Twilight

Twilight is so cute!!!!



2010 was the year of the boy on our farm. We had four cria to be born, and three of the four were boys. This was the first year we had more boys than girls. Every other year we had 2 girls and 1 boy. While Twilight was the only female 2010 cria born on our farm this year, we acquired two other 2010 females (Rocky Rose and Ginger). Twilight is still special, and acts like the ruling princess. She's cute and she knows it.

Twilight's mom is our own Maddie (Midnight Masquerade) and her sire is Smokey, a male we co-own with Ashton Stones Alpacas.

Here are pictures from last week of Zack and I halter training her:

Weather Update

While the weathermen had been saying we'd get more accumulation of snow overnight, we didn't hardly get any more. It must have gone north and south of us (based on the school closing information). My kids did get the day off school today, but that was for icy roads. With so much of the school district being rural, icy roads become a big issue quick. The other weather concern today is the temperature.



That's 15*F outside, with 82% humidity. In our house it was only 63* when that picture was taken, but we have a nice toasty fire going in the fire place and the temp is rising fast. When we are home all day I turn off the furnace and heat with the fire place only. It saves us a ton in propane, and I love a nice toasty fire.

While 15* F is cold, it's the wind chill on top of that which is the real concern. They are saying the wind chill is putting the temp below 0* F. To me the worst part of it is thinking about going outside. Actually being out there isn't near as bad as thinking about being out there. So, I braved the cold and ventured outside to give the girls their morning feeding. Emma also braved the cold and walked up to the boys barn. I find as long as I have on good layers and am bundled well I don't get cold out there. In fact, I stay toasty warm. The biggest problem is when I do too much outside and work up a sweat, once that happens, the cold sets in. The trick is to peal off layers to avoid sweating, that is the biggest downfall to staying warm out there.

We are a small enough alpaca farm that we feed each alpaca their own specific bowl of grain. We have some who get more grain because they are thin, other alpacas who get less because they are heavy. Grain amounts also has to do with age, and stage of pregnancy and so forth. I am jealous of the big farms that can have a skinny area and a heavy area. They don't have to worry about being specific for each alpaca, but just put more out in the skinny pen. One way to do that would be to put out hay with more alfalfa for the skinny ones. We don't have a skinny and a heavy pen, instead I separate them out when I feed them grain. It is more work. But, I also put each bowl down for each alpaca and can do a quick assessment of them. On a cold morning like this, I make special note to assess if any of the alpacas are shivering or acting different. Alpacas are very stoic and do not show illness or injury unless it is really bad, so you have to take note of their typical behaviors and be concerned about anything different from their typical.

After doing a quick assessment of each animal when I gave them their grain bowl, I then did another more in depth assessment of the higher risk animals: the youngest, the oldest and the skinniest. Ginger, being our youngest was given special note. Thankfully she was not shivering, and is as cute as ever:



Our eldest, Sancha, looks the same as ever:



And our two skinniest girls, Snickers and Latte, both look great:



No one was shivering, no one was acting any different than usual. Seems they are not affected by this cold snap. They did really dive into the fresh hay that I put out for them:



Even Ginger likes to dig in:





The young girls have a big hay bin to themselves. Though sometimes Spot likes to nap in there, these girls to like to spend time in their shelter:



For some reason the dams and cria do not spend much time in their shelter. I found only Tehya eating hay there:



I am home today with the kids off school and the fact my work laptop is being fixed. I have plans to spin up some yarn and have a fun fiber afternoon.

Winter Storm

The weathermen had been predicting a winter storm for our area. It was to start on Saturday afternoon and span into Monday morning. The start of the storm was rain, then freezing rain and snow mix, then snow. The nasty kind of storm that not only has snow accumulating, but frozen rain layers in there to make everything very slippery. While I'm leary to believe weatherman, I didn't want to dismiss this one too quickly. Better to be prepared than not. In preparation for the storm, on Saturday morning I cleaned all the pastures. I made sure all the poop was cleared up because I know it's a pain to clean it once there is snow on the ground (not to mention the fact it often freezes to the ground). I also cleaned up the barns, so that if the alpacas choose to be in there during the storm it is nice and clean and cozy.

Since we live in the country, in the woods, any storm brings with it the potential for us to lose electricity. I know from experience, it's much better to be without electricity when you have a clean house. It seems every time we lose electricity, it's when I skipped doing the dishes after the last meal and we are dealing with that mess on top of no electricity. When I am prepared with a clean house and stocked pantry, then we don't lose electricity.

By Saturday evening I was beat! I cleaned pastures and barns and the house. But I was ready for this storm.

