Alpaca Chatter

An important day for the local Alpaca Industry

2011-11-28T22:28:00.001+10:30

Today, I finally feel justified in using the ‘i’ word (industry, that is).

At about 4 o’clock this afternoon, Sarah delivered the first 6 bales of alpaca fleece from our growers’ cluster group here in South Australia to the wool broker.

Just under 590 kg of skirted and classed fleece ready for core testing and market on 15th December.

Watch this space for news on the auction when it happens.

Look out, there are Llamas!

2011-11-27T21:25:00.001+10:30

(with apologies to Monty Python)

This year the shearing operation has hit the road. James picked up a portable table from a breeder who left the industry. I say portable, what that actually means is liftable by two people with lots of grunting and groaning.

Anyway, today we get a new challenge, a nice small farm not far from us – nine alpacas and two llamas. We’ve never shorn a llama before, we’ve never even handled a llama before.

We spoke to a number of other shearers, got some tips and went for it.

So, we now know that you can shear a llama on an alpaca table – but it’s a tight fit.

We also know that it takes five strong men to get a full-grown llama to somewhere that he doesn’t want to be…

But I’m sure that they felt a lot better for it afterwards.

Our best show - ever!

2011-11-16T22:44:00.001+10:30

Still catching up on the news…

Back to October. Strathalbyn Show – A reasonable sized country show, well supported by South Australian breeders, just under 200 animals.

We took a small team along, including two animals making their show debut. Another first for us, light fawn and white rather than our usual darker colours. Eau Sauvage is one of James’s, a really nice boy with an ultra-fine fleece (13-point-something average micron), he was just over the minimum 6 months so he’s just starting off and Spock, he’s an adult that we’re about to certify; we’ve not shown him before because he has a tiny bit of colour contamination on his head, but he’s just getting better and better so it had to be worth a try.

First up was James with Eau Sauvage.

He takes Junior light fawn male and then goes on to win junior male champion.

Later Sarah takes in Spock…

He does the same – Adult white male, then champion adult male.

At this stage I seem to lose the ability to take photos…

Before we know which way is up it’s the grand champion line-up. Eau Sauvage, Spock and the intermediate champion male are called forward and, after 5 of the most nerve wracking minutes of my life, the big ribbon goes (drum roll) to Eau Sauvage…

Nearly a month later and we still can’t quite believe it – two champions and our first Grand Champion.

We opened a very nice bottle that evening…

Hills Garden & Environment Expo

2011-11-13T20:10:00.001+10:30

We heard about this event quite by accident a couple of months ago. We’d missed the deadline for trade stand entries by then but the organisers cut us some slack and let us join in.

The expo is an annual event held in the small country town of Uraidla in the Adelaide Hills, not that far from our farm – it gets about 5000 visitors and is themed around sustainable living – something that fits right in with what we’re trying to achieve here.

Our stand before the gates opened and the crowds came in

We took five animals, two suris, two shorn huacayas and Bond – the professional crowd-pleaser. With us went a range of products along with the carder and spinning wheel – my public spinning debut!

Bond went out on a lead to mingle with his public every couple of hours and was definitely one of the stars of the show – I couldn’t even begin to estimate how many photos he must have been in.

But, for me, one of the nicest moments of the day came near the end when a young girl (sadly, I didn’t think to ask her name) came over to us and proudly showed off her arm.

She’d been to the face-painting tent and asked them to paint alpacas on her.

All-in-all, a great way to spend a Sunday – I reckon we’ll be back again next year.

Counting eggs–before they hatch

2011-11-12T14:10:00.001+10:30

I’ve been lax with my blogging again – so much to post, so little time to prod the muse…

So here’s one to start with and to try to help get back into the habit.

Worms.

One of the problems that we have to live with. We do a reasonable job of keeping on top of the wretched things but, every so often, they strike back. We’ve lost two young animals over the last year, both members of the show team and both victims of a strain of Ivermectin resistant Stongyles.

Added to this, we’ve been having an issue with diagnosis, not with our vet who is excellent, but with the path lab who lost samples at least twice and, on one occasion, sent back results that were clearly wrong – probably mixed up with another sample.

So, as the old saying goes, if you want a job done properly, do it yourself.

We now do our own routine testing. Here’s the setup…

After a lot of reading on the subject and borrowing a kit from Ambersun (thanks guys…) to try out, we decided to source our own.

The microscope came from AmScope in the USA (via their EBay store) http://www.amscope.com/Trinocular.html - a nice bit of kit at a very good price. Getting it through eBay meant that the camera was included allowing it to be linked to the laptop in the picture – very useful when the old eyes are getting bit tired.

The egg counting kit came from Chalex, again in the US http://www.vetslides.com/EPGfecalkit.html Easy to use and simple to follow instructions.

All we added to this were a couple of extra bits from Chinese ebay stores – a set of digital jewellers scales (about $15) and a calibration slide so that I could measure things – a benefit of this is being able to use the kit to do very basic fleece testing.

A Stongyles egg from one of our girls captured with our testing kit

And that’s really all there is to it (apart from the lingering smell in the house after a testing session).

Shearing Days

2011-10-06T22:32:00.001+10:30

It’s that time of year where shearing is once again upon us. Prados Alpacas in conjunction with Kobler Alpacas will be running open shearing weekends in November on farm in Meadows. Booking for these is essential as places fill up quickly, so contact us soon.

How do these days work?

When contacting us to book a place for shearing your alpacas we will agree on the date and a guide time for you to bring the alpaca to us. We will want to know how many alpacas and when they were last shorn, animals with more than a year’s fleece take longer to shear and will most likely incur an additional charge.

Upon arriving on farm you will be asked to either hold your alpaca in the transporter or unload to holding pens. Please do not unload alpacas until directed. The aim is to structure the days so there is never a queue however sometimes this cannot be helped.

The alpacas will be shorn one at a time on a table. The fleece that comes of will be bagged for you to take away. Once shearing is complete and before the alpaca is lowered of the table any additional husbandry can be performed including teeth, toenails and vaccinations. This will be repeated until all your alpaca are shorn.

Things to remember

We cannot shear wet animals so if during the weekend you are booked it’s raining or has rained very heavily on the lead up to the weekend we will need to reschedule the shearing.

We only shear alpacas please don’t bring along sheep, goats or the farm dog.

Please try to get to us for the booking time; this keeps the days flowing for everyone.

Colourbration Day Two

2011-08-21T14:43:00.003+09:30

The things you do on tour…

Eat way too much junk food, stay in odd places, drink too much red wine, find yourself watching an old episode of thunderbirds at some unearthly hour of the morning and, best of all, take embarrassing photos of leading alpaca breeders for future blackmail purposes…

But enough of that, back to the show.

A good day yesterday, a first and a fourth with our first two animals.

First up today was James with Illustrious, a light fawn junior that I’m really excited about

A tough class with some good competition and….. Drum Roll…. A first! A great result and she’s probably booked herself a ticket to the nationals in October.

Next, a bit of light relief. I blogged earlier in the year about our first appaloosa. A complete surprise to us all when he arrived from a line that is solid on both sides.

Well, spotties are a growing thing – they’re getting more and more popular and this little boy has got a very fine and well defined fleece, so, why not…

Another first! This is getting silly.

Interesting though that the line-up for the 'fancy' championship, which, of course, was won by Ambersun Jag, were all spotties…

Expect another blog about him when it comes to shearing time – I’m really looking forward to seeing what’s there when his fleece comes off.

Colourbration – Day One, Part Two

2011-08-20T15:12:00.001+09:30

First success!

OK, it’s a second place, but it’s a second place to the animal that went on to take the championship, so I’ll happily bank that.

Cassia is another one from our suri experiment, an experiment that is, so far, going very well. Colin, our suri sire, is throwing some quite outstanding offspring. We nearly pulled her from the show at the last minute – she was that muddy and messy, certainly far from show condition. But the girl did good.

Colourbration – Day One

2011-08-20T09:21:00.001+09:30

For us, Victorian Colourbration is, second only to the National Show, one of the year’s most important events. It has almost become the colour breeders’ national.

Sadly, we’ve only brought a small, wet and muddy team this year but hopefully they won’t disgrace us too much and the judges will be able to make allowances for the paddock conditions.

Congratulations to the organisers, a well laid out shed, good facilities and the bacon sandwich to start the day was spot-on (very important at any show!)

More later

Our first fleece collection day in South Australia

2011-07-31T12:02:00.002+09:30

One of those rare things – a video blog!

I don’t think that Hollywood needs to be afraid just yet….

Unsung heroes…

2011-07-03T22:15:00.001+09:30

Every reasonable sized herd has them. Those animals that, objectively, are nothing special but are alpacas that their owners wouldn’t part with for anything. It could be an older girl who can always spare a drink for a baby whose own mother is struggling with feeding, it may be the very tame animal who will halter train others (more about that in future post) or, as in this case, it might be the ‘utility’ wether that does all the odd jobs.

Allow me to introduce you to Prospero…

On any sane farm, Prospie would have been sold off as a pet or sheep guard long ago, certainly, we could have moved him on many times over. But, he was our very first baby on the property, so he’s a special case.

He’s had his moments of fame – he was a very pretty cria. He featured in our earliest advertising:

A picture of him (heavily Photoshopped) has even won a few prizes:

But there was no getting away from the fact that he was never going to make it as a show and stud boy and was going to have to face the unkindest cut of all.

Today, he’s a big, ugly wether. But we’d not be without him. Got some weanlings missing their mum and in need of mentoring and company? Prospero. Need an animal to move in with the chickens because there’s a fox around? Prospero. Need a companion for a sick animal? Guess who. And, this week, when we needed a donor for a really sick animal that needed an urgent blood transfusion, it was Prospie who parted with a litre and a half of the red stuff over three days (although I don’t think he likes the bald patch on his neck).

So, here’s to you Prospero and to all the other unsung heroes in herds around the world. You may never win a broad ribbon at a show, but you’re champions as far as we’re concerned.

School Visits

2011-06-18T20:43:00.001+09:30

These days we find frequently find ourselves taking the alpacas on days out to visit schools and other community centres.

Of course, this is all good karma but, and here’s the big secret (don’t tell other breeders or they’ll all be doing it) it’s also great fun!

Alpacas are such natural crowd pleasers, you’re always guaranteed of getting an appreciative audience.

This week saw the roadshow at Narracoorte Primary School.

Sarah took three of the boys, a suri and two huacayas, all very wet, down to introduce them to the youngsters.

We usually follow the same format, a quick talk followed by an opportunity to get up close to the animals. It always goes down well and we leave the school with some handouts and fleece samples to use in project work. A good time is had by all.

