Where has this month gone?? When I last wrote, we still had Ginger and Wyatt in quarantine. Ginger has been with the other girls for about 3 weeks now and doing great. She gets along well with everyone. She's a real sweetheart. I get kisses from her alot! Ruby and Bubbles are just a few weeks away from their due dates. Ruby's cria should be arriving in early April or after. She's getting quite testy now! Bubbles is due a couple of weeks after Ruby. She's even testier! She's been thru this a few times already tho. Three of the girls managed to get some burrs stuck in their fiber sometime on Saturday. It looked awful! I was concerned that Bubbles wouldn't let me get them off of her today, but once I got the halter on her, she was a real champ! I think she was glad to have them off!
Banjo was down in Concord a week ago for the Carolina Alpaca Celebration. He got a 5th place ribbon. Since Wyatt would have been without a roomie for the weekend, I moved Bubbles over with him for 2 nights. She was fine with that and he seemed happier to have company.
I attended a camelid neonatal seminar at Virginia Tech on Saturday. It was very interesting! We learned about possible birth defects, proper nutrition for gestational camelids, alpacas especially. In the afternoon we had hands on training in a lab, practicing for distocia deliveries on our mamas. We learned to identify forelegs and rear legs in utero, as well as tails vs ears. It was really weird at first, and kind of gross! We were working with dead fetuses that had been frozen and then thawed out for the training. I do feel much more prepared in the event that I might need to assist either Ruby or Bubbles.
Oh, I forgot to mention something. We got our yarn back from the fiber mill. I've been busy this last week, designing and printing labels for all of the yarn. There is still some more to come, but for now we have 6+ skeins for the following animals: Ace, Solomon, Bubbles and Ruby. It's wonderful! I can't wait to start a project with some of it! For any of you that are interested in buying yarn, please email me at nrvalpacas@gmail.com. I'll be happy to give you more specifics. Genny's yarn should be coming any day now. It will be 2 months before we get Opal's back. It went to a different mill. I'll be taking photos of the yarn and the rovings as well and posting it here on the blog. In the meantime, here are some photos of daily work, and some play, on the farm.
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| Kisses from Ginger. I think Bubbles and Ruby want some too! |
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| Poop scooping - someone has to do it! |
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| Snack time! |
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| John with his (our) girls |
