10 for 2009

In reflecting on this year, I am making a top 10 list of things that are special about 2009.

1. It was our second year as alpaca farmers.

2. I learned how to spin yarn. Hard to believe that happened this year! Feels like it was longer ago than that. I have many blog entries about spinning and knitting. I couldn't pick just one to link to.

3. We took ARF Our Peruvian Tucker to the Indiana Invitational in Ft. Wayne IN. He took 2nd place!! This was a level V show, so a very big show. Typically we would not take an older male to a show (they can be rambunctious and ideally they will prove themselves in a ring at a younger age). But, we got him when he was older, and he had never been shown. We wanted to know where he stood, and were very excited at how he placed. Sorry the picture is small. I tried to link from alpaca nation and it gave me a thumbnail picture.



4. We welcomed Spot, our great Pyrenees to our farm. We love Spot!!!




5. We had 3 cria born (pictures are their newborn pictures, more pictures are available on their web page, click on their name to see):

Snow Lily by Lord Stanley (Lily). Lily is a bright white alpaca, with incredible fiber. She has crimp, bundling and consistency. She is also very soft (fine). We are excited to see how she will do in the show ring this year.


OHVNA Pocahontas (Po) Po appeared to have been born a bit premature. We believe her dam ran out of room and delivered about a week earlier than would have been ideal. However, now you would never know she had an early start. She was plenty big, and has grown well all along. At first we could not tell what color she was. She had dark brown, but we wondered if she might be bay black. After her cria tips were shorn off, we discovered a dark rose grey!! Her fiber has the best bundling and consistent crimp I have ever seen. It is exactly like her sire, The Buccaneer, a several time color champion. She is incredible!



and OHVNA The Cavalier. Cavalier is a neat fading fawn color. He has nice consistent crimp, which I think will get even better as he gets older. His color is the type I love to spin because it makes a neat tweed mix of light and darker fawn. He is definitely soft.



Here are our 2009 cria when they were babies:



6. We started using our farm abbreviation: OHVNA for Oak Haven Alpacas, LLC.

7. Our 2008 Goldsmith girls both got BLUE RIBBONS!! This happened at the Michigan International Alpaca Fest (click on link for my blog entry about it) in September 2009. They have received other awards (click on their name for their web page that lists their ribbons). But the BLUE ribbons are truly the best!

Kateri's Tehya


Victoria's Shelby:


8. This year we were able to use two of our own males for breedings. (I don't know why these pictures are so small except for Smokey, you can click on their name to see their web page and see better pictures):

We bred GF Raphaella's Sancha to Apollo's Griffon


and Hana's Victoria to ARF Our Peruvian Tucker



9. Our other two breedings were outside breedings, Maddie (KSF Midnight Masquerade) to NL Smokey. Smokey is from Ashton Stone Alpacas:


and Kateri to Express's Accoyo Adonis. Adonis is from Autumn Alpacas, LLC.


10. Our farm now has 2 new breeding boys:
Our Peruvian Navigator a dark silver/rose grey male. I still haven't gotten my own pictures of him, but there are several on his web site from the farm we co-own him with. Navigator is a nice "fancy" grey male. We are excited to be able to use him this coming year for breeding.

and SA Peruvian Greyt Exxpectations. He is my dream male! I love his color, his head and top knot style, and his fiber is incredible. I'm excited to be able to spin his fiber after shearing, not to mention choosing who is the lucky girl who I will breed him too.

Happy Holidays!

Wishing every one a blessed time this holiday season!

I deeply apologize that I never got around to sending out holiday cards. I intended too, but it just never happened. I am already planning to be more on top of things next year and get a nice card mailed out to everyone.

We had a great Christmas and are looking forward to the New Year.

2010 Cria Countdown

I added the cria due date ticker to the bottom of the page. Now that we are looking to the New Year, I am thinking about new babies who are waiting to arrive.

We use 350 days as the gestational time for our alpacas. Within the industry there are a number of ways to determine due date. Some farms use 335 days, some use 335 to 350 days, or variations in between. We have found that ours tend to be close to 350 days, and if we use an earlier number, we wait in anticipation worried something is wrong. So, we set the due date at 350 day, but, we start cria watch 1 month prior to that due date.

Sancha is due with I believe her 7th child, due to May 21, 2010 (that is day 350). Sancha delivered Lightning on day 355 and Lily on day 353 so we expect this next one just after 350 days. I predict that she is due for a boy. She has been very consistent in alternating between boys and girls. The big question is will she have a baby of color this year? We are hoping so.

Maddie is the next one due on our farm. Maddie is a maiden, so we have no idea if she will be around 350 days or not. We will keep extra close eye on her because this is her first cria. Maddie was kind of small to begin with, but at last weigh in she hit 130 pounds, so we feel she is big enough to birth and feed a cria. I think she might have a black girl, given color genetics, black is probable, but a girl, that's just a guess :)

Kateria is the next one due. This will be her fourth cria. Her others were born on day 360, 342 and 338 (but that was with Po, who we believe looked a bit premature). Kateria is not due until July, so we have quite a wait yet. Kateria has yet to have a boy, so I think she might be due for one this year.