Shameless advertising

2011-06-07T21:58:00.001+09:30

The truck’s back from the signmaker’s

Tyson and the guys from DzignFX in Adelaide have done a great job.

The National Comes back to Adelaide

2011-05-30T22:02:00.003+09:30

South Australia is going to play host to the Australian National Show and Sale in 2012 so lock October 25th to 28th into your diaries.

Planning has started early, we've got a team together and have enlisted the help of the Western Australia region. Hopefully we can build on the success of the 2009 show - we have many of the same organising group.

Sarah and I are convening the show, so it's going to be a busy year and a half.

to keep up to date on what's going on.

Birthing day

2011-02-20T22:19:00.002+10:30

Just got back from one of the education days for breeders that we put on here in South Australia. The theme for the day was ‘Birthing Problems’

Workshops in full swing

Not a day for the squeamish, the simulations and demonstrations where frighteningly realistic and used stillborn cria. I know that sounds ghoulish and, I admit that it probably wouldn’t have been my first choice of a way to spend Sunday afternoon but, there is simply no substitute for the real thing. I can't speak for anyone else, but I know that when it was my turn to delve into the darkness and correct a bad presentation, I found myself suddenly taking things very seriously indeed. Approximately 2% of alpaca births have some type of problem – of these, most sort themselves out without intervention but a tiny minority can cause real problems and knowing what to do can mean the difference between life and death for mother and baby in a country where a vet may be many hours away.

Chris and Adrienne from Ambersun sharing their experience

All-in-all a really useful session and one that we will have to repeat (we were limited to about 30 people and soon overbooked – there’s already a waiting list for the next one).

Everyone there got something out of it and we all shared our experiences (good and bad).

Halfway through the afternoon we were joined by Greg Rodda, one of our top Alpaca vets who provided a vet’s eye view and a wealth of experience.

I can’t finish this with out mentioning the art that you can see on some of the walls. These cartoons come from a terrific book called Llama and Alpaca Neonatal Care [Amazon link]

The book uses some brilliant cartoons by artist and llama breeder Kathleen McLeod which I scanned and enlarged to help lighten things up a bit. I mention it here because before using them, I emailed Kathleen to ask her permission – she not only gave the OK but was clearly very pleased to see them being used like this – If you get to read this Kathleen, many thanks from South Australia.

Rain stops play

2011-02-19T17:22:00.002+10:30

I shouldn’t be here at the moment, typing something on this little blog. Right now, I should be at the Uraidla and Summertown show talking about (and selling) alpacas. But, we’re having some unseasonable weather down here – nothing like the floods that they've suffered in Victoria and Queensland of course, but a bit different to the sweltering, 40 degree plus days we were having this time last year.

So anyway, there we were last night, putting the finishing touches to our stand (an information table, a display of fleece and other products, show ribbons and two pens of our most crowd-pleasing ‘pacas) when the call comes that we can’t get in – the area of the showground where we would have been is under six inches of water and there’s a new creek running through it.

What should have been the information table

There are plus sides though… We get the rare luxury of a day at home with no commitments and the paddocks are loving it. Last February our main concern about most of our farm was the fire risk, this year we’ve got fresh grass coming through – something that we don’t usually see until May.

Bond’s story

2011-02-01T22:18:00.002+10:30

Young Bond seems to be a regular visitor to this little blog. He got a photo and a mention when he was born a year ago and again when we started shearing. He’s never been quite good enough for the show team, but a photo of him has done well in a couple of competitions – he’s a natural crowd pleaser:

Anyway, the time came for Bond to move on, he was sold as a pet and delivered to his new home in early November. I have to admit that he was an animal that we were a little sorry to see go.

A few weeks later, it started to go wrong for his new owners. We’re still not sure what happened but it looks like he injured a knee and the injury became infected. A vet was called (not one that was very experienced with Alpacas) and prescribed antibiotics and regular dressings. There was no improvement and the vet, on a return visit, told the owners that he may have to be put down. We couldn’t let that happen and swapped him for another brown boy and brought him back to treat ourselves.

He was in a sorry state when we got to look at him, not the owners’ fault, his leg clearly needed quite a bit of TLC that they couldn’t really have been expected to provide.

Day One, after cleaning and flushing

Not a pretty sight, but much better than it was before cleaning.

We turned one end of our veranda into a sick bay and brought in another young boy as a companion.

The daily treatment session, with concerned audience

We changed the antibiotics (we have a great and very supportive vet) and worked on the knee, cleaning and debriding the wound twice each day. It wasn’t long before it started to pay off.

Day ten, almost healed

Bond has now made a full recovery and is back with the rest of the herd. We’re taking the hint though and he’s off the ‘for sale’ list. He’s a great character and is so good natured that we’ll use him for country shows and school visits.

I like this convalescence lark – bring me another daiquiri!

Where did this one come from?

2011-01-30T19:22:00.001+10:30

OK, I know Appaloosas are a growing thing, they’re getting more and more popular and there are even serious calls for an appaloosa class at shows, quite distinct from other fancy types.

But it’s not part of the plan, we don’t breed spotties!

Both lines he comes from are solid through and through (Halifax was the sire, a solid white warrior boy and the Dam was a multiple championship winning solid brown).

He’s about as cute as they come, so he has that going for him.

Name? Well for a short while he was Dipstick (after one of the 101 Dalmatians puppies) but no one else liked that. Currently he’s called Notyet and it might just stick:

Q: He’s sweet, have you named him?

A: Not yet…

The tour comes to Prados

2011-01-30T15:40:00.001+10:30

The Tour Down Under is the largest pro-cycling event outside of Europe. Every January, at at least one point, it come through or close to our little, sleepy town of Meadows.

This time, for the first time in recent years, it came past the farm. The main race, followed by 8000 enthusiastic amateurs and TV crews from all over the world.

I knew we should have put some large roadside advertising signs up!

Shearing

2010-12-21T15:54:00.002+10:30

I just thought I would do a follow up to our last posting on shearing. Well, you would think by now that we would have finished. We should have finished weeks ago. But we have been having wet weather issues. Even when we can get started we get stopped by the rain, we shear outside.

We only shear at weekends and just lately they have been wet. We only have about 8 animals to go now, I reckon that it might be a christmas morning job.

For those of you in the UK you are not alone with the bad weather in parts of NSW and Victoria they have also had snow.

Sarah

Shearing starts – then stops

2010-10-31T12:19:00.002+10:30

Well, the show season has come to an end, that means one thing – it’s time to shear. Or at least it should be.

We started this year’s shearing with two of the weanlings, a couple of boys destined for wetherhood. You know, sometimes wethering some of these boys seems almost criminal, look at this one:

This is from Rudolph, one of this year’s drop, a Jolimont Warrior boy who, just a few years ago, would have been destined for a stud career. Today though, he just doesn’t cut it and will probably become a pet for someone early next year.

Doing all of our own shearing is a great advantage – it means that, instead of a mad couple of days, we can spread things out over a month.

Anyway… Rudolph and Bond are both overheating and so go to the front of the queue. Off with their fleeces and, like magic, there’s a sudden change in the weather. Rain, near freezing wind and two very cold boys.

“Can we have our fleece back please”

So we now have two boys in coats living in the very sheltered hospital paddock and shearing is on-hold until things dry out.

National Show Diary

2010-10-20T21:49:00.003+10:30

Wednesday 13th October

3am… There shouldn’t be a 3 am – it’s an offence against nature itself. But here we are – time to get up and start loading the animals. Four of our own to go to the show and three overspills for Ambersun.

A brief word about distance here, I know that many of the readers of this occasional blog are in Europe and the ‘old country’. To think, that when I used to live in Dover in South East England, I used to whinge about having to drive to Birmingham. Tamworth, where the National is held this year is about 1600km away (994 miles). That’s about the same as the driving distance between London and Gibraltar! Here, that’s considered to be a reasonable day’s drive.

That’s it really it for Wednesday – driving. 18 hrs solid driving, in convoy. Part of the South Australian Contingent along with Ambersun, Classic and Yaringa. We arrived in Tamworth at just after 11pm, got the ‘pacas into their stable and us into our tents.

Thursday 14th October

Hmm.. Camping seemed such a good idea at the time…

This year, the National Show is being held at the National Equestrian Centre at Tamworth. Here’s a tip for any horsey person who’s found this blog via google and is thinking of camping there – There are some really good motels in town!

Camping plots are well equipped but are situated on ground that is either hard as concrete or soft as mud and is right on the edge of the New England Highway on the approach to a roundabout. Truck drivers are friendly characters – they like you to know that they are amongst the safest of road users by demonstrating their exhaust brakes throughout the night – some of the really friendly ones will even toot their air horns in a cheerful way to to say hello to the sleeping camper.

Most of the day spent getting the team back to something like show standard following the long journey.

Friday 15th October

Wet, wet, wet.

When we heard that the show was to be in Tamworth in spring, like most breeders, our concerns were with heat and humidity, not torrential rain and freezing wind. The quality of the animals here is jaw-dropping, even under less than ideal conditions, it’s clear that the standards are still getting better year-on-year.

We had a reasonable show – a second and four thirds out of our four animals and four fleeces, not bad at this level and a fair reflection of what we were showing (a list of excuses and reasons why things were less than ideal can be found on page 94).

Highpoint of the day – the cocktail party in the evening when the arts and crafts competition awards are made. Sarah has a first for a knitted item and I took a smattering of ribbons and the championship for photography with a portrait of Lysander called ‘Bad Hair Day’

Saturday 15th October

OK, I admit it – I’m a wimp. But I never want to go through a night like that again. Sarah went and slept in the car at 1:30. By 2:30 I was laying on the floor of the tent to stop it blowing away – there’s a river running under the groundsheet and a carbon fibre reinforced pole breaks under the strain. Tonight we find a motel.

Today is the last day of showing and again, the standard of the animals is breathtaking. Ambersun are the stars of the show, taking out most of the major championships. It’s encouraging though to see the increasing profile of coloured animals – Milduck in particular have a really great show with their browns.

Sunday 16th October

Ah… A real roof, a decent bed and a good night’s sleep. A return to the land of the living.

Last day. Association AGM, Sale and Junior judging championship.

I have to give a talk at the AGM about IT at very short notice – hopefully it didn’t go off too badly.

The sale goes reasonably well given the current economic situation with nearly all of the animals offered selling.

Monday 17th October

3am again. Time to hit the road again for the long drive home. We decide to come back a different way – using the Barrier highway via Broken Hill. A classic Australian driving moment at one point when the GPS in the ute shows the next junction as ‘turn right in 585km’. This really is a big country.

