekend we took two of our best grey girls to an alpaca auction. Our plan all along has been to produce show quality alpacas, with bright and consistent fiber, in a variety of colors. However, we happened to have produced a lot of grey alpacas (and not just any greys, but ones that win in the show ring and their quality is clear when inspecting their fiber). We've noticed over the last year that we have become known for our greys (and not just at this auction, but other alpaca gatherings we have attended). When asked about our grey program we explain how we breed for all colors, but given we have some greys, we get greys (we love the greys, but I also love black and dark brown and J would say fawn is one of his favorites too). We have been fighting this notion that we have a "Grey Program".

Well, I'm done fighting it.

This past weekend we got lots of feedback on our grey program. Many people, ones from big farms in the industry, commented on the incredible quality of our grey girls. Some remembered our grey boy who wasn't even at this auction!

Here we are sitting on this grey fame that we didn't even ask for. We wanted to be known for great alpacas, we never sought out grey as our speciality. But here it is.

The weekend was very emotional. There were highs and lows. In the end, neither of our grey girls sold. On our ride home we decided that instead of being in such a rush to sell off our incredible greys, we should breed these incredible girls and create the next generation of grey!

Auction Day!!

2011-10-15T07:23:00.004-04:00

Today we are in Ohio to attend the Peruvian Classic Sale. We brought our best two girls to put in this auction ~ our own Smokey's Twilight and Enlightenment's Rocky Rose.

This is the second alpaca auction we have ever attended. We sold two girls in the last auction we were a part of, and we hope to do the same today. If you are looking for a quality grey girl, you don't even have to come to Ohio to bid, you can do so over the Live Auction on the internet.

lot #6 and #31 ~ those are my beautiful girls!!

Lot #6 Smokey's Twilight ~ a beautiful dark silver grey yearling:

Lot #31 Enlightenment's Rocky Rose ~ an incredible rose grey yearling:

Spot

2011-10-11T19:09:00.002-04:00

our farm dog, Spot:

don't let his sweet puppy dog eyes trick you. Yeah, he's sweet, but he also takes his job as alpaca guardian very serious.

Fall

2011-10-09T11:55:00.003-04:00

We live in an oak forest. Unfortunately, oak leaves typically turn brown, then linger on the trees until the snow starts to fly. Oak leaves typically don't have the beautiful vibrant colors. This year though, our fall has been warm, and the leaves have extraordinary colors. I love seeing the colorful alpacas roaming in the colorful landscape:

three babies

2011-10-08T13:42:00.004-04:00

Just as J envisioned, now we have three 2011 cria: Thunder, Dutch and Maggie. This means there are three cria to run around and pronk together. And, three is the perfect number to fill a pen at the alpaca shows next spring.

Thunder:

Dutch:

Maggie:

I'm excited to see cria in a variety of colors. Dutch is fawn, Maggie is brown, and Thunder is rose grey. I hope this makes shows a little bit less hectic. Our biggest issue will be that Challenger will show as a yearling rose grey male and Thunder will show as a juvenile rose grey male, which means at each show Thunder will show in the class just before Challenger. But they will be our only two greys and they are both boys (unlike last year when we had three greys, one boy and two girls - it was crazy to get them all in the ring at the right time).

Welcome Maggie

2011-10-07T19:49:00.003-04:00

Magnolia (aka Maggie):

Hanging on

2011-10-04T19:21:00.002-04:00

Sometime we live life. We are the driving force of what we do. Other times it feels like life is living us. Right now I feel as if I'm along for the ride. Since the kids began school this fall, they are busy with many things. I have been trying to keep up with exercise, by running several miles each week. I've been averaging 12 to 17 miles each week. Both J and I have have full time jobs, and we have an alpaca farm. That's quite a bit.

Some people ask me how we do it all. The truth is that work and kids and the farm is the norm for us. We've been doing this for four years now and we have a good routine. We have a good balance that works out well for us.

The part that I have struggled with is how to work in fiber arts. I've had this vision of spinning yarn so that I can knit myself an alpaca vest. I admit, I have only spun about 2 ounces in one strand of yarn so far. It's been very slow going. At this rate it won't be done until sometime in 2020. I've been exhausted by the time I sit down in the evenings. I haven't even considered getting out my spinning wheel.

I do think when the cold weather sets in I will spend less time outside and more time inside. On cold winter days I love to sit and spin yarn in front of a toasty warm fire. It's only the matter of weeks before those days are here again. My goal will be to have that alpaca vest done by spring show season.

Auction Lots are up!!