Here is what it looked like outside my back door on Saturday evening, as the storm began:



I wasn't sure what to expect when I woke up Sunday morning. I was relieved to see we had electricity (cleaning the house did pay off). When I looked outside, it didn't look like we got that much snow. Upon further glance, I could see that we did get quite a bit of snow, it was just so heavy and wet that it wasn't deep. It's the kind of snow you think you could shovel up real quick and instead end up with a heart attack. Thick, heavy, wet snow. It was hovering around 34* at that point, early Sunday morning. The snow fell on and off all day, and the temperature dropped. By around noon it was 29* and now at dinner time it's 21*. The weatherman are saying the temp will drop all night and the wind chill will end up below 0*.

Here is what it looks like out our back door this evening, Sunday evening:



Like I said, it doesn't look like we got that much snow. But it is a thick wet heavy mess. And with the temps falling as they have, everything is icing over. I had a hard time opening the hay tent, it felt like the zipper doorway was frozen shut.

Here is the dam & cria pasture area:



Due to the snow and ice, I traded using the hay wagon for a sled instead. It slides much better out there:



Alpacas do fine in the cold winter weather. We have some who even sleep in the snow, choosing that over being in the barn. Their fiber (fur) keeps them quite warm. They also generate heat when digesting. For this reason they do eat more hay in the colder months. I find as fall changes to winter we go through close to twice as much hay as we do during the summer months. On a night like tonight when they are predicting below 0* temps, we'll put out additional hay just before bedtime. I find if I put extra out at their regular feed time, they tend to dump a lot of it out of the bins onto the ground. If I wait and put extra out later, they waste less of it.

Here is Tehya, Challenger and Twilight, eating up hay, keeping plenty warm outside:



The little girls, Pocahontas, Rosco and Rose munch on hay while they are inside their shelter:



Not only is the temperature supposed to drop throughout the night, but we are also supposed to get more snow. We'll see tomorrow morning how much it amounts to.

Old Fashioned

I tend to be a bit old fashioned. I haven't been one to jump on every new technology. I had a cell phone a few years back, but never used it so I got rid of it. Only recently have I gotten one again, and this was for emergencies only (I drive a lot for work, it became a safety issue). I hear about phones that do all sorts of things, and I wonder why someone would need that. Well, here are some apps that I would enjoy (if you click on the link to that post, there are pictures and more information there):

There’s an app for that!
December 7, 2010 at 5:00 am by Aaron

Have you ever wanted to check the size of a mystery set of needles, but left your needle gauge at home? There’s an app for that.

Out shopping for a project and can’t remember what yarns or needles you already own? There’s an app for that.

Spinning some gorgeous yarn and want to check your twists or wraps per inch? Yup, you guessed it, there’s an app for that too.

I finally gave in and got an iPhone a couple of weeks ago, and one of the first things I did was search the knitting and spinning related apps available on iTunes and download a few to check them out.

There’s a variety of apps that keep track of your needles, crochet hooks, yarn, books, and projects. There are stitch dictionaries with swatch images, calculators to help you figure out how much yarn to buy for a specific type of project, row counters, and even tutorials for knitting and crochet.

iKnit Needle Sizer

Vogue Knitting App

Spinners get to join in on the app fun too with an app that measures twist angle, twists and wraps per inch.

iSpin Tool Kit

It also has calculators to estimate grist, how much twist you need for a balanced yarn, and more.

Mobile phones have consolidated a number of gadgets over the years. Our phones are also music players, cameras, GPS navigators, and web browsers. Having all of these rolled into one handy little piece of electronics means carrying less devices around to do all those things.

For the fiber artist on the go, mobile phone apps can consolidate a number of tools, lists, and other things that take up valuable space and weigh down our project bags.

Some of the apps are free and some are as cheap as 99 cents. Most of them have customer ratings and feedback which can be a great help in deciding whether or not to buy it.

Yes, most apps are only for the iPhone. But iPhone alternatives like the Droid are gaining popularity, and there’s a few available for that too. I’m sure more will be on the way.

I still haven’t seen a Ravelry app though. Maybe that will come soon too.

Happy Holidays!

Trails

While the weatherman keeps saying it's going to snow more, we don't have much more than a dusting in our location. It has snowed a few times, but so far hasn't amounted to much accumulation. I do find it funny that once the snow falls we can see trails, the paths Spot walks to monitor his pastures:



As the winter goes on and the snow gets deeper, his trails get more pronounced. I like to see that he goes to every corner of the pasture, even the corners that the alpacas don't go to, Spot makes sure he makes his rounds. He's a great guardian dog.