Great moment at Little Topar roadhouse out in the middle of nowhere – lots of questions about the Alpacas and we end up bringing out Puck and Kobe for photos – needless to say, they both love the attention and ham it up like they they were a couple of b-list celebs, posing for Hello magazine.

It’s gone midnight when we get back.

Next year it’s Sydney, so we’ll do it all again

Nothing to do with alpacas

2010-07-08T11:24:00.002+09:30

As regular readers may remember a back in October we had a doggy addition to the Prados family, young Gandhi a brown labrador pup. As Gandhi and I were walking yesterday in our favorite woods I couldn't help but think of the difference here to the UK. Here, we are in mid winter and the woods have lots of campers. This does spoil our walk but that was not the reason. I don't remember winter camping in the UK. I know what you are going to say "it's warmer in Australia" but that really is not the case at the moment. The day time temperature is between 10-12 degrees C and the night time temperature has been sitting around the zero mark maybe 3 degrees on a warm night. We have had rain so the ground is wet but this doesn't stop our tent campers some of them we have seen for the last 3 days.

Last night we had a well deserved night out, we went to see Bill Bailey what a good show it was. The theatre was packed (seats sold out very quickly) and it was interesting to hear just how many English accents there were at the theatre. He managed 5 encores and came back again as we were all trying to leave the theatre. So everybody just stood where they were and watched, sang and clapped.

Sarah

Why we have been so quiet

2010-07-02T18:18:00.003+09:30

I thought I would just bring you up to speed on the lack of postings from Prados.

We have had a busy time since late March.

Just prior to us leaving for the Royal Sydney Show we had a cria born, he was a poorly chap to start off with and in the end Perry didn't go to Sydney he stayed home to look after him. Easter Sunday saw the arrival of our last cria (at that time) until November. This little girl was extremely poorly and took a great deal of our time, in fact she still does but she is such a sweetie. She had hydrocephalus, some rather distorted limbs and ulcerated eyes. Needless to say she had no suck either. She has improved a lot her eyes are better, her hydrocephalus has sorted itself out, and with the help of some Vitamin D3 her legs are starting to straighten. She now feeds from her mum but is rather small for her size. Tiggy Winkle as we named her or Tiggy for short now is able to out run us in the paddock. We still keep her well wrapped up in cria coats as it is rather cold here now.

Perry and I have also attended alpaca meetings in Melbourne, helped with alpaca week and just recently an alpaca health day. So along with the monthly alpaca meetings we haven't had much time.

I mentioned about Tiggy being the last cria until November. Our son James changed that with a recent purchase of a pregnant female she is due on the 26th July. Last year you may remember we had a surprise delivery in July in a hail storm, the due date for that young man was November but something went wrong there! I have my fingers crossed that the weather is better for this crias arrival. I really don't like having winter cria we don't have the appropriate shedding for dealing with them.

James and I have also taken a show team to Alpaca Fest in Werribee Victoria. We enjoyed our weekend and came back with 4, 1st ribbons, 2, 2nd ribbons, a Best Brown Huacaya female and a Best Brown Suri Female. Not bad for a team of 7 animals. Needless to say Puck and Gypsy behaved beautifully.

July should see us with a quieter time, so maybe we can get back to posting!

Sarah

National Alpaca week

2010-06-02T23:01:00.008+09:30

Our second National Alpaca week has been and gone. It’s fair to say that we learned a lot from the inaugural event last year and this time it was leaner, meaner and far more effective.

The week started with a ‘Meet the Alpacas’ day in the Adelaide Hills. Rather than spending our regional advertising budget on newspaper and magazine adverts, this time we went for large banners on main roads and getting ourselves on the radio and into interviews in the press. It paid off and the day went well, we were never run off our feet but there was constant flow of interested visitors from start to finish. We sold some pets, a small starter herd to a new breeder and some craft work. Most importantly, as a public relations exercise, it was a great success.

It's that time of year again

2010-03-24T10:41:00.002+10:30

Saturday saw the start of the show season. As we have 2 girls still to give birth Perry offered to stay home and James and I took off to the Mt Pleasant Show. We had a very enjoyable day. We took a very small show team, 3 animals and had entered 1 fleece. We were pleased to report back that Goldie won Champion Senior Female, Halifax came 3rd in Senior White Male, but
Beatrice let the side down, all I can say is that the standard of animal in the intermediate black class was high as Beatrice has had 2nd place ribbons on outings previously. We had a 4th placing with Goldies fleece it was in a class of 20 and the 3 fleeces placed in front and the 5th placed fleece were all white. Goldie is a Medium Fawn.

So why the small team, well Easter Weekend we are off to the Sydney Royal Show. We have never been there before so it should be interesting. We have been told it is an 18hr drive and due to work commitments Perry is hoping to fly over to join us! He has told us how sorry he is and it wasn't his fault, he wouldn't have set a job completion for the day we start a long drive! But it makes you wonder. So we have split our show team to reduce the number of shows they do. That won't make Puck very happy as he is a bit of a show off and thinks he is the bees knees.

We are taking 4 to the Sydney Show Gypsy, Puck, Beatrice and Helena. Gypsy and Puck are used to long journeys as they have been to Victorian shows several times but this will be the first long trip that Helena and Beatrice will have done.

Sarah

Mine’s a Guinness

2010-03-17T19:20:00.001+10:30

Just a very quick post. Life’s a bit on the busy side at moment.

Let’s see, since I last wrote…

I’ve started a new day job this week with ICT Strategy at Premier and Cabinet.

I’ve been appointed to the board as a director of the Australian Alpaca Association.

It’s the first show of the season this weekend (and the Royal Sydney in 2 weeks’ time).

And it’s impossible to take two steps in the paddocks without falling over another baby alpaca.

But, the Irish blood in me (from Co Waterford), couldn’t let the day go past without posting something silly.

Have a good St Paddy’s day!

The highs and lows of February gardening

2010-02-21T20:32:00.001+10:30

The highs

As this is an alpaca blog I thought I should include some of the girls in the background

It’s a great time of year in the garden, everything is going into overdrive: chillies, capsicums, a second flush of strawberries, more tomatoes than we can manage – we’ll be bottling and preserving within the next week or so and the grapes! we only grow them for the Alpacas as treats (alpacas love grapes and vine leaves) but there’s more than we can use this year – and we still haven’t finished last year’s grape jelly.

The Lows

Stink Wort…. Horrible stuff. If you’ve never met it before, it looks like wild rosemary and has a sticky sap that smells like rotting violets. It’s not toxic but it is an intestinal irritant for animals and we have, or rather had, an outbreak in the stud boys’ paddock. Trouble is that, at this time of year, unirrigated soil is like iron. I’ve certainly broken up softer concrete. Weeding over here involves a pickaxe, mattock and hours of hard labour singing chain-gang songs.

Vicugna or Lama?

2010-02-16T16:04:00.004+10:30

Now, I’m not a regular Facebook user but I do drop by a couple of times a week to see what’s going on and throw in the the odd comment or picture.

There are quite a few Alpaca breeders there though and there was a conversation a few days ago that raised the subject of Vicugnas (or vicuñas).

Anyone who’s had to listen to me prattle on about the subject will know that I have a soft spot, verging on the obsessive about these beautiful animals.

It all started a couple of years ago when I was writing a short article about alpacas and included the Latin name – Lama Pacos in brackets afterwards I thought I’d better check the spelling, typed ‘alpaca pacos’ into Google Scholar and began an 18 month search, during which I had dozens of online arguments, read many published papers, learned more than I ever wanted to know about Camelid genetics and spent some interesting time on my last visit to the UK with the curator of mammals at the Natural History Museum. I’m confident enough now to say that I keep and breed Vicugna Pacos rather than Lama Pacos.

You may be familiar with the story of the full name and heritage of the Alpaca but I wasn’t, so I’ll share a tiny part of it here.

The wild South American Camilids are the Guanaco and the Vicugna (both descended from a common ancestor, 2 million years before). For more than 250 years the zoological establishment believed that only the descendants of the Guanaco (lama Guanico) had been domesticated and that it was from this line that the modern Llama (Lama Glama) and Alpaca (Lama Pacos) came. It was thought that the Vicuna (Vicugna Vicugna) had never been domesticated and remained an independent line.

Then, in the mid 90’s, along comes Jane Wheeler (no relation unfortunately) and a group of archeozoologists who claimed that evidence from Peru suggested that the Alpaca was bred from the Vicuna 6-7000 years ago

To cut a long and fascinating story short, in 2001 Wheeler presented a paper to the Royal Society showing clear DNA evidence that the Alpaca was a direct descendant of the Vicuna rather than the Guanaco. So, genetically, the Alpaca and Llama are cousins rather than siblings.

Today, the V. Pacos name is accepted by most authorities and is gradually gaining ground in the scientific community, a quick search on one of the leading research databases finds 18 papers published in the last year that use the Vicugna form against 67 that use the Lama form – these things take time. Officially, either is acceptable for publication.

It goes without saying that I’d give major body parts to have the first Vicunas in Australia. It’s not going to happen of course, the Vicuna is still threatened, having been brought back from the brink of extinction after a great conservation success story, even now though, there are only a little over 125,000 of them living protected in South America and definitely not for export.

Every so often though, we do get a throwback – meet Flossy

Flossy is James’s rather than ours – he beat me to the wallet. She is probably one of the closest to Vicuna type alpacas I’ve seen in Australia and has just had her first Cria – it looks pretty special.

Jane Wheeler has most of her work and a lot of other fascinating stuff on South American Camelids on her website at http://janecwheeler.com/ A lot of it is in Spanish, but Google makes a reasonable job of translation.

Sharing responsibilities

2010-02-11T09:07:00.002+10:30

We’ve seen some behaviour in the maternity group this year that we haven’t noticed before.

I’ve mentioned before that, like many other breeders, we run a maternity paddock, an area close to the house where we bring in the girls about 2 weeks before they’re due and for the first few weeks afterwards. We’ve seen three interesting behaviour patterns this year, two of which are new to us.

The babysitting service
Nothing new here, fairly common practice, but still good to watch. One of the mothers (and the duty does seem to rotate) is designated babysitter, she goes off with the crias while the rest of the adults congregate for a child-free feed, dustbath or a drink and chill-out session.