Victoria is the last one due on our farm. I'm very eager to see what she and Tucker produce! This will be Victoria's 4th child. Her past cria were born on day 355, 347, and 358. We are thinking this one will be a black girl, but who knows. They have a way of surprising us.

Eating time and scary sled

As we have added animals to our herd, we have had to adjust how we feed them. We have some alpaca's who are quite skinny, and we have one that tends to be a pig. We know many large farms just put out grain in bowls and let them have at it. We could do that if we could have a "skinny barn" and a "chubby barn" but we can't do that (don't have the space or the number of animals to do a split). So, instead we separate them at feeding. We use to taylor the grain to each individual alpaca, but decided now that we have this many, we only separate out the really skinny ones, and the ones who are just too much of a pig to be able to handle eating politely with others.

Our piggy alpaca is Victoria. She is at a good weight right now (using body scoring), but she could easily put on weight if allowed access to food. We limit her grain to keep her at the right weight. If any other alpaca needs to go on a diet, we put them to feed with Victoria. Right now we are letting Lily eat with Victoria. Lily does not need to lose weight, but she was eating so much so fast she was getting "choke" (which is when the alpaca literally chokes on their grain).

Here is Victoria and Lily in their secluded pen:



Our skinny girls are Sancha and Kateri. They get extra gain and eat in their area:



If you are wondering about the swingset and slide in the alpaca's pasture, yes, it is what you think it is. We joke that they all play on it at night while we are sleeping.

The rest of the girls and cria eat out of bowls set out in the paddock. And Spot eats in our back yard. He LOVES alpaca grain, so we have to make sure he is separated from them. Here he is all done eating and waiting for me to let him back in with the girls:



When I hurt my hand a few weeks ago, I had to come up with new ways to complete the farm chores. Carrying hay was very difficult and I couldn't use both hands, so I couldn't open gates with hay in my arms. I had this great idea to use the kids' sled, and pull the hay out there.



This worked well for me, but the alpacas were scared of the sled. They would jump away, but then watch the sled with suspicion. As you can see in the picture, they are staring at the sled. This is so typical of alpaca behavior. They tend to be scared of things, but are so curious at the same time.




They do run away, especially when they think I am following them with the sled:



But they do love their hay:

Spot's spot and a ham bone

Our Great Pyrenees came to our farm last spring. He was three years old, and had already worked on an alpaca farm. His name was Spot. We were a bit puzzled at the name, as he appeared all white. They told us he had a spot when he was a puppy.

I actually tried to change his name, but he seemed to only respond to "Spot". I sometimes called him Spot-a-cus thinking I could then switch it to Spartacus (those with small children who watch "Lazy Town" will know this is the name of the athletic hero of the town, I thought fitting for a farm dog). Anyway, mostly we call him "Spot" despite his not having a spot. Visitors often snickered at his name.

Well, as winter hit, Spot's spot appeared again! You can also tell he has badger markers on his ears:



Spot is still just as needy for attention, who could say "no" to this face:



After today's adventures with Spot, I have decided he is much smarter than I previously gave him credit for. He has always been a very sweet, wonderful dog. But I sort of thought of him as a less intelligent big guy. Today he managed to get loose from his eating area. Now, Spot is one who will escape if given the opportunity. He even has crashed down fences when he can in order to roam free. I think he gets bored sometimes. Well, today he got loose because the kids walked out of the fenced in area and gave him the chance to get free. I chased him down the road and across the street to the neighbors. He would see me running and calling to him, and he'd take off in the other direction. GRRR! Well, one neighbor had put a ham bone out by their bird feeder (I guess for the animals to eat). Spot found this and was so excited he allowed me to not only catch up to him, but get the leash around him. I let him take the ham bone with him. I hope the neighbor understands, I was not grabbing it out of his mouth! He's a sweet dog, but this is a ham bone with lots of meat attached.

So I got Spot back home, with his ham bone. It seemed like not that much later (10 or 15 minutes) we find Spot roaming the woods! He got free again. Who could blame him, now he thinks ham bones with lots of ham grows on trees. I was able to lure him into my in-laws house, and then took him home. But, I couldn't put him back into the girls pasture/barn area. He had figured out that he could jump the fence from the pasture to our back yard. We never put barbed wire on this fence as we did the one around the pasture. Then, from the back yard he could jump into the garden, which is not fully fenced in. He was then free to find more ham bones (or so he thought!).

I had to put Spot in with our boys. Now it's not unusual for dogs to be in with boys. We choose to put him in with our girls because they are further back in the woods are there is more likely to be predators back there (loose dogs being the worst offenders). Our boys are less vulnerable. Plus, we have a gelding in with the boys who acts like a watch llama. Our boys don't seem to like Spot. We have new boys too, Navigator and Greyt, who were most suspicious of Spot. I have very little sympathy for Spot not being so welcome by the boys, after all, he's there because he messed up the fence back at his usual home. I only hope he doesn't figure out an escape route. I'm sure the lure of thinking he can find ham bones could make him break down just about anything.

Alpaca Hat Giveaway

Check out Alpaca Farm Girl's blog entry for a hat giveaway. She tells about Red Maple Sportswear Co. that specializes in alpaca products. They have some nice stuff! Being a sock person, those struck me first, but I love that blue sweater with the white snowflake too. It's all nice!