2011-09-30T07:42:00.000-04:00

The auction lots for the Peruvian Classic Sale are now up: click here to see auction lots

Check out lot #6 and #31 ~ those are my beautiful girls!!

Lot #6 Smokey's Twilight

Lot #31 Enlightenment's Rocky Rose

Our Colorful Alpacas

2011-09-27T19:27:00.003-04:00

There is an official Alpaca Registry color chart, that is certified by the Alpaca Owners and Breeders Association (AOBA). This is how you know what color to list your alpaca on their official registry, and which color class they will show in at any alpaca show.

Here is a picture of our color chart:

In addition to the 16 colors shown on this chart there are also multi-color alpacas, and alpacas with patterns. Even after all those categories, there are some that still don't fit into a category and are put into "Indefinite Light" or "Indefinite Dark". Our own OHVNA Pocahontas is an indefinite dark. She has a main color of brown, but also has some grey fibers. If she had more grey fibers she would have been considered a rose grey, but as it was she wasn't brown or rose grey, so they called her "indefinite dark".

My goal when starting our farm was to have animals in many different colors. Some farms specialize in one or two specific colors, which was a popular theme back when we began our farm (and still is a goal of many farms). We specifically chose not to do that. I like all the colors, and want yarn in all the natural colors. Plus, as we found this past year when you have so many in one color class, it makes showing them very difficult. This past year we had so many greys that shows were hectic and more stressful. We prefer to have a balance of different colors. (But as evidenced by this past year, even if we plan for many colors, you get what you get. Though I have to say, if there was a color for us to have lots of, I'm glad it was grey, I love the greys!)

Here are the alpacas on our farm broken down by color:

White (WH)

GF Raphaella’s Sancha
ATA Peruvian Harley

Beige (BG)

OHVNA Chaska

Light Fawn (LF)

Kateri’s Tehya
Straightfork Vanilla Latte

Medium Fawn (MF)

Dodge City Miss Kitty
ATA Peruvian Boppana
Butterscotch Bay
JLFA Pot of Gold’s Northwestern

Dark Fawn (DF)

Persnickety Miss (Snickers)
MPAF Jewel
JLFA Frango’s Dutch Harbor

Light Brown (LB)

Kateri

Medium Brown (MB)

Dark Brown (DB)

Hana’s Victoria

Bay Black (BB)

True Black (TB)

Gabriel Star of RobAsia
KSF Midnight Masquerade (Maddie)

Light Silver Grey (LSG)

ARF Our Peruvian Tucker

Medium Silver Grey (MSG)

Dark Silver Grey (DSG)

NL Smokey
Smokey’s Twilight

Light Rose Grey (LRG)

Enlightenment’s Rocky Rose

Medium Rose Grey (MRG)

SA Peruvian Greyt Exxpectations

Dark Rose Grey (DRG)

OHVNA The Challenger
Our Peruvian Dark Thunder

I am very excited that we have animals in just about every color class!

Our First Place Winners

2011-09-25T09:36:00.003-04:00

I created a new page (link here, there is also a link on the left side column of this blog) to keep track of all our 1st place ribbon winners. We are so proud of them!!

I added the official show first place ribbon pictures (if we have them). Unfortunately for a couple of shows this year, we never got our picture CD.

2011

Gabriel Star of RobAsia ~ MBS, 5/2011, Davisburg MI (Level II) 1st Place and Color Champion!

Enlightenment's Rocky Rose ~ MBS, 5/2011, Davisburg MI (Level II)

Smokey's Twilight ~ MBS, 5/2011, Davisburg MI (Level II)

Enlightenment's Rocky Rose ~ GMAF, 5/2011, Madion WI (Level IV)

Smokey's Twilight ~ GMAF, 5/2011, Madison WI (Level IV)

OHVNA The Challenger ~ Best of the US, 3/2011, Columbus OH (Level IV)

Smokey's Twilight ~ Best of the US, 3/2011, Colubus OH (Level IV)

2010

Enlightenment's Rocky Rose ~ OABA Alpacafest, 11/2010, Springfield OH (Level IV)

OHVNA Pocahontas ~ Indiana Alpaca Invitational, 4/2010, Ft. Wayne IN (Level IV)

OHVNA Pocahontas ~ Best of The US, 3/2010, Columbus OH (Level IV) 1st Place and Reserve Color Champion!