The defensive wall
Haven’t seen this one before. Occasionally a fox, kangaroo or other perceived threat passes through (although the foxes seem to have learnt to keep well out of range!). One or two of the girls herd all the babies into a tight group and then they all form a barrier around them, either a complete circle or a semi-circle facing the danger – any fox that’s hungry, brave or stupid enough to fancy cria for supper would have to first pass though a wall of kicking, spitting angry mothers. Watching it happen reminds me of old westerns – form the wagons into a circle…

The milk bar
Alpaca mothers are usually strict about making sure that they only feed their own offspring, they can even be quite rough with any interlopers. But that all seems to have relaxed this year. Possibly because there’s very little natural grazing in the maternity paddock this year so we’re feeding out – the result is that there’s is no competition for food – there’s plenty for everyone. Yesterday Mali, a big Suri mama, was feeding two simultaneously

Not the best picture – I had to grab the camera in a hurry

They don’t seem to mind this year – some of the babies (not all) just grab on to whoever’s handy at the time.

Then there’s the girl with the human chin fetish, the near-adult that wants a bottle, the one that we’re going to have to book into the Betty Ford clinic to get off her lucerne habit and the one that used to be psycho-paca but has suddenly turned as soft an anything…

It’s an odd year.

Slowly Roasting

2010-02-09T13:52:00.001+10:30

Never, not for even a moment, do I regret moving to South Australia. But, just around this time of the year I do start to pine a bit for Northern Hemisphere weather.

Sure, the sun is great and sitting by the pool sipping frozen daiquiris or taking the dog down to the beach sounds idyllic. And it would be if it was a holiday. But it’s not, there’s work to be done, animals to look after and it’s %&**$# hot!

Take this morning, another cria born – one of James’s, a brown boy and his 7th so far (identity number ends 007 so, at the moment, he’s provisionally called ‘Bond’). Not a straightforward birth so I had to stay with them for about an hour and a half and I’ve found that Alpacas don’t seem to understand ‘Hang on a moment while I go and get some sun-screen’.

“They call me Bond, James’s Bond”

It’s just tipped over 40 degrees and I now have what feels like the mother of all hangovers.

I know this blog gets quite a few readers in the UK and Scandinavia and I know you’re having it tough over there with the snow – but I am enjoying the photo’s of frozen farms – I’d just like a little bit of it please to stick my head into…

Babies, babies everywhere…

2010-02-04T09:19:00.001+10:30

It’s cria season here at the farm and they’re hitting the ground every day at the moment (which means a serious marketing effort later in the year, otherwise we won’t be able to feed them all!). It’s a daft time of the year really, it doesn’t really tie in with the Australian show season – Any that are worth showing only get a couple of shows at the end of the season and are too old for the 6-12 month classes next year.

So far, the results are good, mostly females and only one lighter than medium fawn.

Our little Suri sideline project is looking promising as well with both of Colin’s to drop so far being beautiful solid browns.

One more and we’ll be able to enter a progeny team at the end of the year. We’ll keep you posted on how things go.

So far this year, no serious problems (keeping everything that’s crossable well and truly crossed…), we had one mum that was a bit fragile, but after a couple of false starts, she gave us another brown girl.

Even Juno, our only fancy has managed to ‘go solid’ this year.

As you can see from the pictures though, it will be nice when we get some grass back…

The joy of unemployment

2010-01-28T12:58:00.002+10:30

The Joy of Unemployment

Well, not real unemployment of course, but I’m currently taking a few weeks off for study, farm work and R&R between jobs having called it a day (it was time for a change) at the University a couple of weeks ago.

So I’m currently living the life of the gentleman farmer and loving every moment of it.

It is, of course, monstrously difficult, getting up in the morning to say goodbye to Sarah and James as they go off to work...

So what’s the day like for an unemployed IT manager on an Alpaca farm in South Australia in January?

First comes the first check of the day of the maternity paddock, there are nine animals in there at the moment, three new cria with their mums and three expecting very shortly. Hmmm, Mali is looking a bit ‘bulgy’ but I doubt that it will be today.

Then, feed time for Rudolf, he’s the oldest of the babies in the maternity group, but was a ‘failing to thrive’ cria and has been getting two supplementary feeds each day. He’s doing well now but still needs topping up.

Feed the chickens and collect the eggs then a bit of quality time with the boys over a mug of tea and some lucerne (I had the tea).

Five minutes of Frisbee playing with Ghandi the lab, then get the head down for a couple of hours serious study and a job application.

After another maternity paddock check (all OK), a quick few lengths in the pool, get dinner planned for the workers when they get home later and then the difficult decision... There are some jobs to be done – fleeces to box, shelves to go up in the new office, I really should look at adding some more channels to the CCTV system, there’s some wiring to be done and there’s always fencing and irrigation to work on.

Alternatively, I could take Gandhi down to the beach for a run in the surf...

Dressing an eye injury

2010-01-26T21:07:00.003+10:30

I just thought I’d put together a quick post about a problem we had today, it may help other breeders with the same issue.

When we first checked the maternity paddock this morning we noticed that one of our new babies had a problem with one of her eyes, it was weeping a lot and attracting the flies. We seem to have a lot of problems with eyes and grass seeds and always keep a tube of antiseptic eye cream on hand for problems like this.

On closer inspection though we found that she had a nasty little nick in her top eyelid.

We treated this with antiseptic, but the problem remained of putting a dressing on it to avoid corneal abrasion during healing and to keep the flies away. Anyone who’s had to put a head dressing on a cria knows how hard it can be to do anything that will stay on.

So we tried a different approach and, so far, it seems to be working.

We used a knee length stocking

Trying it on for size

Ears out and a dressing pad over the eye.
Tape at the muzzle end to stop it slipping up

No awards for best dressed alpaca...

Her mother had no problem accepting her back after a couple of moments hesitation.

I'd love to know what caused the injury though.

Gardening

2009-11-25T18:21:00.002+10:30

I know it is not the most interesting of subjects but I thought I would just tell you about my gardening escapades with Ghandi the lab.

Off to the veggie plot yesterday to plant, rather late I might add, the tomatoes (should have been in by mid October), peppers and chilli's. Ghandi came to help. He helped to dig holes and filled some in! Then it was time to plant the plants, well the pepper was planted at least 3 times, every time I put it in he took it out, quite gently I have to say.

I have to confess to a bit of excitement, we can now get Gardener's World (sad, I know) but the gardening programs here are just not the same. Now I have heard that the new format is not going down to well over there but I think it really works.

Sarah

The first arrival...

2009-11-19T18:57:00.003+10:30

If there's one thing that it's compulsory to post a blog entry about, it must be the first arrival of the season:

Yes, that's right - it's a Suri. We don't really think of ourselves as Suri breeders, it's a bit of a side-line, but we do have a small group and are trying to get a good brown line going.

This one is particularly significant though - it's the first cria to be born here from one of our own certified boys (shameless advertising link to the sire...).
Mum and baby doing well - already trying to pronk (but landing in an undignified tangle of legs on each attempt).

Meet Gandhi

2009-11-18T12:47:00.003+10:30

After Kitties yesterday - a puppy story today.

Meet the latest member of the Prados family.

Not really an alpaca story, but puppy pictures are always worth posting. We’ve called him Gandhi, not just because he was small, brown and wrinkled when we chose him but because he stood out from the rest of the litter by having a quiet dignity about him. While all the others were racing around like mad things, He was just sitting there, taking it all in and clearly top-dog.

There’s been a big, dog-shaped hole in our lives since arriving in Australia in 2004, but we didn’t want to get one until we were sure that we could offer a home where someone was around most of the time and we were properly settled.

I’d forgotten just how much work a puppy could be…

A very fancy kitty

2009-11-17T17:51:00.004+10:30

A large international parcel arrived at our little town post office today, always an event of interest – ‘What have those odd poms with the long-necked sheep brought from America this time?’

But we’re not telling... we like a bit of mystery.

But we’ll tell you: we’re now the proud owners of a ‘Fancy Kitty’.

No... we’re not importing US felines, we’ve invested in a ‘Kitten’ drum carder from Ron Anderson in Montana (http://www.fancy-kitty.com/carders1.html). We decided to go for one with an electric motor and brush attachment and it arrived fully assembled and packed with so much care that it probably travelled in more comfort than any human passenger (now there’s a thought for the next long-haul flight...).

It is a thing of beauty – hand made from quality materials, Ron clearly takes great pride in his work, it even included all the parts needed for converting it back to a manual machine (I don’t think that’s very likely though).

It didn’t take long to make sure everything was there (it was), check that the power supply really was multi-voltage (it was), replace the US plug and glance at the excellent instructions for just long enough to feel over-confident.

Sarah had pre-washed some fleece from Zahava – a beautiful mahogany coloured girl and the mother of Puck – this year’s little superstar (the term beautiful here refers to the fleece, not the animal, who has a face and a temper that only a really dedicated mother could love).

I have to break off for moment here, dear reader, and admit that this bit doesn’t sit easily – I like to spin from raw fleece, straight off the animal’s back, nothing more than a quick shake to get the worst of the rubbish out, but washing it first is what all the experts advise, so that’s what we did.

So, less than 30 minutes after breaking the tape on the top of the box, we had our first batt. Not too bad for a first attempt.

A quick dot-point review of the machine:

Solid and well made
Easy to use (almost dummy-proof in fact)
Good instructions
Helpful and patient supplier – Ron answered all of my dumb emailed questions himself, often within minutes of me sending them
Excellent motor – very quiet but with plenty of power
Very well priced (it cost less than I would have payed here for a lesser model – even with the shipping cost).

So the final question – why buy a carder when I prefer ‘raw’ spinning? There are a couple of reasons. Firstly, I can’t keep up with demand and I have to face it, spinning from batts is much quicker. The other reason is that, with fifty animals, we’re in an awkward place... Not enough to make commercial bales, too much to use ourselves or sell as plain fleece. There is a greater demand for part-prepared fibre and the margins make selling it more attractive – I’m selling raw fleece to spinners at $30 per kilo, but batts go for $12 - $15 per 100g; that's a big difference so it seems to make sense.

Getting back to blogging

2009-11-16T14:04:00.003+10:30

At last, our lives seem to be getting back on track and slowing down. The National Show is well and truly over so I have more time which means Perry has more time as well. It has to be said that Perry and James were a big help whilst I was working on the show with a group of dedicated alpaca breeders.

Our shearing is now finished. As we did it all ourselves this year, our record number of animals in one day stands at 13 but the weather played a part in that, there is only so much time you can spend outside in 32 degree plus days (we stopped when the temp got to 32).

The show season for 2009 is now over and we don't start again until March. As we look back over our show year we feel quite content with what we have achieved; 52 ribbons from 9 shows with a show team of 5 animals (except on the last show where we took 9 animals). These 9 animals made up our team over the show season . Plus we have 2 girls on maternity leave so they didn't attend the last show. Now we just have to start planning for next year as we have set ourselves a standard to live up to.