Farm Days and Farm Growth

Days like today remind us that we really are running a farm business. Today J got up at 5 a.m. to drive to Ohio to complete a 3 farm alpaca deal. Thankfully it's not snowing today and it should be decent whether. He does have 4 wheel drive, but ice concerns me, especially with the trailer. He has something like 16 hours of driving ahead of him. We decided that I would not go with him. If I were to go, then we need to decide what to do with the kids. They do not travel well, and 16 hours in the truck isn't fun for anyone, worse with fighting, ornery kids. We could have someone watch the kids, but we like to save those requests for times we absolutely need to. So, I'm home doing the usual weekend stuff, and he'll be gone all day completing this alpaca transport. I do also want to see my grandma today. She is having a gathering for her 90th birthday! May we all live a long and healthy life!!

J's trip all came about after we started thinking about the future of our farm. While our farm is growing nicely, and we are very excited about all the cria that we have had. They are living up to what we want our breeding program to produce. But, we noticed one hole - lack of enough good quality males. This year we bred 4 girls, and will have 4 babies come summer. We used 2 of our males, neither of whom have been used before. It is unknown what cria they will produce. Do we use them again this coming year, before we have a chance to really see how their cria turn out? And by using them, we create a genetic deadlock in that the next generation is all related to each other and we can't breed them with each other. Our other two breedings for this past year were deals we worked out with other farm. Now for this coming year, Tehya and Shelby will be ready to breed. That means we need to figure out 6 breedings, and the next year 8! That's a lot of breedings to work out. We have some breedings worked out with other farms, so this year is actually all set. But, then comes concern on which girl to breed to which boy.

Like, right now we do not really have a male to breed to Sancha. We don't want to risk a BEW, so I would have concerns breeding her to Tucker (BEW = Blue Eyed White, a genetic condition where the animal is white with blue eyes, and often deaf. It is caused by two white spot genes. We know Maddie has a white spot gene. We do not know if Sancha does. I actually do not think she does, but it is impossible to tell because she is white, you would never see the white spot). Plus, I don't see that as a good match (he doesn't have what she needs - when breeding you look at the animals weakness and make sure their mate is strong in that area). She is now bred to Apollo, and I'd want to give that cria a chance to mature before we decide if we will do that breeding again. Lightning is her son. So that knocks out all our males for her. We could send her off to another farm to breed, but one issue with Sancha is that she struggles with being thin, especially after giving birth. We do spend extra time making sure she has extra grain and supplements so that she does not get too thin (she did after Lightning was born because we did not realize her additional needs, after Lily's birth we were on top of it, so we need to make sure to do that again after this next baby). I'm leery to bring her to another farm and ask them to take on the extra work of feeding her (I'm sure all farms we have deals with would be careful with her, but it's an extra thing to ask, and I'd worry about her the entire time she was gone). A drive by breeding would work, but all our deals at this point are out of state, too far to do a drive by.

Another girl that we struggle with is Maddie. She has a white spot, so I would not bred her to Tucker (risking a BEW). Apollo does not have what Maddie needs (she needs density, fiber bundling and staple length, he does not have the bundling that she needs, nor would he add fineness to her). Lighting being white would not be my choice either (risking BEW, plus, I don't want a white animal out of her, for several reasons that I can get into at another time). We would prefer not to send Maddie off to another farm for breeding when she is going to have a brand new baby at her side, being that she's a new mom. Again, I would worry about how her and her baby are doing, being that she is a new mom. I'm sure she'll be a good mom, she has the instinct, but I hate to send a new mom away. We feel better sending away either a maiden who would not have a cria at side, or one of our experienced moms (like Kateri or Victoria, we know how they are and they do just fine). These are some examples of the breeding issues we have come across.

So, we decided what we need is a good male at our farm that we could breed to Sancha and Maddie (and of course our other girls, but they have more options since none of them are at risk of BEW, and we would be fine sending them elsewhere). J managed to work out deals with 2 different farms. We now co-own Tucker, who will be gone for the next year. I will miss him! But, our farm will be busy with different boys, and he'll be back in a year. In return, we now co-own a Dark Silver/Rose Grey Tuxedo Male, Our Peruvian Navigator .


He will have some of the same issues as Tucker (I wouldn't bred him to Sancha or Maddie due to BEW concerns), but he adds other genetics and will work for any of our other girls. I love that he is rose grey! And his face, so cute!

We also will have SA Peruvian Greyt Exxpectations a medium rose grey:



Here is a more recent picture of him:


We can breed him to any one of our girls! We hope he will work out as a good mate for Sancha and Maddie. Sancha has a rose grey daughter, so maybe we can get another one out of her.

I'll get pictures of the animals after they get to our farm. We also have a young boy coming, and a young female. By tomorrow, we will have four new animals at our farm.

TODAY show alpaca clip

Click on the title to this entry for the video player of Vocation Vacation on alpaca ranching from the TODAY show.

I disagree with the anchor in that it really is not hard, at least not the usual day to day stuff. They include clipping top knots and trimming toe nails which is not a daily chores (every month or so at most). The daily work is food and water. Every farm does poop a little different. We typically do scoop poop daily, but that is a choice. Daily work is 10 minutes max in the AM, and I typically work 20 minutes in the PM, but again some of that is by choice, I could do it quick then too.