Kateri's Tehya ~ MOPACA, 3/2010, Spin Off

Sancha's White Lightning ~ 2 oz. Spin-off AOBA National Show, 2/2010, Ft. Wayne IN

2009

Kateri's Tehya ~ MIAF, 9/2009, Flint MI (Level III)

Victoria's Shelby ~ MIAF, 9/2009, Flint MI (Level III)

Alpacas who won a 1st place ribbon before coming to our farm:

2005 MOPACA (Halter) Kateri

2005 MIAF (Halter) Miss Kitty

1999 MBS (Halter) GF Raphaella's Sancha

Show abbreviations and links:
Best of the US(Midwest)
GMAF = Great Midwest Alpaca Festival
MBS = Michigan Breeders Show
MOPACA
MIAF = Michigan International Alpacafest
OABA Alpacafest

Our Girls ~ Peruvian Classic Sale

2011-09-24T21:14:00.000-04:00

If you were wondering why Twilight and Rose were not listed on our show string line-up, this is because they are signed up for an auction on October 15, 2011.

We are very excited to announce that our two Blue Ribbon winning gray girls will be up for auction at the Peruvian Classic Sale!

Enlightenment's Rocky Rose is a rose gray yearling:

Rose's fiber:

Smokey's Twilight is a dark silver gray yearling:

Aren't they cute!!!

Fall Alpaca Show

2011-09-21T20:18:00.002-04:00

I am very excited that the Michigan fall alpaca show, Michigan International Alpacafest (MIAF), will be in Grand Rapids, Michigan ~ less than an hour from my house! We have never had an alpaca show on this side of the state.

We had decided to take our 3 yearling boys: OHVNA The Challenger, OHVNA Chaska, and Gabriel Star of RobAsia. Now we are debating also taking our newest male, JLFA Pot of Gold's Northwestern (AKA "Sig"), and our older boy, ATA Peruvian Harley. Sig has never been to a show, so we only can go on our own evaluation of him. We'd like to hear what a judge has to say. And for Harley, we'd like to see how he is holding up now that he's had another year of growth. We specifically chose Harley to add fiber bundling to our breeding program. While we took him to a few spring shows, he's now a bit older and has been shorn, and we'd like to hear how he places now.

Our three yearling boys (Chaska is the beige one, Challenger the grey one, and Gabe is the true black one):

Sig who we've added to our yearling group:

And Harley, I need to get a recent picture of him. After shearing, he has come back looking very macho. This is a big reason we want to get him to a show this fall, to see how his macho look holds up in the ring.

Alpaca Seminar

2011-09-20T16:08:00.001-04:00

This past weekend we attended an Educational Seminar by Wade Gease at Triple Diamonds Alpacas Ranch. Wade Gease is an AOBA Certified Judge and Judge Trainer. We attended a seminar put on by him a few years back, but we know in those years we've had new experiences and new questions pop up. This gave us a chance to listen, learn, and ask those questions.

The morning was spent looking over an alpaca from head to toe, assessing each part of them from their top know to teeth to fiber, tail and toes. The afternoon was a mock show ring where people took turns practice showing.

Unfortunately by afternoon I had quite a bad migraine, so I did not take advantage of fine tuning my showing skills. J got up there and had a turn at it, but he's done so much showing in the ring he didn't need it as much as I could have. I decided my biggest anxiety about showing is that I get mixed up between left and right, so which hand to hold the leash in and which way to turn the alpaca gets confusing to me. I have been in the ring and had the alpaca turned the wrong way. It all worked out in the end (my animal still got 1st place), but it would have saved me some anxiety not to have that happen.

We have found that in the alpaca industry, there is always something new to learn. This is what keeps J and I so interested in alpacas. New things come up, new experiences present themselves, and there are changes within the alpaca industry. More so than actually learning from the seminar, is getting together with fellow alpaca owners and learning from each other. I love to hear how other farms cria are doing. I love to learn what other farms do with their fiber. If we all learn and grow together, it will make the alpaca industry that much stronger.

The Leader

2011-09-17T12:38:00.003-04:00

When new alpacas arrive at the farm there is always an uproar within the herd dynamics. Alpacas are herd animals, and that herd is very much a family. They each have a role within the herd. We have our herd leader, Victoria; our herd nervous nelly who watches out for everyone, Kateri; our herd look out who sounds the alarm if there is danger around, Miss Kitty.... and the list goes on. There is a hierarchy within the herd and the roles within the herd. For example, Snickers used to sound the alarm, but after Miss Kitty arrived, she took over that job. On our farm Victoria has always been the leader. Our first two alpacas were Victoria and Kateri (along with a gelding, Snowstorm). Victoria and Kateri used to have spit fights that went into neck wrestling fights. I am sure they were sorting out who was leader. After a time, Victoria emerged as the leader and she has been ever since. I've noticed when new alpacas come to the farm, sometimes they think they can take over. Miss Kitty had such an idea. Keep in mind here that Miss Kitty is 250 pounds, and Victoria tops out at 130 pounds, yet when it came down to it, Victoria knocked Miss Kitty down. I used to laugh at Miss Kitty trying to fight Victoria, she had no chance.