Pictures of my buddy, Spot:




And my favorite picture, since this is what he does when I go out there, puts his face right up to mine:

Haltering Day 2: the boys

This afternoon we set out to halter train the boys up in the little boys barn. Both Chaska and Copper are up there and need to be trained. Chaska gave Zack a bit of a hassle in that he didn't want Zack to get too close to him:




But Chaska would walk in a circle, one of the first things we try to get them to do (the very first step is just getting the halter on them, next comes taking a step that often is done by turning them in a circle):



Zack even got Chaska to walk all the way across the pasture on the led:



Copper is not doing as well on the halter. I don't think we've had him on the halter as much as we have Chaska. Though it does seem some alpacas catch on quicker than others. Copper is one who likes to pull on led:



But he would pose with Zack:

Haltering Update

After the weekends first haltering of Ginger, I decided I needed to make an effort to halter train our 2010 cria. Rose has already been to a show and halters fine. That leaves Copper, Chaska, Challenge, Twilight and Ginger who need to be halter trained. Copper and Chaska are at our boys barn and the other three are in our dam/cria area. I decided that it would work to alternate days, training one area each night (the boys one night, the young ones by their moms the next night). That way it doesn't take too much time each day (I would only be training 2 or 3 alpacas each night), and they aren't overly stressed by a daily lesson.

Zack offered to help with haltering training, so we decided to start this week after school. As it turned out, Monday after school I was busy wrapping Christmas presents (I'm excited to say I have all my Christmas shopping done!). Tuesday evening I did not get home until almost 8 p.m. I had to be in court across the state at 4 p.m. By the time I finished my work there and drove home, it was late (and dark). Now today is Wednesday and this is the first day we've had a chance to work on halter training. We decided to start in the dam/cria area, haltering Ginger, Challenge and Twilight.

I didn't have the camera out when we had Ginger haltered. It was much like the picture in my last post, though. She's so new to all this, that just having the halter on her is a new experience. She took a few steps.

Zack had Twilight walking all over the pasture, though he complained she didn't walk in a straight line, she is doing quite well.



Zack even managed to get a couple pictures of me! (that is some thing I don't often let happen, I've never been a fan of having my picture taken). The temperature outside today is 24* so I am bundled in my warm gear. I do not like being cold.

First, me leading Twilight with Spot trying to help:



And me with Challenger:



Challenger, like his brother Cavalier, is a bit of pistol and likes to lay down rather than walk on the led:



It's going to take some time to get these cria fully trained.

Zack always insists on having his picture taken face to face with the alpaca. I have to say, the alpacas do not like this, but since Zack is my helper, I indulge him. He does look cute next to them:

First Haltering

This weekend, during our herd health assessment, we haltered Ginger for the first time. She did great, for a first time anyway. She didn't so much walk, but also didn't lay down or pull back like many of them do. We were able to get her to walk from the pen to the "vet room" on our patio.





We haltered all the 2010 cria in order to walk them over to the scale on herd health day. This reminded me that they are not yet halter trained. I am going to make a point to spend time with them in halter training. Zack told me he would help. Most years I end up waiting until Spring Show season before I get them trained. But, it would be so nice to have that done and out of the way now. It would make herd health days easier, if they wall would walk on lead to the scale. This is my goal, to work on haltering this month. I know I said this a few months ago, but this time, I really am going to work on it. Stay tuned for further halter training updates.

Fiber Progress

Last week I posted the beginning stages of making fiber into yarn: skirting, weighing, flicking and spinning. This past weekend I did the next stages: plying, making a skein, washing and drying.

Plying:



It's always a wonder, when plying, how the two strands will meet up at the end. Will they match up perfect, or will there be some left of one strand, and if so, how much? I actually like a little left over. Then I use it to tie off the skeins, and any extra from there is used for needle work on top of a knit project (like I did on that hat I posted last week), or seam sewing. So while I do weigh it out to be an even match, I am actually hoping for a bit more of one strand than the other.

Here it is mid-ply, it does seem like one strand has more than the other:



In the end, there wasn't that much more of the one strand, a perfect amount to have enough to tie up the skein and a little for seam sewing later on:



The yarn looks very nice!



I put it into a skein, using my swift. Then I washed it in the sink (15 minute soak in warm water with dawn dish soap, then twice in a sink full of plain very warm water). I hung it to dry in the living room. Who wouldn't want a fresh skein of home spun alpaca as their stocking:



That fiber came off of Cafe, a girl we owned up until this past summer. She is now owned by Ashton Stone Alpacas.

That wasn't the end of my fiber weekend work. I got all this done by Saturday evening. Sunday I began a new batch. I weighed and tumbled and flicked up a batch of Tehya's fiber. I didn't photograph this one, since it's much the same as what I showed with Cafe's fiber this past week.

Chaska's big day

On Saturday, during our herd health activities, we decided to wean Chaska, and move him up to the little boy's barn. This meant he had to walk that .16 mile from his current home, to a new place. He not only left his mother, Kateri, but Chaska has been a milk snatcher, stealing milk from Sancha. We've nick named Sancha the surrogate mom.