Anyway, it is neat to have alpacas on TV :)

Green Alpaca,

For a neat report on raising alpacas, click on the title.

They are green, ie good for the environment; which is one reason I got into alpaca farming.

Growing Babies

Here are some recent pictures of our young ones.

Our youngest baby is Cavalier, he was the last one born on our farm this past summer. He has such a very cute face! His fleece is a soft creamy fawn color, with crimp that appears to be consistent. Crimp is what they call the waves in the fiber. Consistent crimp is what is needed to do well in the show ring. It is also important for spinning the fiber into yarn. Inconsistent crimp has a different feel each time the crimp changes, which makes it hard to spin into soft yarn. When the crimp is consistent, the fiber spin smoothly into yarn.




I do need to work on halter training him. As you can see, these pictures were taken through the fence. He's fine looking at me through the fence. He is a kicker and will shoot his back leg out as anyone who gets near him.

The next youngest is Pocahontas. We call her Poe-Poe. She is an incredible dark rose gray. Not only is her color incredible, but her crimp is consistent and full of bundles. This is the fiber we bred for! Standing behind her is her mother, Kateri. Poe-Poe got her father's face and attitude:



Our other 2009 baby, born this past spring, is Lily. Lily is so friendly that I could not get a good picture of her. She kept walking into the camera.

The next youngest is Brooklyn, who is joining the yearling group of alpacas:


And last, I have our yearlings, Tehya and Shelby. These are our two Goldsmith daughters. Tehya is up close, the fawn color. You can see Shelby's head poking out behind Tehya.


Our other yearling is Lightning, who I didn't get a chance to get his picture. All the other ones are our farm are 2+ years old, so no longer growing babies.

Products

Here are some of the products we have been working on.

First I have an oversized hat. In our family there are 2 hat sizes, one for a "regular" person (me and Emma), and one for a person with a very large head (J and Zack - believe it or not, my 7 year old son has a bigger head than I do. In fact, his head was so big he had to have a head scan when he was 18 months old to make sure nothing was wrong. Nothing is wrong, he just has a big head. That's the official medical report on it). So, if you are one of those people who have a bigger than average head, you will LOVE our oversized hat. For once, a hat will fit your head just right.



This particular hat was made out of yarn from Victoria's fiber. She's considered a maroon color, a redish brown. For the stripe, I did a mix of Victoria's yarn and Tehya's yarn. I love the twist combination it makes.

J knit up a regular size hat and it fits me just perfect! This is made out of Lightnings fiber, so it is baby soft:



Last I have a scarf that J knit (football games are great times to knit, in less than 2 games he'll have a scarf all done). It is impossible to get a picture to justify how great this scarf looks. He does a box pattern that is very dressy looking. These pictures are the best I can do, I'm not very good at photography.


Trying to get closer to the box pattern:



We have many other projects in the works. Once we get some supply going, I will post products for sale on our Etsy account (right now it is mostly just raw fiber there, and some yarn - I also plan to get more yarn up there for sale). You can email us any special requests. We do not charge more for requests. It's easy to do, and we prefer to make something knowing the person ordering it is getting exactly what they want.

My blog list

I added some blogs to my blog list. I am always looking for blogs related to farming, alpacas, spinning, knitting, or fiber. I try to link to those that are updated fairly frequently. When we were first looking into getting alpacas, I found so many blogs that were neat, but no recent posts. I had a hard time finding any that were updated. I try to keep a list of maintained blogs going, so others can find them easily. And, I love that it automatically shows me when a new post is up.

If you have a blog or know of one, pass the link to me and I will add it to the list.

Industrious Living Room

The fiber process has sort of taken over our house. We have a skirting table in our basement, and the extra bedroom down there is now called "the fiber room". There we store the fiber, I have a sewing machine and other craft supplies. These are all pretty much out of sight of our day to day. But, our living room has become the center of fiber manufacturing.

My spinning wheel, when not being used, is stored on top of our TV in our living room (to avoid anything destructive happening to it. With 2 house dogs and 2 active kids, you just never know). When I'm home all day and doing some spinning, the wheel is set up by my couch. Also nearby is my flicker, a scale, and baskets of fiber. I put fiber in baskets for each step of the process, from skirting to washing to flicking to ready to spin. These baskets can be found all over the living room also. In this picture alone there is flicked fiber in the grey/metal bin on the floor, and washed but not flicked fiber in the orange bin on the bench, and ready to spin fiber in the pink bin sitting onto of the orange bin.


I also have the swift and ball winder on the portable table near the couch. I put these away in a closet during a busy work week, but on days we are home and working on projects, it's out and ready to use. Note our dog Dottie napping on my blanket on the couch. Animals everywhere around here.

The stand next to my seat on the couch holds my knitting projects (though usually I also have one in a bag in my car for anytime I have a chance to knit a row or two):


And the stand next to J's chair holds his knitting projects, along with some alpaca medical records and a cd for a computer program of alpaca medical records (oh, and one of those coffee cups is mine):

Injured Farmer

Well, it seems I managed to break my right hand. I'm learning all sorts of new coping methods, being I am right handed, very dominant right hand.

I am working on perfecting left hand only typing. Since I can't do much else, internet communication which requires typing is about all I can do (and catch up on some TV shows).

