My husband, John, and I became official alpaca farmers (Virginia alpaca farmers, specifically) on Saturday, October 2. I should have started this blog our first week, but hey, better late than never, right? I've been here full time since then and my husband comes up on weekends. I can't promise daily postings but I will try to post weekly, if not more often.
I picked up the supplies on Friday at our local farm store. They are great people there. April and Dustin are the folks that I know best there at this point. They always go out of their way to help. I'm sure that they know we're novices.
Our first step in herd health was to round up our "kids" into the pens, halter them all, and get them weighed. A high priority for this week will be to purchase hooks for the closet to hang and organize the halters. We were guestimating on which halter would work best today.
Our only hesitant child today was Banjo. We will definitely need to work on the lead with him. He's used to the halter but doesn't like to be led. Everybody saw some weight gain. We're very happy about that. Opal was our biggest concern. She had been very ill this summer with the humocus worm (we almost lost her!) and had lost lots of weight so we've been monitoring her very closely. She is now officially out of danger. Hurray!!!
The next step was to administer the injection for each animal. Today we just gave them the ad and e shot. I ran into a big roadblock! I was getting air into the syringe and then I couldn't get the plunger to go! grrrr. Maybe I gave up too fast. Rather than risk hurting any of the animals, I chose to postpone the shots. I'm going into town on Tuesday to get some advice on my difficulties and we'll have another attempt next weekend.
Good things about our first herd health day: all of our "children" were very calm and cooperative. I trimmed the rear nails on Opal and did great!
Before I close for today, let me give a brief rundown on our "kids". Our herdsires (I'll be referring to them as the big boys) are Ace and Solomon. Ace is the king but Solomon is always trying to take the top spot. It can be entertaining to watch their antics. Our little boys are Banjo and Patches. Patches is a a llama. Our girls are: Ruby, Bubbles, Opal, and Kisses (Kisses is also a llama). 2 of the girls are bred and due in the spring - Bubbles and Ruby.
A side note: farming is the last thing I would have ever imagined I'd be doing but I'm really enjoying it. Our alpacas have had a calming influence on me.
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