Chaska weighed in at just under 80 pounds (78.8 pounds), well above the 60 pounds recommended for weaning. He also has been eating grain for quite some time. While he's not quite 5 months old, he is big enough, healthy enough, and perfectly capable of managing on his own, without mother's milk.

I always feel bad for the new weanlings. It must be very scary to leave your mom, the herd you know, the only home you know, and be moved to a new place. I think they look like a deer in headlights when they first get up to the boy's barn. The older boys come to the fence to check out this new alpaca, they are hoping, of course, that it is a girl we have brought them.



Everyone sniffs each other, and sometimes there is fighting to see who is in charge.



Chaska did go up to the little boys barn, where Copper is at, so at least he has one familiar face there. (Copper was Sancha's 2010 cria, born just a couple months before Chaska, they used to run around together before Copper was weaned). I do wonder how well alpacas remember and know each other. I see herd social dynamics everyday (the way the ladies relate to each other is very interesting). I know they each have personalities, and I would think they all know who each other is. But, every time we move a boy into the pen with our gelding Snowstorm, they seem to think he might be Sancha. Both Copper and now Chaska follow Snowstorm around and try to nurse off him. Poor Snowstorm is very tolerant of them, but also lets them know he is not a mom.

Herd Health Day

We aim to set aside a day each month for herd health care. It's a time we can assess the alpacas to make sure nothing is wrong with them. We assess their weight, either by weighing them on the scale or by body scoring them (by feeling a spot along their back spine, we can feel if they are heavy, thin, or just right with their weight). On herd health day we also give any necessary injections, trim toe nails, and make sure they have no issues going on (we look them all over to assess for any injuries or signs of illness). That way we stay on top of the alpaca's care, and it makes for easy work if we do this monthly. Unfortunately, too often we wait longer than a month. Too often 6 weeks, or even 2 months pass before we have a chance to get back to it. This month we were on top of it and did herd health on our goal weekend, the first weekend of the month. This made for an easy day, since we had just done it one month ago. In November we did AD&E injections, so we did not have those to do today. We also weighed all the young ones, and trimmed toe nails. Last month was when Lucy decided she did not want me to hold her and threw me, injuring my ankle. It's still stiff, though I have been able to get back to running, finally.

This month we did not have any injections to give. We did weigh all the 2010 cria, to make sure they are growing well. We body scored every alpaca on our farm to make sure they are a good weight (not too heavy or too thin). While there was some variation, some alpacas always seem a bit thinner and others a bit heavier, none of them were at a concerning weight. We looked at all their nails, and only a few needed trimming. I've heard other alpaca farmers mention that the ones with black toe nails seem to grow slower than the white toe nails. We find that to be true, the white nailed ones need trimming more often.

We assessed our 2010 cria to decide who might need to be weaned. We've read many different theories on weaning, and I still have a terrible time deciding what is best. It seems every time we end up doing a case by case assessment and deciding from there. I know some farms used 6/60 - once an alpaca is 6 months old and 60 pounds, they wean them. I've also heard using either or, meaning either 6 months old or 60 pounds, which ever comes first, or when ever they hit both, they wean them. Some farms just use one criteria as a wearning point, they wean all of them at 6 months, for example. My dilemma is that I think nature is best, and ideally would like mom and baby (dam and cria) to self wean. But then we have huge cria still nursing, with too many calories going into the cria, blowing out their fiber. Or we have dams that nurse to their own detriment and get so thin their own health is in danger. This decision is never as easy as I wish it were.

Today we decided to wean Chaska. He'll be 5 months old this week, which is a bit on the young side, but he's 78.8 pounds! That's way above the goal of 60 pounds. He also is eating grain very well. Here is Chaska and his buddy Challenger eating this morning:



After the morning grain, I set up for herd health day. We use our patio as our vet room. I put the scale out, using patio furniture to create an alley for the alpaca to walk:



While the snow makes it seem like it's cold out there, it wasn't. I've found it's all in the layers of clothing that work to keep me toasty warm. In fact, today I got a little too warm, all bundled up, that I had to take off my winter coat. I was out there in a sweat shirt, along with my winter gear.

We got all the 2010 cria on the scale for an accurate weight, and body scored all the other alpacas, that along with some toe nail trimming was all completed in a short time this morning. It was the fastest and easiest herd health day we've had yet.

Alpaca Hat

I've made a similar hat for a baby before. This time I had to tweak the pattern in order to make it teenage kid size. I think it turned out really well, and was surprised to find that Emma really liked it. Emma knows it's not for her, we have special plans for this hat.