How I broke it remains a mystery. I hurt it some time during the day on Sunday. When I was settling in after dinner on Sunday, my hand hurt, especially my pointer finger. I figured I sprained it or jabbed it while we were doing chores. All day Monday it was sore, but I went to work, was able to type with minimal discomfort. Then came Monday evening. I was doing my regular barn chores, but when I went to scoop up poop, it hurt! the raking motion hurt not only my pointer finger, but into my hand. I wondered if my injury happened by my pointer finger being bent back too far. I insisted on finishing my chores, as I am not one to let an injury be an excuse. But, the pain got worse and worse, I didn't even finish scooping poop. I settled on essential chores only (food and water for the alpacas), and I went inside the house. That is when I took off my gloves (it's been cold enough here to wear gloves), which revealed a very swollen hand.

I can be stubborn, and I was still convinced this was not an issue. The pain was mostly in my pointer finger, so J taped it to the finger next to it. This gave it support, and helped lessen the pain. Though even after taking some ibuprofen, it was a rough night. I woke up around 2:30 a.m. with pain that I could not get under control.

Even in the morning, I pretended it was a normal day. Got the kids ready for school, and did my barn chores (morning chores are minimal anyway). I even went to work with full intentions of going to court (had a hearing I needed to attend). Well, the reaction to my swollen hand from my co-workers indicated this was more serious than I realized.

Diagnosis is that the bone in my hand just below my pointer finger is broken. Still no idea when or how, but doing chores Monday night clearly aggravated the situation.

Now I am home from work (left handed typing is better than sitting around bored, but not ideal for writing reports, and the pain meds make it so I shouldn't drive). I have mixed thoughts on which is worse, the pain when I don't take the pain meds, or the nausea when I do.

So, J and the kids are taking over many of the barn chores. The worst part, to me, is that I can't knit or spin. A few days off work, yet I can't work on any projects.

Cria feeder

This weekend we put in a cria pen or creep feeder (which ever you choose to call it). This is for cria who are starting to wean and need extra food, so we want them to have access to grain and the best hay, but we don't want the older heavier girls getting it (they all always have access to hay, but this way the babies don't have to worry about the older ones pushing them away). So we made a pen that only the little ones can get in.

We had a pen previously, but since we moved the girls to another barn, the feeder was left behind. This weekend when we moved it, we also made it a bit bigger. It's made with all materials we had on hand, so no out of pocket costs. But that is why it a piecework of wood. Here's a picture of it in the middle of building it:


Once finished, we put a bowl of grain and some hay inside:


And we put Cavalier in there, hoping he'd get the idea that he can get grain and hay anytime he wants:





If you are wondering if he likes it, the answer is no. He refused to eat at all while in there, and ran out as soon as we let him past the door. I can only hope he'll go back in another time.

Our bigger problem is that Spot loves alpaca grain and we can't seem to keep him out of there. We had to lock the alpacas in the paddock, and Spot in the pasture, to keep him out.

Fiber projects

Now that the cooler weather has settled into our area, we are doing more inside stuff than outside stuff. Spring and summer is a great time for farm improvements. This past spring we added the girl's pasture back by our house to keep them separate from the boys. As fall set in, J stocked up on hay, that we now store in what used to be the boys' barn. The boys' moved into the main barn where the girls had been. We thought we were well stocked in hay for the winter, but we seem to be going through it faster than we anticipated. Thankfully we have a hay auction nearby, so if we do need more hay at any point, we can go and get some fairly easily.

This year, as the cold weather settles in, we have the opportunity to work on some inside projects. Last year it wasn't until after the new year that I even got my spinning wheel. Without a wheel we had no yarn. Other than practice knitting with store bought yarn, there wasn't much for us to do. I have since learned to spin yarn from raw fiber. What had us puzzled for awhile was that my yarn suddenly got thin and very elegant looking. We especially noticed it when I saw a ball of yarn I spun up for my mom just a couple months ago. It was much more bulky and nobby than a skein I recently spun up. We tried to figure out why some yarn was thin, some thick, some nobby, some not. I thought it might be due to micron count, then thought it might be due to primary vs secondary hairs (another day I will go into what the difference on that is, I'm not even sure at this point I completely understand). What we now figure has been going on is that our flicking method and my spinning skills have improved to the point I now spin fairly thin yarn. I had thought I would spin big bulky very natural looking yarn, so at first this thin elegant stuff sort of threw us.

One project J is doing is taking the coarser fiber, having it spun into a thick nobby yarn, for him to make either slipper soaks, or rugs. He attempted to spin the yarn himself, but quickly decided he didn't like that idea. I have no doubt he could spin quite well, but agreed to spin it up for him. I love spinning, so it took no arm twisting (and I wasn't sure about him using my wheel, I mean, then I can't use it ;) ). Since he wanted thick natural nobby yarn, and I've moved onto thin elegant yarn, it took some adjustment on my part to go back to the thick stuff. He also wanted a tweed combination of white and brown. I am quite impressed with my ability to spin up what he requested. I wasn't sure if I could do it. Up to this point, I let the wheel decide how thick the yarn is. This time I did adjustments and changed my way of doing things so that I could get the desired yarn.

He is also busy knitting up some scarves. Right now he is knitting a neat one out of Tucker's gray fiber. He has a box knit pattern that he designed into a scarf. I'll get picture to put up soon.