So we now start cria watch. Our first should have arrived on the 13th but spring cria always seem to be that bit later. Our website has a camera that gives a regularly up dated view of the maternity paddock so keep an eye out and you may catch a new arrival.

We're still here

2009-09-09T23:13:00.002+09:30

I have to apologise for the lack of posting but things have been busy here. We have had 2 shows since we last wrote Colourbration in Victoria and the Royal Adelaide Show. Gypsy, Puck and Goldie did their usual, Best Brown and 1st places. We took Colin our Brown Suri stud male to Colourbration it was his first outing for nearly a year, he managed a second place. We took an all Prados team to the RAS a first for us, we had an unplaced white, we weren't surprised by that but we were surprised when Beatrice got a 2nd place as looking at the competition we thought we would be unplaced.

We are continuing to work with our vet to discover why Choco died, the results on his heart and lung were not that helpful so we are now awaiting blood results from 10 of the animals. The results suggested toxic plants but the plants mentioned do not grow in this area or Selenium and Vitamin E deficiency. We regularly give AD&E so vitamin E is unlikely and Selenium is in the pellet they have. As you can imagine we are keeping a close eye on all the herd.

We are luck to have a botanist/zoologist living next door to us, she has walked the paddocks with me and there is nothing out of the ordinary there. And on Sunday I have an alpaca breeder who knows all there is to know about what alpacas can, can't and shouldn't eat coming to walk the paddocks. Our biggest concern is the same thing happening to another animal and still not knowing how to prevent it.

We will keep you updated.

Perry and I are looking forward to a break in New Zealand later in the month. We are going to the NZ National, we are interested to see the animals. Plus we will have a tour around the local area.

Sarah

Show fatigue...

2009-08-09T15:36:00.002+09:30

I think we may have overdone it... Nine shows this year and we're not half way though, four down and five to go.

This week saw the team at Murray Bridge for the South Australian Colour Classic, a two day 'colourbration' event where supremes are awarded across colour lines.

Murray Bridge isn't that far from us and most of our mob, apart from one white girl, weren't due on until day two, so I stayed home on Saturday to look after things here in the morning intending to join the team later for the dinner and to prepare for the big day on Sunday.

It all went horribly wrong. They whipped through the whites like they were going for a speed record (James' Fifi got a first in class - our first win for a white) and started on the browns next. Sarah phoned, but I got there just too late and missed all the fun and fun there was.

There are 8 classes in each colour - junior, intermediate, adult and senior, split by male and female. We had three of our top browns entered, Gypsy, Lulu (both from Golden Flame) and Puck (a Warrior boy). They each win their class, so we have three in the supreme line up and just James and Sarah to handle. A call for help and Rosalie from Andean Gold takes Puck - the reasoning goes like this: Gypsy is frontrunner as far as we're concerned, she already has three best brown ribbons this year so James took her, Lulu is pregnant, it's her last show as she increasingly turns into psycho-paca and likes nothing more than to kick judges and this is only Puckster's second blue - he's the obvious choice to give to someone else. You can guess what happens - the stars all line up, the wind is in the right direction, the Puckster's fleece peaks at the best I've seen it and he takes the big one! Poor Rosalie is embarrassed to be taking the trophy for an animal she doesn't even know the name of and the judge is puzzled about why the stewards and half the breeders around the ring are suddenly laughing their heads off at his decision.

Probably the best show we've had with a first for Goldie in the fawns as well. Icing on the cake was another surprise - Supreme coloured suri for Colin in the Fleece competition.

After the bad news earlier in the week this was a real boost to us all.

A sad day...

2009-08-05T21:52:00.000+09:30

Today is that day that we knew had to come sometime...

After nearly three years, we lost our first Alpaca.

Choco was only just two years old, an occasional member of the show team (second place ribbons in three shows) and only recently certified and DNA tested for stud work.

Monday he was fine, right as rain, playing in the boys' paddock with the others. Tuesday morning, he was on his own, couldn't get up and really lethargic. We called the vet out, he clearly had a heart problem and we moved him up to the house. Tuesday night, before I went to bed I sat with him for a while, he was very quiet but had his head up and seemed to be showing signs of recovery but sadly, he was gone by morning.

It had to happen sometime, but this was really unexpected, we've nursed a few animals back now that were touch and go for a while, but this was so sudden with no clue that there was a problem.

Unfortunately it's the reality of any type of livestock raising, but it's still pretty miserable....

A surprise in the paddock

2009-07-28T13:41:00.004+09:30

I can't believe it is nearly a month since I returned from the UK. Firstly I need to apologise to Mark from Patou Alpacas for not thanking him sooner for the lovely time I spent at his property.

Glad to see that Columbus has the idea now! Minstrel looks like she is growing out nicely as well.

I arrived back to winter weather lots of rain and wind in fact one of the trees had blown down right across the gate. I thought Perry and James were trying to keep me out! So the only way in to the property was over the fence and through the paddock.

Trees or branches falling seem to a problem at the moment as soon as we get one lot sorted another drops. We are not going to replace them the gum trees make to much mess and insist on falling over!

Perry who thought he had got his last few modules for his masters sorted to have a lighter work load has found the opposite, he is getting frustrated at the amount of time it is taking particularly as he would like to be outside 'doing stuff'. He is currently trying to work out what he is going to do for his dissertation with computing and alpacas. You can just picture it alpacas learning to use a mouse!

Last week we had a surprise, we don't have cria at this time of year, too cold, but last Wednesday morning in the sleet when I went out to feed the girls there was a cria sitting shivering in the paddock.

Now our next drop is not due until November, all the girls looked at me to say "He's not mine". So I picked him and took inside as he was not looking too good. Tucked him up in the bathroom (underfloor heating and over head heating). Then took off to find mum. It had to be a girl that we had brought pregnant so after rounding them up and lifting their tails I found mum.

Poor little chap was deteriorating so off to the vet he went, had a plasma transfusion (needless to say he was a little prem) then tube feeding. He is back home with us now and feeding from mum well. We did milk her from the beginning, long job with little to show for it. But it has been worth while.

He has been named Bill and he might even be called Big Bill as that,s what the vets bill will be. The vet was back today as Bill has pastern problems in his left leg so he is now splinted up and we hope it will right itself.

Sarah

Gypsy does it again!

2009-06-25T20:39:00.004+09:30

Alpacafest 2009

First the bad news, Puck didn't have a good show, he got really hot and sweaty and every trace of character in his fleece dropped out. He wasn't having fun and it showed. But we learn... Next time he gets his own fan!

After that though the little team did good.

Double first for Goldie (herself and her last fleece)
Second best coloured suri fleece for Colin
First for Lulu
Lulu and Gypsy took third in sires progeny
Gypsy again got first in her class and best brown in show, beating 44 others - she's one special animal.

Sarah and Lulu with James and Gypsy

There's no way that we were expecting a year like this.

So, where from here?

Colour Classic and possibly Bendigo in August
The Royal Adelaide and Strathalbyn in September
Then, possibly, the Nationals finishing off with Clare Show, then shearing and a break.

Who knows, we may even sell an animal or two...

AlpacaFest

2009-06-18T13:33:00.003+09:30

Well, James, Alice and I (Sarah) leave early tomorrow (Friday) for AlpacaFest in Werribee just outside Melbourne. We will be off about 7am and expect to arrive about 6pm. This will be the largest show we have entered so we are not sure what to expect. Rounding up and loading in the dark is always fun but a least we have no rain due so they will be traveling dry this time.

We are taking Puck, Lulu and Gypsy who have been a very successful part of our show team. This time Goldie is having her first outing. She is a full older sister to Gypsy and half sister of Lulu. So fingers crossed.

Drifter is saving himself for later in the show season and Chorus Girl has now been retired from the showteam, she did not really like playing showgirl.

Puck has had a difficult decision to make. What part of the float does he have, front window or back of the float. He decided on the back of the float in the end with a coat as he doesn't like the draft (he usually gets Drifter to sit on the door side). His reasoning is every time we stop he can stick his head out the window and attract the attention of passers-by. Plus get titbits to eat.

Perry will be holding the fort. Amealia still requires feeding at least twice a day and Perry is in the middle of one of his study modules so he has decided to stay behind.

A busy weekend

2009-06-15T08:29:00.004+09:30

We have had a rather busy weekend. The rains arrived a couple of weeks back now so we have walkways turning to mud. So there was nothing else for it but to have 5 tons of pathway rubble delivered and shovels, wheelbarrows and rakes at the ready. We were pleased with the results but need another 5 tons to complete the job!

Then there were the injections, we give a supplementary 5in1 and ADE around about this time of year 100 injections takes some time but we got it done. We didn't have to many problems with them spiting either.

Next weekend sees us head of to the outskirts of Melbourne for Alpaca Fest more about that after the event. I think we will be leaving Perry at home but we will see how his studying is going. We also have a bottle top up cria. She is a pretty little thing called Amealia, but she can be a bit picky as to whether she is going to take a bottle so no really suitable to let our lovely neighbors look after over the weekend.

Sarah

Suri vs. Bramble Patch

2009-06-02T22:25:00.003+09:30

We just had to share this...

At the back of our plot of land is an old marble quarry. Overgrown with gorse and brambles it's been on the to-do list for a major clean-up exercise since we moved here just over three years ago.

While Sarah and I were away at the weekend on the show course, James and Alice started the makeover with machete and shredder...

They worked hard and cleared a lot of the overgrown mess. Of course, that means that it's now accessible to curious alpacas.

Specifically, to Lysander, the curious suri...

If you've never tried getting blackberries out of suri fleece, let me take this opportunity to advise against trying it out for yourself. It's certainly the end of his show career for this year. Iwouldn't mind so much if he didn't look so proud of himself

Show Course

2009-06-02T22:01:00.003+09:30

Last weekend saw the Prados elders head up to Somadale Alpacas on the edge of the Barossa Valley to take the show convener and stewards course. Two days with a senior judge (Ron Reid) brushing up on skills needed for running and organising Alpaca shows.

A mixture of class and practical work covering fleece and halter shows, working through all the latest rules and regulations and being entertained by Ron's limitless range of stories about shows that he has organised or officiated at.

Day one was primarily theory based with day two spent on conformation and ringcraft with a mock show, complete with a range of typical show-day problems to sort out.

Then, horror of horrors, a written examination!

Now we wait for the results to see if we really are certifiable...

Bill the Alpaca breeder

2009-05-18T09:18:00.004+09:30

This has been around for while now. CGU is one of our larger insurance companies and they started a new advertising campaign a few months back.

