Spring has sprung!

Wow! It's been forever since I last wrote.  Sorry about that!  It's now May 20. It's only 60 degrees here today.  We've had about 3 days of rain and cool temperatures but it is supposed to be in the 70's today and up in the 80's and sunny for the whole weekend.

The girls love to free-range!

Our hens have been busy laying, giving us 2-4 eggs daily.  I bought 3 pullets a few weeks back that were about 7 wks old at the time.  They have almost doubled in size! Right now they live in a wire dog crate.  I move the crate out into the chicken yard each morning and move them back to the shed at night.  It's good for the hens to see them and get used to them.  I do keep the little ones in the shed on rainy days but keep the light on for them.  I should be able to integrate them with the big girls in another month.  They won't be laying til this fall though.  I've named all of the chickens.  The 2 Rhode Island Reds are Rosie and Joanie.  The Americaunas are Annie and Lucy.  I've been letting the big girls free range in our yard in the afternoons on pretty days.  Their favorite place seems to be under and around the bushes in the front yard, near the porch.  It's nice to know that they will come back to the chicken yard and coop at night for roosting. See below for photos of the hens and "younguns".

The crias are growing nicely.  Fiddler will be 2 months old on the 30th of May.  He is already eating hay and mooching grain out of his mama's feed dish.  His weight is up over 32 pounds now.  Doc Watson (Doc for short) is around 34 pounds now.  He just started eating grain this week.  He's not a chow hound yet though.  The two boys are so cute together.  They play alot!

We've been busy breeding our girls in the last couple of weeks.  Ginger (the medium fawn girl) went off farm for a few weeks to be bred.  She'll be coming back in the next week or so.  We bred Bubbles 2 weeks ago back to Ace.  Hopefully Ruby will be bred tomorrow for the first try.  Her service sire is coming up to Virginia to another farm for a few months.  The Va farm's owner is bring him over tomorrow to do the breeding.  Never a dull moment!

As you can see, John and I keep quite busy around here.  Last weekend we planted the fourth tree.  We now have a shade tree planted in each of the 4 pastures.  They're not terribly big right now but over the next few years they will branch out nicely.  We planted autumn purple ash trees.

Chillin in the pasture with Opal

I have a vegetable garden started also.  I have 4 blueberry bushes, some rhubarb, herbs and the basic veggies: zucchini, yellow squash, sugar snap peas, peppers, tomatoes and watermelon in the ground.  Yum!!

Baby watch is over, at last

Doc's first day in pasture

Doc Watson and Bubbles

Doc at 6 hrs old

Bubbles delivered her cria on Thursday, April 21.  He was born around 8 am and weighed in at 19.7 pounds, 4 pounds heavier than Fiddler weighed at birth.  He is a beautiful white boy, with a small fawn patch on his left leg, just above his knee.  The weather was so nice on Thursday that we gave the mamas and babies some pasture time.  Fiddler is thrilled to have a playmate and he wasted no time trying to play with him on his birth day. We welcome Doc Watson to the herd!

Shearing Day 2011

The girls after shearing

Banjo being prepared for shearing

Banjo after shearing - 2010

Hi all!

We sheared on Wednesday, April 20.  Bubbles hadn't delivered yet so she was shorn first, to minimize the stress level for her.  They all look so different now!  We have 10 nekked animals on the farm! lol  It's always interesting to see how they react to the experience.  Bubbles screamed the whole time.  Opal was spitting.  They sure feel better now to have all that fiber gone!  Now my work begins!  I get to sort through bags and bags of fiber.  I'll be cleaning "blankets" and deciding how to get it all processed.  (The blanket is the primary fiber that comes off the animal: to clean is basically to carefully shake out dirt and pieces of hay that is stuck to the fiber)  I was so busy helping with the  shearing activities that I didn't get any photos but I took some last year so I will post a couple of photos from 2010.  I'll also add some after photos from this year.

The Cria Watch continues....