I am in the process of knitting a hat out of Victoria's fiber. I completed one already and am about half way through the second one. I am a bit worried I won't have enough yarn to finish. I happened to have a sample of a mix of Victoria's and Tehya's yarn. I decided to use that as a stripe in the hat. I love how this looks! Tehya's fawn color mixed in with Victoria's reddish brown is really neat. I am still keeping my fingers crossed that I have enough yarn to complete this hat. Otherwise I'll have to spin up some more. I usually have a knit project in process, that I take with me to work on during karate practice, and waiting for appointments and such. This stays in my car, so that it is ready whenever I have a spare minute.

I usually also have a project going on at home. My at home projects are the ones that aren't very portable. I would like to spin up some black yarn. I have Maddie's fiber washed and I am about half way through flicking it. It's been a pain to work with because this particular batch has a lot of second cuts. Second cuts are when the fiber is shorn, but it is done so twice, making the cuts short. I am struggling to flick this particular batch because of this. I hope this weekend to complete the flicking so that I can spin up the yarn.

November

November is a special month in the history of our farm. In November of 2007, the first alpacas arrived at our farm. We purchased Victoria and Kateri from South Haven Alpacas. The girls, along with the gelding Snowstorm, were brought to our farm the week of Thanksgiving in 2007.

We are now entering our 3rd year of alpaca farming.

Growing Cria

This weekend we did our monthly herd health day. We weigh the younger alpacas (typically we do not weigh the older pregnant girls or the older boys, we use body score to make sure they are doing ok). The young ones we like to weigh to make sure they are growing as they should.

For this years cria was have these weights:

Lily, at 5.5 months old = 73 pounds
Pocahontas, at 4 months = 53 pounds
Cavalier, at 3.25 months = 37 pounds

They are all growing well. We've notice Lily now hangs out with the yearling girls, whereas Po and Cavalier tend to run and romp around together.

Cavalier has been the first of this years cria to eat grain. We have tried to convince Lily to eat some grain, but she will not have anything to do with it. I do not know why, but she will see a bowl of grain and will lay down and roll right by it, knocking over the bowl. She does this every time, so it was more than a coincidence. I do not know why she thinks she needs to roll and knock the bowl over. Po has shown no interest in grain either (at least she doesn't knock the bowl over). I had not yet tried to Cavalier when one day I saw him standing next to Sancha when she ate. Sancha is older and is a messy eater, so she drops quite a bit out of her mouth when she eats. Cavalier figured this out and was snatching up everything she dropped. Smart boy! We joke this is because his mom is Victoria, who is well known on our farm for being a pig. She will do anything to get to grain, and has been observed ignoring her baby in order to eat hay. Once I realized Cavalier was interested in grain, I started giving him is own bowl. The first couple times he ignored the bowl, but tonight he started eating and ate every drop. I hope the other two cria will copy his behavior and start eating grain too. Especially Lily, who is getting quite big. I worry how much of a strain her nursing may put on her mom.

Cold and Wet Fall

Fall on our farm has been fairly uneventful, which is why I haven't updated much on my blog lately.

The weather has been cold and wet. After a cool and dry summer, the rain was at first a welcome sight. But we got so much rain, that even our sandy soil started to have standing water. I think we've made up for the rain we didn't get all summer. This past weekend the wind blew so much that almost all the leaves are off the trees. I expect it won't be long until we see some of that white stuff. I decided that rain isn't so bad, provider the farmer has proper rain gear. After years of camping, I've found what clothes repels water. I bundle up in my water proof gear, and head out to the barn with food. The alpacas even let me stand in the barn out of the blowing rain while they eat.

Looking ahead to the winter weather that is sure to come, I've decided that spring is my favorite time on the farm. I love the new cria arriving, and the plants coming to life. I enjoy the sunny warmer days. And I like seeing the very wooly alpacas. Winter would be my least favorite. I don't like to be cold, for one thing. I do bundle up, and have found the secret to layers to provide ample warmth. The issue for me is pushing the wheel barrow through the snow. A couple inches isn't a big deal, but when we get a big snow fall, I often have to shovel a path, and then struggle to push the wheel barrow through the path I carved out of the snow. I'm dreading that already. And I've heard it is supposed to be a rough winter.

One plus to the cool summer and cold fall and likely rough winter is that the alpaca should have very long staple length on this springs shearing. I am looking forward to a great new crop of fiber to spin up :)

Cold, Dark mornings

I for one am eager for the time change. Like many alpaca farmers, I have a regular daytime job. I get up, get the kids off to school, and feed the alpacas, so I can get off to work. Well, that's around 7:30 a.m. and it's still dark here. It's been cold too! We are having an usually cold fall. So I bundle up, which is ok, I stay plenty warm in my layers. And the layers keep the hay off my work clothes. We do have lights in the barn, but I feed them their grain out in the paddock. I put down bowls and hope the right animal gets by the right bowl. We have a couple skinny girls who need extra grain. I don't want the good weight girls to get that extra grain. I've discovered it's also hard to see how full the water buckets are. Thankfully we have a pretty good routine with feeding their grain, so for the most part, the right alpaca comes to the right spot. But still, I'd prefer a bit more daylight when doing these chores. Something about going out in the dark and cold isn't so appealing.