'Bill' was the first one they made in the series and they ran it a few times late at night then we didn't see it again for weeks.

Then, CGU started started sponsoring the football on satellite TV and suddenly Bill is getting prime time spots at the weekend and he's becoming a minor celebrity.

Of course, he's not real and most of those animals were definitely chosen for character rather than show potential but he has been a great publicity boost for the industry here, especially as the campaign coincided nicely with national alpaca week.

Stawell Show

2009-05-17T21:38:00.003+09:30

Continued from last posting....

So, there I am at home, holding the fort while the rest of the family are over the border in Victoria at the Stawell Show with our core show team of:

Puck – Dark brown intermediate male
Drifter – Mid-fawn adult male
Chorus Girl – Light brown intermediate female
Gypsy – Mid brown intermediate female
Lulu – Mid brown adult female

I’m waiting anxiously by the phone for the call about how things have gone. It rings and:

Perry: So, how did it go then?
Sarah: Disastrous!
Perry: What do you mean?
Sarah: We got two second places.
Perry: OK.... That’s not too bad really, who beat Gypsy?
Sarah: Gypsy wasn’t one of them... The seconds went to Drifter and Chorus Girl.
Perry: What? So... Gypsy, Puck and Lulu? How could Chorus Girl beat Gypsy?
Sarah: Oh yes... They all won their classes and Gypsy got best brown in show again.
Perry: %%&*#$!!!

It's enough to drive a poor harmless bloke to drink...

Three firsts and two seconds though, I'll forgive anything for that. After I calmed down, it turns out that it wasn’t a huge show. A few of the big Victorian breeders that we’d been hoping to go up against didn’t go but, it was still a great result. The judge said some wonderful things about Gypsy and Puck and there was lots of interest in all of the team from other breeders (none of them are for sale though).

So... This is second best brown in show for Gypsy who is becoming quite a special animal and who will now go on to the Alpacafest in Melbourne at the end of June and has probably earned herself a place in the Nationals in October.

And Puck? I’m starting to wish that we’d given him a more macho name... We were working through characters from Midsummer Night’s Dream at the time – he should have been an Oberon! (mind you, I suppose it could have been worse, he could have been a Bottom...). Puck will now be DNA tested and certified for stud work. Hopefully he’ll start working for his living in the Spring.

You’ll have to excuse me now.... It’s Shiraz time.

Back home and home alone

2009-05-16T14:39:00.003+09:30

Have to admit that it’s good to be home although it’s been an interesting week. There’s some sort of unwritten law that says that when you visit the UK, you have to come back with a cold.
Not normally a problem, but now is not the best time to get in off an international flight via Hong Kong sniffing and coughing. My week as a bio-hazard has been a different experience, but at least I now have a certificate that says I’m not going to spread swine flu around Australia...

It’s amazing just how much the land can change in such a short time; I was only away for just over a week. When I left, the weather had started to change, it was beginning to feel distinctly autumnal and there had been some rain but the paddocks were still dustbowls and what grass there was was mostly brown. Now, after nearly two weeks of light rain, you’d hardly recognise it as the same place.

Suddenly, everything is green again

So this weekend I’m home alone holding the fort while the rest of the family takes the core show team (Drifter, Puck, Gypsy, Lulu and Chorus Girl) down to the Stawell Show in Victoria. Hopefully they’ll bring photos back for a blog update on Monday. We have wonderful neighbours who are always happy to look after the menagerie if we go away, but as we have one cria having a supplementary bottle three times a day and another getting over a case of staggers who is still having B1 drenches, it’s a bit too much to ask, so someone had to stay and, as stereotypical pathetic self-pitying male with a cold, I was the obvious volunteer.

Yes, that is milk all over her nose

We still haven't decided what to call our latest arrival, a light fawn girl by Windsong Valley Wilde Star out of an Auzengate mother, but she's a pretty little thing.

And, I know this is daft, but I'd swear the mum, who isn't producing quite enough milk, looks quite hurt when she takes her bottle...

UK - Day Four

2009-05-06T17:49:00.003+09:30

Day four back in the old country and, well, there’s only so much that you can get out of dealing with bureaucracy and making up for lost time in fish and chips and real ale. I don’t remember it being so humid here, I suppose that I’ve got used to the dry climate of South Australia and it seems sticky – needless to say I brought mostly cold weather clothes with me – so I’ve been renewing the commercial relationship with Marks & Spencer’s.

I’m missing all the fun at home as well – Mikayla, our oldest alpaca, a brown Auzengate girl, had the last cria of season the day before yesterday, a light fawn female (so we’ve only had three males this year!). Apparently she looks nice but is needing some supplementary feeding. Miranda, who is only just over a month old, gave us cause for concern when I left on Friday. We were just putting my bag in the car when Sarah called me over to look at her – overnight she’d developed a bad case of staggers – a terrible thing to see in a cria, they go downhill so quickly. Thankfully it looks like we caught her in time, dosed her up with vitamin B and it looks like she’s recovering nicely. It’s a busy time of the year, with National Alpaca Week in full flow – not the best time to jump ship for a week.

Still, it’s been good see some of the old haunts – to see what’s changed and what hasn’t and to indulge myself with the camera (and Photoshop in the evening). Here’s a couple from Deal and Walmer taken yesterday...

Although there are only five or six commercial fishing boats winched up onto the beach these days, they still bring in some of the best fish I've ever eaten

See, it isn't just in Australia that you can see miles of deserted coastline...

South of England Show

2009-05-05T04:28:00.005+09:30

Many thanks to everyone who welcomed me or said hello today at the South of England show. I had a good time and it was a great chance to have a look at the quality (and size!) of some of the animals there.

It was particularly impressive to see Suris being judged with a year's growth against fully fleeced animals without being disadvantaged.

It's not been one of the best of weeks but this made a great break.

Things I've found so far that I've missed about England:

Decent beer
Cod and chips
Everything being close to everything else
France

Things I don't miss:

Church bells at 4am (why???)
Crowds
Traffic
The whinging and complaining in the papers

Thanks again folks and, Sara from Appledene - go on... type a message here or on Rob's blog. Before you know it you'll be writing one of your own!

Perry

2009-05-03T17:47:00.003+09:30

Well, that's another module of study out of the way, so I thought 'here's the opportunity to get back to some blogging for a month before the next one starts' - Studying is much harder than I remember.

And then...

You know what they say about best laid plans and all that... The module finished on Wednesday; on Thursday we get a call from Canterbury hosptal in the UK to say that my father is very ill and on Friday I'm on a plane to London.

While I'm here, I see on the BAS site that it's the South of England show this long weekend - if anyone reading this is going on the Monday and you see a fat bloke in a Prados Alpacas shirt being nosy - come and say hello.

2009-04-27T11:27:00.002+09:30

We have been lax again with our posting but as always lots to do. As Perry has told you he has been busy with our regional website and with the studying he is doing for his course he is not getting that much time. Luckily he should get a 4 week break from studying after Wednesday so hopefully he will be back to posting again.

I know I have been just as bad however, I have been organizing the South Australian side of National Alpaca Week. At last the advertisements have gone to press and I can just sit back and relax (if only). It is amazing how many people want things changed after closing dates or once adverts come out. It particularly frustrating as they have given you information in the beginning!

Enough of that, we are waiting on our last cria until November. We always get concerned and try not to have cria this late in the season as when the rains come the temperature drops off and the wind gets up. So we are chasing around coating everything that looks cold or has a rather lathargic appearence. We even have a 16 mnth old in a coat young Puck. We now face a new problem with him as he is in our show team and coated animals aren't allowed to show, we will be off interstate on the 15th May to a show in Victoria. But I am sure we can have him sorted by then. We still need to address our shedding issues we have plans but no action as yet. In the last 4 days we have seen about 70mm of rain which is wonderful. But for sorting out and tidying up the farm for visitors is a bit tricky. As fast as you tidy up a tree falls down or a whole load of stringy bark lands in the paddock. It will be sorted out by the time we open the gates on the 4th May.

Choosing a time for cria drops are beginning to become quite tricky for the second year in a row we are seeing very high summer temperatures (45degreeC+) in the paddock this is obviously not good for a pregnant mum or new cria. We have lost 3 pregnancy's this drop with the girls scanned pregnant at the beginning of December and empty when rescanned in the middle of March which which was after the due date on 2 girls and a month before on the 3rd. We are by no means the only ones having problems, low birthweights and all the problems associated with prems are showing up in late deliveries. By all accounts we have been lucky with the problems we have had. If we move our drop dates later we then run in to the change of the weather and the wet season. All part of the fun of breeding alpacas I suppose.

Well the sun has come out so I am off to plant up some of the flowerbeds, I was recently bought 2 banana plants so I am looking forward to them going in and having an area with a tropical feel.

Sarah

Still here...

2009-04-07T20:45:00.003+09:30

I am a very lax blogger....

The frustrating thing is that there are so many things I want to post about...

Alpaca auctions, baby's that can't decide what colour they are, the National show in October, National alpaca week in May, my take on Debbie's poo bricks, putting nutrients back into the land, over-feeding, the mysteries of fibre testing, spinning leftover neck fleece....

The list goes on...

I'm just not getting the time (or, more likely, I'm not organised enough).

So, for the time being I'll just share one of the most time consuming jobs.

We've been redeveloping the South Australian regional website (www.aaasa.com.au), it's been a major body of work and phase one has been live now for about three weeks.

The next stage is the release of member functions - classified adverts and certified male listings.

I'm hoping that I can get Sarah to do some posts - she's organising the regional participation in National Alpaca week

Tired but happy - Mt Pleasant Show

2009-03-22T10:02:00.015+10:30

I don't know what it is about shows that makes them so physically and mentally exhausting. I meant to post this last night when we got back, but all we could manage to do was flop down and drink fizzy wine - Yup.. we were celebrating.

Quick recap. Mt Pleasant is the first show of the year for for us, a short-fleece event to start off the season. We were taking a show team of eight alpaca, four boys and four girls, the largest team we've shown, a mixture of high-hopes and try-outs.

The day didn't start well, it was raining for a start - normally we'd be thrilled about that, but not today.. Not today! We were running late, there were words...

But we made the showground in time (by minutes) and got settled in. The rain had stopped and the mercury started to rise - it turned into one of those horrible days that are thankfully very rare in this part of Australia, 35 degrees, but instead of our usual dry heat it was humid and sticky.

Judge for the event was Peter Kennedy from Canchones - He's an international judge, so some of you reading this in Europe and the US may have met him.

The show started with the Suris. We only had one Suri entry for this one, Lysander.