This past week when Bay and her two children arrived, I noticed very quickly that Bay is outgoing and very curious about her surroundings. Most of the time when a new alpaca comes to our farm, there is an initial sniffing time where the entire herd comes over and everyone sniffs each other (some of that is to determine if it is a male or female). After that, typically the new alpaca finds an area and does not venture far from there. In contrast, after everyone was done sniffing each other, Bay walked around the entire area, checking out the barn and the far pasture area. I mean she walked the far fence line, and took a good look at everything. I've never seen a new alpaca make herself at home like that. It was like she was checking out the entire place to take over. And as could be expected, it wasn't long and she and Victoria got into a fight.

Typically Victoria squeals and fights and if the alpaca still won't back down, I've seen Victoria pin their neck to the ground (as she did with Miss Kitty). That didn't happen here. Victoria and Bay spit at each other, then a neck wrestle got into full force. After awhile they both stepped back. Zack asked me who won, to which I said I think it was a draw and we won't know for a few days who is the winner and therefore the leader of the herd.

With these type of herd issues, we let the herd sort it out. It's their family, their world, they need to be in charge of how it goes. We do watch and observe, but that might be the social worker in me wanting to figure out how they think and work.

A baby!!

2011-09-16T07:21:00.003-04:00

After our year of so many cria losses, we needed some good news for a change. J has been looking for a way for us to have 3 2011 cria. Three gives us a cria gang to run around our farm, and 3 is the perfect number to fill a pen at a show next spring. We already have Our Peruvian Dark Thunder, but he's lonely and could use a mate or two.

This week we added this little girl:

We actually acquired 3 alpacas. Butterscotch Bay:

Bay came to live with us along with her 2010 cria and her 2011 cria. Bay was already named, but her two offspring were not. We were given the opportunity to name these two. Names are something that is often negotiated at the time of sale (unless the alpaca is already registered, in that case the name is already official). The farm that owns the dam at the time of the breeding actually has final say in the name. The farm we purchased these from asked that we use their farm name and the sire's name, but then we could name the rest. We decided to go with a water theme for Bay's offspring (each of our breeding females has a theme for their offspring). We have always wanted to have a line with The Deadliest Catch names (The Deadliest Catch is a tv show on the Discovery Channel). Long ago we mentioned how there were so many names associated with this show that would make great alpaca names.

The 2011 cria we named Dutch Harbor (her official registered name will be JLFA Frango's Dutch Harbor). On the farm we will call her "Dutch". Those who watch the show will recognize the name as the port in Alaska. Dutch is one of the first cria from her sire, JLFA Casanova's Peruvian Frango, an award winning rose grey male. Dutch is only a couple of weeks old:

Dutch with her mom, Bay:

Bay's 2010 cria is a fawn boy we named The Northwestern (his registered name will be JLFA Pot of Gold's Northwestern). His farm nick name will be "Sig", who is the captain of the Northwestern on The Deadliest Catch. Here is Sig:

Sig does have a patch of fiber that was shaved down on his neck. It was not a medical issue. His former owner let a local vet school practice on Sig. Poor guy was a pin cushion for learning vets to practice drawing blood. Sig is fine and since we need more vets who specialize in alpacas, I can only hope he won their hearts over.

The interesting thing about Sig is that he's Victoria's half-brother's half-brother. I love to play on family trees. While this is true, he and Victoria are not related at all. Victoria has the same mother as SHVN The Buccaneer (he was a male we bred to Kateri to produce Pocahontas), Buc's father is Pot of Gold just like Sig. I do have to say that we LOVE Buc (he is the reason I fell in love with black alpacas). So we were excited at a chance to acquire a boy from Pot of Gold. Within the alpaca community, it's not usual to find common ancestors. It actually can be difficult to find new lines to add to your herd. We are at the point we don't want to see another alpaca join our farm who has Royal Fawn in their background. While Royal Fawn has produced some incredible alpacas, we don't want him in both the male's and female's lineage. Thankfully these new alpacas bring new genetics to our herd.