Show pictures

Here are some pictures from the Michigan fall show. I am very guilty of not taking many pictures at shows. I don't know why I don't take more pictures. I never seem to come home with very many.

This shows our alpaca's pen. Tehya and Lightning are enjoying some hay:



This shows our farm sign:



This is our stall head on, displaying our two 1st place ribbons, and some hand knit products:



This is the show ring, J is in there with Tehya:



On the side the owners and alpacas line up prior to coming into the ring:

Shows are so much more than ribbons

I know I am guilty of coming home from a show and focusing on the ribbons we've won. While the ribbons are important, there is so much more to going to a show than the ribbons you take home. Sure they are great bragging rights and do help document the quality of your alpacas, but there is an incredible amount of information and networking that goes on at shows.

One thing we enjoy about going to shows is running into people we've met before. This business connects you with farms in other states that you don't often get to see. So one neat thing about going to a shows is seeing what other farms are there and catching up with people you haven't seen since the last show. At the Michigan fall show we had the chance to not only catch up with people, but an animal who used to live on our farm - Max! Maxito is now owned by Picaso Alpacas and they had him at this show. ( http://alpacanation.com/herdsires/03_viewherdsire.asp?name=31376 ) It was so neat to see him. He has grown so much I would not have recognized him, but since I knew it was him, I could see the resemblance in his face. He won a 1st place ribbon in the shorn white class! How awesome for Max. We stopped by his pen to see him and he appeared to remember J, snuggling into him like he used to when he lived on our farm. I'm glad to see Max doing so well and enjoyed by his current owners.

What I have always enjoyed about the fall Michigan show is that they do a advertising on the radio and this year even on TV. What this does is draw in the public so there is a lot of foot traffic. It is fun to see people excited about seeing alpacas (maybe even for the first time ever). It's fun to explain to them the benefits of having alpacas and how the lifestyle works.

A neat thing about going to shows is meeting new people. Our stall was around farms that we have not had the chance to meet before. It is always good to connect to different farms. It's amazing what you can learn from other alpaca farmers in just 2.5 days. Every time we go to a show we are surprised how much information we come home knowing that we had not realized before. We do a fair amount of reading on alpacas, looking at different websites, and of course there is the hands on learning of the day to day care, but the amount we've learned at shows is by far more informative than any other source.

Another thing we've done at shows is to ask quite a few people to take a look at our animals to give honest feedback on them. This helps us evaluate if our males are worth considering for herdsire quality. It also helps us know what to do with breeding choices for our females. For example, if a female is great but lacks density, you need to bred her to a very dense male. It never hurts to get another opinion on your animal. We make sure they understand we want the honest truth. There a time for telling me my cria is cute, and there is a time to be honest about what shortcomings it may have. There is no perfect alpaca, we are all forever striving for that. Every alpaca could use something to improve upon. We want to make sure we identify what that is.

We also make a point of looking at the other animals in the same class as our animals. It is especially important to see the one who placed 1st, when yours took a lower ranking. For example, Tehya did not win the color championship, so we went to look at the one who did. This helps us identify a great alpaca when we see one, to know what to look for. Most of the time when we really look at the other animal, we can see why they placed higher. It helps us know what our animal lacks, so we can make good breeding choices for her. It also helps us know how to do a good evaluation of our animals back at the farm.

When farmers spend too much time on their own farm and not at shows or visiting other farms you can get what they call "barn blind." This is when you think your alpacas are awesome. You look at them and marvel, but you have nothing to compare them too. Of course your cria are better than their mom (they should be if you have a good breeding program). But, are they show quality? And if they are show quality, how good are they? You can get to thinking yours are so incredible, when maybe they aren't. We had this happen when we took Maddie to shows. When we bought her and even had a couple other people look at her, everyone said how great she is "for a black". We thought she could do very well in the show ring. Not so. It turns out black alpacas have had such incredible improvements in a short time frame that Maddie did not compete. A few years ago she likely would have done well, but the industry is progressive and improvements are continually happening. I remember at one show we had her at, people in the audience were saying that black is getting too competitive, as much as white. This may be, but that is also why black alpaca fiber has had such incredible improvements. That is the way the industry is going. If you don't keep up, your alpacas will be left behind. By going to shows and seeing how she did, we were able to acknowledge her weaknesses. This is essential to make a good breeding choice for her.

I'm a big advocate of going to shows. We've done what we can to fit a few into our budget. I know in the current economy that many farms are cutting back on showing. This is understandable. However, there are ways to learn from shows while not spending as much. We cut back by only going to 1 fall show and only getting 1 stall at that show. We could have cut back even more by not showing our own animals, just attending the show. You can learn that way. Especially if you spend time going around and looking at the top placing animals. You could catch up with farms and meet new farms. Though, I don't think you would come home with as much information. So much happens between the stalls and outside the ring. But if there is no way you can afford to show, it is definitely better to attend than just stay home.

Two Blue Ribbons!

Our girls have done well in the show ring, but we kept missing 1st place (Shelby got a 2nd before and Tehya has two 2nd place awards). This weekend that all changed. Shelby was the first of our animals to show. They started with full fleece animals, and they start with the darker colors and move to the lighter ones.