Second place for Lysander

We were thrilled of course to get a placing in our first class, but it was a small group (suris were poorly represented this year generally) and when Peter picked out the differences between first and second placings, well... we're still not sure of young Lysander's future career.

Lysander cooling off after the stress of his show appearence

Next came the big class for us, Junior brown female. No photo's of this I'm afraid as we had three animals entered so we were all showing rather than snapping. We seemed to be out there for hours, it was a tough class. Hermia and Chorus Girl missed out (although not by much in Chorus Girl's case). But (drum-roll....) Gypsy came first. We thought she was special, we were confident that she'd come away with something but first in that group was something we'll be glowing about for a long time.

So, Hermia is still a nice animal and will form an important part of our breeding program, Chorus Girl we'll show some more - she's a much better looking animal when she has a full fleece on and Gypsy... well, more about her later.

Gypsy was straight back into the ring for the best Junior line-up, that wasn't going to happen against the elite whites and light fawns, but at least it let me get a picture:

James with Gypsy being checked over again by judge Peter Kennedy

By this stage the day is becoming a bit of a blur..

Next came another of our tryout entries - Lulu. Lulu is a girl we brought as a good fit with our breeding program, but she's come on really well so we thought she was worth trying out in a show. It was a much smaller class than the Juniors, but she won us our second first place ribbon so she's coming with us to Stawell in Victoria in May.

(look at the state of my shoes - it was a really dusty show ring)

Yours truely with Lulu

Our next two were up against tough Ambersun competition, second place ribbons for both.

James with Drifter (Ambersun Futuris is the one the right, he came second in class in the nationals last year)

Same story again with Puck - second place after Ambersun's Shear Fortitude.

Finally, as if the day could get any better, it's the best of colour classes. So we're in there with Gypsy and Lulu and all the other brown first-place winners, eight blue ribbon winners in all and again, it seems to take ages.

The judge decides...

He collects the big green ribbon with the gold edging...

He walks over...

Looks like he's heading towards James...

He ties it around Gypsy's neck...

This is silly, but typing this a day later I've started shaking again...

Best brown alpaca in show

Total haul for the day, Two firsts, three seconds, three unplaced and a best in show in colour.

That's it until May now for the next show. But, for the time being, we're walking on air.

Arrrghhh - The Red Weed!

2009-03-09T13:31:00.003+10:30

Anyone who has read HG Wells' War of the Worlds will recognise the reference to the Martian vegetation that grew everywhere, choked the rivers and 'glows purple in the night'.

In our case it glows purple in the morning and we haven't a clue what it is.

Purple haze isn't just a Jimi Hendrix track...

It's weird, no-one around here knows what it is and it's only coming up in a single north-facing paddock. The recent rain has started to transform the land already with green shoots coming through everywhere replacing what was dead grass and dust only a week ago. But this stuff - it's a mystery - it's possible that it's something that has stayed dormant in the soil for years and has been woken up by the freakish weather we've had. There was nothing on Saturday, it all just appeared on Sunday morning and today (Monday) is a public holiday so I still can't get it identified.

It looks like a grass of some kind, but beyond that? No idea...

What an exceedingly odd country this is...

Old dog, new tricks...

2009-03-08T18:49:00.006+10:30

Halters.... You've got to love 'em.

I've been whinging for some time now about alpaca halters. If they fit well, they look horrible and the ones that look good for shows never seem to be a good fit. So, with the aid of the internet, I've been teaching myself basic leatherwork.

Here's the first attempt...

And, as modeled by Puck who it was made to measure for...

Could be a whole new market.

Meet the show team

2009-03-03T17:22:00.014+10:30

The first show of the year is almost upon us.

The season starts for us with the Mount Pleasant Show on 21st March. Due to the time of year it's judged under short fleece rules. That makes it a show that, despite being a fairly small one (150-200 animals usually), is considered quite important as the overall standard of the animal is as important as the fleece.

So here's the team:

The boys

Puck

Our Jolimont Warrior boy, just over a year old now. We've just had to reclassify him for colour (hoping that the registration will be through in time, otherwise it could be a disqualification). He spent last year as a black; but after many arguments we've agreed that he is a very dark brown. It's been a difficult call, his fleece, at the skin, is black, but it immediately fades a tiny bit. So, by the letter of the regulations, he's black, but by the spirit of them, he's dark brown.

Drifter

I should explain first that we have two herd codes on the farm. The Prados herd is registered to Sarah and yours truly, the other herd - Kobler Alpacas are registered to our son James who's living with us while he finds a property for himself. Drifter is one of his, but we show together.

Drifter is a nearly three year old dark fawn boy with a real macho presence. He's already won a couple of ribbons and with Highlander on both sides of his pedigree he's one of our hopes at this outing.

Choco

We really don't know what to make of Choco...

We brought him as a gamble from a breeder who was leaving the business for next to nothing because we thought he had potential. At nearly two, we have to decide what to do with him soon.

He is, without doubt, a good stud male. We've shown him a couple of times and he came away with a second place at both the Colour Classic and the Royal Adelaide Show last year. Trouble is, that they were small classes each time and we're not sure that 'good' is good enough these days.

Mount Pleasant could well decide his future career.

Lysander
The only Suri that we're taking to the show (our champion boy hasn't got enough fleece back yet even for a short fleece show). Lysander, like Choco, is borderline for whether or not he has stud potential. It's sad in a way, just a few years ago both of these animals would have been champions, the standards have come so far in such a short time that now we're having to ask difficult questions about whether or not they have breeding potential.

The Girls

Gypsy
One of James' animals, we brought Gypsy for him as a Birthday present and she's a bit special. I think that the best brown female I've seen in South Australia is her full sister Goldie - an amazing animal who is never shown. Gypsy isn't quite as good, but she's close (and we brought their mother as well for ourselves at the same time). The Junior brown female class is larger than it's ever been at this show, but we hope Gypsy will come away with something.

Chorus Girl
She'll be in the same class as Gypsy. Chorus Girl is another of our Highlander line animals. How she does depends on the competition and the taste of the judge, some think she's over-fleeced around the face. We'll see how it goes.

Hermia
Our Coonawarra Gladiator girl. Her pedigree reads like a who's who of Australian genetics. But, how can I put this? Just carrying the genes isn't enough. She's in the same class as Gypsy and Chorus Girl. She's probably just going for the ride.

Lulu
Older, half-sister to Gypsy. Lulu is our wildcard entry - we really haven't got a clue how she'll do. Fingers crossed.

Well, that's the team. We're not entering any fleeces for this one, it's a busy show year ahead and they get pulled apart so much by the judges that we want to save our potential show fleeces for for the big shows later in the year.

I'll let you know how it goes in a couple of weeks...

Perry

Rain Rain Rain!

2009-03-03T13:49:00.005+10:30

It's finally raining!

Now, I know this will mean very little to readers in Europe, but for us here at chez Prados, it's a major event. There have been a few little showers, but we've had no serious rain since August last year. The paddocks are almost dust bowls and the feed bill is going through the roof - our fussy alpacas are not that keen on the meadow hay we cut last year so we've had to buy in lucerne and wheaten for them.

It's all we can do not to run out and dance in the garden.

While we didn't quite do that, the temptation to take out the camera was too great.

Prados Friar Franc1s (Frankie)

Frankie's two months old now and has never experienced rain before - he really is as confused as he looks in the picture.

Nice weather for ducks

We don't use pesticides or other chemicals on our veggie plot, just alpaca poo as fertaliser and a pair of Indian Runner ducks for 24/7 slug and snail patrol.

Lysander

Is there anything in the world quite as pathetic as a wet Suri?

X-Rated Webcams

2009-03-03T12:51:00.003+10:30

Well, at the very least, that heading should drive up the traffic statistics on the blog...

'In the ~~spring~~ autumn a young ~~man's~~ alpaca's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.' No question, Tennyson was definitely writing for the Northern Hemisphere and he never gave a moment's thought to camelids.

Yes folks, it's mating time here at the Prados herd, hormones are ruling everything and the paddocks echo to the gentle sounds of 'orgling' boys.

Last weekend was the peak of activities with, at one point, each one of our four certified boys, Drifter, Choco, Iquique and Colin the super-suri, working at the same time (hence the images on the webcam)

Then on Sunday, it was down to Softfoot to introduce one of the girls to the amazing Softfoot Corroboree (http://www.softfoot.com.au/Pages/Corroboree.htm) - now there's a fleece to aim for.

We tend to like late summer-early autumn births here. Although, in the traditions of all best laid plans, it hasn't worked out that way so far...

Caramello (and a new author!)

2009-02-19T20:26:00.006+10:30

I thought I would have a go at writing for the blog this time as Perry hasn’t written for a while. I thought I would introduce you to Caramello she was the first alpaca to arrive at our property and remains our favourite.

Carmello

Caramello also won us our 1st ribbon (Strathalbyn show in 2007). She has since gone on to win two 2nd places in fleece competitions. She was beaten in to second place on each occasion by Chaparral Dimple (I know some of you who read this blog know Shorty and Dee from Chaparral) who usually then goes on to win supreme fleece so Caramello has some tough completion.

On the 10th February this year, she produced her first (and long awaited cria). Caramello took a long time to become pregnant in fact it was about 14months after the first attempt that she conceived, she even managed a phantom pregnancy along the way. So you can imagine how keen we were to see the safe delivery of her baby. So at 4.10pm on the 10th she started to deliver on her side nothing was going to change her mind on her position. By 4.50pm we had a black female cria with breathing difficulties and a Caramello who still wouldn’t move. This is the smallest cria we have had so far weighting in at just 6kg. So with the vet called and a cold cria we worked on getting her warm. I gave her some colostrum hoping this would warm her up.

Caramello's first cria

Now there is something I need to explain here. It was rather cool at about 19 degrees C and many of you will say that that is not cool let alone cold but something strange happens to the weather here. The 15-16 degree C seems freezing even when family and friends have visited from the UK they comment on how cold it gets yet would probably be wearing short sleeves in the UK.

Caramello beyond sniffing her little one did not want to know and the little one did not want to move. Greg our vet arrived at 5.30pm to check both mum and baby. Both were fine and we started bottle feeding every 1.5 hours until midnight and then again at 3am and luckily by 6am little one started to feed from mum when we went to feed her. We were really pleased as Greg had said that if feeding was not happening by 9am it would have had to be plasma and we didn’t want that. Greg questioned if this was a premature cria as her teeth hadn’t erupted in fact she was 6 days late. The next few days consisted of going over to Caramello regularly to get her to stand up so little one could feed. They have at last got their act together and Caramello is beginning to look her like old self. It is easy to see her cria in the paddock, not only is she still the smallest but she has yellow tape on her ears holding them in shape. I have to say we are hopeful that she may become a show girl as her fleece at this stage looks really promising.