Never for long

2011-09-15T16:45:00.002-04:00

It wasn't long ago I posted a picture of this yarn that I finished. I even considered putting it for sale at our farm's ETSY store. But, I knew better. It wasn't long and J was knitting:

Herd Health

2011-09-14T20:07:00.003-04:00

This past weekend we spent half a day on Herd Health. We typically set aside a day each month so that we can address any concerns. This month our plan was to weigh all the cria and yearlings, and to give them AD&E shots. We also trimmed up top knots. Then for all our alpacas (there are 19 alpacas on our farm at this point), we checked each animal over for any concerns, and trimmed their toe nails.

The first thing that impressed us is that we have become so efficient at Herd Health. I remember times we had fewer alpacas, but it took us all day to complete these same chores. We are faster at herding and haltering and assessing each animal. We got everything done in less than half a day!

Another thing that I always keep in mind is that it seems no matter how careful we are, at least one of us walks away with an injury. Thankfully it's never been that serious of an injury, but sometimes it's a lingering issue. I was hopeful that this time we could escape without pain, but at some point something happened to my knee that left bruises. I remember at one point feeling a sharp pain and thinking "my knee hurts" but I don't remember what happened. Now I have some bruises on the right side of my right knee. It doesn't hurt to walk or move my knee. But the bruises are sore and tender enough they wake me up at night if I roll over and my knee touches the bed.

Everyone seems to be healthy and doing well. We are most excited that Gabe is not only on the mend, but he has gained weight and he is back to his healthy self!!

This is the yearling boy's shelter:

The boys up close (Chaska is the beige one, Challenger the grey one, and Gabe is the true black one):

Gabe himself:

I can't get over his ears!

New Routine

2011-09-13T19:25:00.001-04:00

Last week marked the beginning of the school year for the kids. While we try to stay on some scheduled over the summer, it's never quite the same as the school routine. And it always seems like the longer summer goes on, the further from "normal" our routine gets. None of us do well with change so the last couple of weeks have been a bit of an adjustment for us.

I've found alpacas are very sensitive to routine. They get stuck in a typical routine so much that they know when I typically feed them grain. I've seen them line up at the gate when it was a usual grain feeding time (like a Saturday morning when it's raining and I have no intention on rushing out there to give them gain, but it's the time I usually go out there, they are ready). While we do stick to a typical routine with the alpacas (they prefer it), we do some adjusting due to the season. In the summer it is so hot during the late afternoon and early evening hours that I don't like to feed them grain then. They would eat it, but I would think it would be better to feed them once it's started to cool down. As the temperatures gets warmer, I move back their grain time. Usually by the hot of summer we are feeding them their last grain meal around 7 p.m. Now that summer is passed and fall is starting, I look ahead to the days when it will be dark at our house by 5 p.m. I won't want to be feeding them so late then! This week I slowly started feeding them earlier, moving to 6 p.m., just an hour earlier than they had been fed over the summer. I will keep moving their grain time up until I get it to about 3:30 / 4 p.m. (which is when the kids and I usually get home each day). In the cold dark winter months I prefer to feed them the moment I get home and then not have to venture outside after that.

Changing routines within the house with the kids and outside with the alpacas has me very tired!

Hay

2011-09-09T19:51:00.001-04:00

Becoming an alpaca farmer has made me learn to appreciate good hay. Alpacas prefer grass hay, the more leafy green hay is their preference. If we give them hay that is yellow and stalky, they will pick through it and throw most of it on the ground, going to waste. Sometimes it can be hard to find good hay (especially during the spring and early summer). The best for alpacas is the second cutting of hay, which isn't usually harvested until August.

This last batch of hay we purchased is the best alpaca hay I have ever seen! J told me when he unloaded it, not only were the bales heavy, but he could stack the hay with a short sleeve shirt on, the hay was so soft it didn't scratch up his arms (usually we put on long sleeve shirts, even in the hot of summer when stacking hay because it tends to scratch you up).

Here are the bales stacked in our hay barn:

Here is it in the alpacas hay bins (inside the bin the new hay, outside on the ground, the old hay):

I have to say, these pictures do not do justice to the real green color of these bales. The best yet - the alpacas aren't wasting any of it!

Starting the Vest Project

2011-09-08T19:20:00.004-04:00

I'm excited to start working on my Vest Project. While I haven't completely decided on a vest pattern yet, I know I will need yarn, so that is where I will start ~ spinning yarn.

This weekend I skirted, tumbled and flicked up some of Greyt's fiber.

Here is the fiber, all ready to spin:

I started spinning it into yarn, but I haven't gotten a picture of that yet.