Bubbles is so ready to have her cria but apparently he or she isn't fully cooked yet.  Her official due date was today.  All of the "kids" will be shorn next Wednesday.  I hope that she delivers before then!

It is 5 pm on Friday, April 15.  I'm writing this from the glider bench on our back porch.  Everyone is out in the pasture, except Tasha and Quigley.  Tasha is confined to the 'maternity ward' while all of the girls are out in pasture.  She's too big to be running with Fiddler.  Quigley is hiding out in one of the boy's pens.  The wind chimes are gently blowing.  There's  a nice breeze right now.  A storm is blowing in, though, so I'll be bringing everyone back in from the pasture shortly.

A quick update on Fiddler:  His weight is up to 20 pounds now.  He's only wearing the cria coat at night when the temperature drops below 40 degrees.  He is loaded with energy.  It's fun to watch him run around in the pasture.  I can't wait til Bubbles gives him a playmate!

Check out the new photos of Fiddler!

A Beautiful Sunday afternoon!

Today has been gorgeous! It's 5 pm already and still 66 degrees outside! I have my jeans drying on a clothesline outside in the sun, the hens are busy in their chicken yard, and the "kids" were all out in the pasture earlier.  We even had mama and cria out in the pasture for an hour.  He's cushing in the sunshine right now.  We took his cria coat off for the afternoon.

We always find lots to keep us busy on the weekends!  We've hung fly strips in the barn, raked some alpaca poop over the garden bed, and tried to start my neighbor's cultivator so I could actually plant some herbs today, but it just wouldn't start! Bummer!

Check out the new photos!

A blessed arrival!

We have a cria!  Ruby delivered her first baby this morning around 6 am.  I'm guessing at the arrival time.  I woke up and looked out the window at the barn around 7:20 and saw a brown blob and with a closer look via binoculars I could tell that it was a cria.  I dressed very quickly and ran out to the barn and into the dry lot to bring the baby in to dry it.  In the cleanup process I was able to find out that it was a boy!  His birth weight is 15.6 lbs. I think we're going to name him Fiddler.  He appears to be a bay black right now.  His daddy is a silver grey.

He's doing great. He's already been nursing and Ruby is a great mom already!  Here are some photos.

Let's add chickens!

Hi all!

I've been busy getting the farm ready for the arrival of some chickens.  Why chickens, you ask? We have been buying fresh eggs from local farms periodically and love the idea of being able to get our own eggs.
Also,  chickens are very good at bug control.  They will be allowed to free range a good bit so hopefully they will spend alot of time hunting for bugs from the poop pile.
  I've been back and forth about how many to start with and for now, I've decided on 4 chickens.   I will probably get a few more in a month or so, ending with 8 hens. The first 4 are being delivered tomorrow.  We're getting 4 hens that have just started laying.  I've attached some photos for you of the chicken coop  and the chicken yard.  More photos will be added soon of the "girls".  We will have 2 Americaunas and 2 Rhode Island Reds.  The reds lay brown eggs.  The Americaunas lay green or blue eggs.  They are also known as the easter egg chickens.

I decided to go with adults so we could have eggs right away.  When you buy pullets from the farm store, there's a 4-5 month wait before the chickens actually start laying.  One neat thing I've learned about hens: when they are hatched, the number of eggs they will lay in their lifetime has already been predetermined.  The quantity varies, depending on the breed.  It is not necessary to have a rooster for them to lay.  Therefore, no rooster will live at New River Valley Alpacas.

A quick update on the alpacas:  no cria yet.  Ruby is due in the next week so, based on a 330 - 350 day gestation, we will most likely have a little one on the farm by April 15.  Bubbles is due around the 20th of April.  I don't think she'll go that long though.  She's very large already and quite uncomfortable.  I hope she delivers before the 20th because April 20 is shearing day for everyone. If she hasn't delivered by then, I'm sure she'll have the cria shortly after shearing.