I was nervous when Shelby got into the ring, but even from my seat in the bleachers, I could see her fiber shining in the light. It was more shiny than any other animal there! It glistened. Shelby got 1st place of the five in her class. There wasn't a color champion because there were not enough animals in classes of her color to hold one. We were disappointed about that, especially since we heard they were only 1 animal short of holding a color champion.

The judge said that Shelby had density and fineness She has brightness and consistent crimp. He said her conformation was tight and proportionate. The only negative he noted was that her bite isn't 100% right on. But for her to place in first, her bite isn't bad and her fleece has to be good to overcome even a slight bite issue.

Here is Shelby on her big day:



Tehya hit the show ring next among the animals that we took with us. Tehya also got first place!!! Two first place ribbons in one day! My pen stopped working so I couldn't write down all the judge said, but his main reason for putting Tehya 1st is because she was the finest of group. She also has density and incredible crimp. There were six in her class.

Tehya on her big day:



Lightning Bugs was our last to show. He also hit the show ring on the first day of the show. Lightning has the disadvantage of being in the white class. As I've mentioned before, white class is the most difficult. Back in Peru, white fiber animals were the ones they did the most to improve the fiber because that is what the European textiles wanted. While other colors are now catching up to white, white still has a longer standing advantage. Plus, there are quite a few breeders who breed for white, making more in the white classes than other colors. To put it into perspective, there were 5 in Shelby's class, 6 in Tehya's class, and 10 in Lightning's class. It's even harder to do well with more in the class.

Lightning got 4th place, a very respectable place for a white. Given that four in the class got the gate (no ribbon at all), we are thankful Lightning has the quality to keep him placing in shows. The judge said that Lightning was the finest in his class, but said that he is not as dense and lacked good coverage over his front legs. I'm not sure we completely agree with that assessment. We think Lightning is dense, he's just so fine that you can't feel the density. As for the front leg coverage, we asked others what they thought of that and they did not feel that should be an issue. He does have coverage over his legs, it's just not as long and thick as what Tehya and Shelby have. But I will keep that in mind when breeding him, to make sure we breed him to girls with incredible leg coverage.

Fall Show

This fall we are attending the Michigan International Alpaca Fest. For this show we are taking last years cria: Lightning, Shelby and Tehya.

We've heard many farms are cutting back a lot on shows because of the economy. Some farms have stopped showing all together. Last year we did 2 fall shows, this year we are only doing this one. We have cut back, but still feel it necessary to get our animals out there. This way people can not only see the animals at the show, but the animals can gain ribbons and recognition.

The fall Michigan show is going to be at a new venue. Last year it was at Birch Run, this year it is at the Perani Arena Event Center in Flint, Michigan. It is this weekend, September 26 and 27. We are excited to see the new venue. We hope another change for this year will be that our animals will show in full fleece rather than shorn. Last year they showed in the shorn class because their fiber was not long enough. Each spring we shear the alpacas. To me the fiber is the end product and is what we are trying to improve. It is the essential part to evaluate an animal on. However, when their fiber is short, it is very hard for judges to evaluate it. So, if the fiber is less than 2 inches long, the alpacas go into a shorn class, meaning they are only evaluate on conformation not fiber. Conformation is things like having straight legs, a straight back, good teeth. This is important of course, but to me the fiber is essential. In shorn you have no evaluation of the fiber. We have been measuring our animals periodically hoping they will make the full fleece cut off and not have to show in shorn. Tehya and Shelby are true fiber machines and appear to have plenty of fiber to show in full fleece. Lightning's fiber is so crimpy that it appears shorter than it is. We feel he meets the 2 inches cut off, but in the end the color check people make that determination.

Fiber Festival

I had a booth at my first fiber festival this past weekend. On Friday and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. I had at table set up by The Old Farm Girl just north of White Cloud.

The down side would be that I did not plan well for the weather. It's been a cool summer, so the fact the weather man predicted a warm sunny day seemed like a good thing to me. I don't have a tent/canopy so rain would have been impossible for me. But, sun is bright and it was hot sitting there, quite hot. I even got a sun burn, which I am so careful not to have happen. The second day I dressed much lighter and thankfully many people from the spinning guild came and they had a canopy to put up. I also had a cooler of drinks, not just 2 with me.

I learned some tips on setting up my display table too. I had raw fleece weighed out in 4 ounce amounts in zip lock bags. I had read about the idea on Alpaca Nation. Well, this works fine in my basment, but in the blazing sun those bags started to steam up. Not good. I had some baskets with me for display purposes, and thankfully had enough baskets for each color of raw fiber I had with me. So I displayed the fiber in the basket and kept the zip lock bags in my car out of the sun. This worked great and actually was easier to display. Then when people bought fleece, I'd grab a bag out of the car for them, and left the displayed fleece in the little basket.

The big seller was Tehya's fiber. The first thing to sell was the home spun ball of Tehya's fiber. It truly is my favorite yarn. A couple people bought Tehya's raw fiber (1.5 pounds of it!). I loved spinning it, and I hope they do too. I also sold 4 ounces of Lightning's fiber. His is so soft, it is extremely nice (though he does tend to have more vegteable matter than Tehya, so more work to get ready to spin).

It was a fun weekend of spinning and gabbing with fellow spinners.