Victorian disaster

2009-02-10T13:09:00.004+10:30

Serious post time...

I know most of the readers of this little blog are based in Europe but I'm sure that, at least through the bloodline of many of your animals, you know know a fair number of Australian breeders.

Many of them, some large and well known, most small, are in Victoria, in the middle of the worst bushfire that we've seen here.

At the time of writing this, there have been 173 confirmed fatalities and there are still 25 fires that haven't been controlled. Property, land and stock loss will be catastrophic. There are already stories hitting the newswires about small alpaca breeders who have lost some of their herds or pets.

Of the well known studs I know that Flowerdale and Canchones are OK at the moment but are still facing a threat. I've just heard that Jigaru are OK.

For those of you in Europe that use Mariah Hill, the Bunyip state park fire is close and property in the area has been lost. I understand that so far, they're OK but smoke will be a problem for them.

Coordinated efforts to help are being set up by breeders around the country offering shelter and food for animals and families.

You can follow the news at the ABC here

There's a live map of current fire areas here

And the Australian Alpaca Asn is posting offers of help and updates here

Our thoughts go out to those who have been affected and to those (mostly volunteers, including our own South Australian Alpaca Association president) who are fighting the fires.

Jumping on the video bandwagon

2009-02-07T12:13:00.005+10:30

Following on from the critical acclaim poured onto Paul's epic video on Debbie's blog a couple of weeks back I thought I'd have a go myself.

Well... Actually I didn't. I took the camera down to the paddock for today's arrival and set it to video by mistake. Once I'd started, it seemed like a good idea.

So... the mum is Compass Zahava. We purchased her as one of a group from Ambersun Alpacas in 2007. At the time she was carrying another of our Jolimont Warrior offspring (more about that little lad in a later post when he's done a few shows). She was mated last year to Waradene Dutch Chocolate and has just dropped this nice looking solid black boy (I hope it's not going to be a boy year!)

Jab time and going quiet

2009-02-03T21:17:00.004+10:30

Before long, we're going to have to invest in a gun to do the injections with. I'm not sure of the point at which it makes economic sense to throw away the syringes, but I think we must be close, I know the queue at jab time is getting longer and I think it's probably kinder to the animals - there's always at least one that jumps and bends the needle.

We routinely give ADE vitamins and 5 in 1 vaccination twice each year to each of our adults. The 5 in 1 is recommended primarily to protect against clostridial diseases and the twice yearly regime seems to be the average over here

First shift of patients waiting for the needle.

Well, That's the first month of blogging. It's been an interesting experience so far and finding out that there is a small but active alpaca blogging community out there has been a revelation - thank you all for your support and encouragement.

There are so many things that I want to write about, but posting frequency will probably reduce (but not stop!) over the next couple of months. It's study time - I'm currently working part-time on a masters, 8 weeks on, 8 weeks off, 20 hours per week during module time and the next module is just starting. That leaves very little time for anything else. But who knows? I may even be able to talk Sarah into the occasional post...

Bushfire Planning

2009-01-28T22:28:00.004+10:30

Even though I live in Australia. Even though these days I think of myself as an Australian who was born a long way from home rather than a Brit who has chosen to live here, I reserve the inalienable right of all of those who hail from the mother country to whinge about the weather.

44.6 it peaked at here at the farm today (the regional forecast was for a max of 42). My office here peaked at 49. Even the pool is nudging its way above 30. Tomorrow, the forecast is for 47 degrees, that's 117F in old money. The herd is beginning to suffer a bit, we have plenty of shade and plenty of water but you have to feel sorry for them, particularly the suris who are carrying fleece. Nobody around here can remember conditions like these.

That brings me to the subject of this entry. We can't ignore it - the bushfire risk this season is the highest it's been for a very long time.

It came close two years ago - the Mount Bold bushfire was not huge by Australian standards, but it burnt out over 2000 hectares and it was much too close for comfort and, as you can see, the fields were still green then - they're dried out and brown today
.

The 2007 Mt Bold fire from Prados Alpacas

Of course, the Prados herd was much smaller then - we just had our first two animals so it was easy to safely shed them in my workshop.

Chelsea and Caramello improving their woodwork skills.

We couldn't do that with the 40 animals we have today and the sheds in the paddocks are too exposed.

So it's time to revisit our fire planning.

First make sure that we're safe.

Clear dry vegetation and anything combustible around the house
Clear the roof and gutters of leaves and other debris
Make sure we have downpipe plugs available (to fill gutters with water - more homes are lost through embers getting into roof spaces than as a result of the fire front itself)
Test the backpack sprayer for spotfires
Finally - open the wallet - This year, it's time to invest in proper fire pump and hoses - can't rely on electricity supplies in a fire.

Next the animals.
The layout of the farm, the distance from wooded areas and the lack of fuel in the paddocks means that we are low risk for lasting fire. If we get one, it should flash through fairly quickly. This means that the main priority is to provide escape routes.

Looks like the best thing we can do is open all the gates and make sure there are at least two exit points from each paddock. We may get some unplanned matings, but that's a small price to pay.

It's going to be an interesting few months.

Unwanted showers!

2009-01-26T11:11:00.004+10:30

Whenever you go to a show, whenever someone new to alpacas asks questions, you know that it's only a matter of time before the spit question comes up.

My answer is generally the same - one of the most appealing things about our animals is that they all have their own individual characters - a bit like people. Most are normal - they'll only react if provoked. Some live in world of zen tranquility (we have quite a few of those) and never spit. But, just occasionally, you get a street-fighter with a short fuse and a bad attitude.

Meet Kirri...

Kirri loading up for another shot..

We brought Kirri last year, a nice animal in her own right, pregnant to Jolimont Warrior. She duly gave us our last cria of 2008, 'Summer's Dream', on Christmas Eve.

"My mum's tougher than your mum!"

So today was the day to move mum and daughter out of the maternity paddock to rejoin the main herd. I suppose I asked for it - taking her baby and interrupting her breakfast - turn and fire! A facefull (and mouthfull) of half-digested hay had me spluttering, retching and racing for a tap. Two hours later, a couple of washes and a shower and I can still smell it on me.

But, got to show them who's boss. Success on second attempt (at least as far as I was concerned, this time it was Sarah who received the blessing).

Checking out the new arrival

She's happy as anything now - loves being centre of attention. I doubt that I'll ever get tired of watching the way that a new arrival is fussed over and thoroughly checked out when they join the herd.

Signature range

2009-01-22T22:06:00.007+10:30

In Debbie's alpaca blog the other day, Debbie mentioned the advantage of being able to show a buyer of alpaca products the animal that the fleece came from.

I couldn't agree more, so I thought I'd share our approach:

We've found this to be a very popular idea with customers - they just love being able to associate the product with a specific alpaca.

On the naming of Alpacas

2009-01-22T21:37:00.000+10:30

How do you choose the names for your alpacas?

Most of the breeders we know have different naming schemes - there are a couple who simply start each year with a new letter of the alphabet, another one used the first names of members of his extended family (which is why we go to shows with a broad ribbon winner called Colin...).

We thought we were being so clever... We went for characters from Shakespeare's plays. 2007 was The Tempest (mistake number 1 - it's my favourite play and we only had one cria on the farm in our first year - Prospero), 2008 was Midsummer night's dream - Cobweb, Titania, Puck, Mustardseed, Lysander and on Christmas Eve - 'Summer's Dream'.

So, with 10 due this year and the first one on the ground it's time to choose the the play for 2009. At the moment it looks like Much ado about nothing - yesterday's fluffy little thing definitely looks like a Friar Francis (Frankie to his friends).

Which brings me to mistake number 2 - there are over 2000 names in Shakespeare, more than enough for us. Trouble is that most of them are male...

First of 2009

2009-01-21T19:34:00.004+10:30

Well, I posted over a week ago now that we were expecting our first baby of the year any moment. It turned out that it was just one of those alpaca false alarms. We expect them, but still they catch us out. Some girls just seem to like to have a rehearsal 10 days or so before the event.

So, born at about 10:30 this morning at a chunky 8.3 kilos is the result of our little breeding experiment.

If you read the earlier blog entry you'll remember that Juno, the mum, is a pet rather than part of our breeding program. On the one hand, she's cute and affectionate, on the other, while she's classified as black under our regulations because her saddle is solid black, she has a white face and socks, odd patches of brown and even a small circle of slate-grey on her neck. The only way to get any crimp in her fleece would be to plug her into the mains. I half expected any offspring to have a hump...

So...

Some time ago we did some work for a South Australian suri breeder. Payment was a mating to one of their animals. Mundawora Zarion is a stunning alpaca. he's won a huge number of broad ribbons and the trophy cabinet is overflowing.

In for a penny, in for a pound as they say...

What we have today is positive proof that, when it comes to matings - you get what you pay for. Here we have probably one of the poorest quality females in the country, yet, to an outstanding sire, she's produced what is really a quite good, dark fawn F1 suri.

He's a great colour and is beginning to pencil nicely. Unfortunately of course, as an F1 male, he's destined to be a pet for some lucky owner, but at the moment we're more than happy with the result.

LaViande and the question of meat...

2009-01-20T10:36:00.004+10:30

Controversial subject warning...

I wrote this last week but have been in two minds about whether or not to post it because, if there is one subject that is guaranteed to polarise alpaca farmers, it's the subject of selling our animals for slaughter.

Personally, it's not something that I can see us ever doing here at Prados.

Of course, they've been eating alpaca in South America for thousands of years but here in Australia, the sums involved are only just starting to make sense.

Females are definitely off the menu for the foreseeable future, their value alive far exceeds what they could reach for food. It's the males that are the issue. Trouble is that there is only a finite market for pets and guardians and, as the Australian herd grows into a viable industry, it's a question we have to face - only a tiny number of males produced will go on to be certified for stud work but there aren't enough yet to have a commercially viable fleece-only industry. In a commercial breeding program, what happens to the rest?

The people at LaViande are quite sure of what the answer is - commercial fleece, meat and hide as a combined industry. WARNING - Many small breeders I know find some of the images on their website, particularly those in the brochure showing cuts of meat to be uncomfortable viewing - you have been warned!

I have tried it, Steve from LaViande came to our last regional AGM and provided steaks and sausages.

Now, I'm an unapologetic carnivore and I can understand the commercial imperative that is leading our industry down this path but, I have to say, apart from the queasiness about the idea of eating animals that we are still small enough to know by name and character, I have to say that I was unimpressed - the simple fact is that, on the plate, it's quite bland. The bottom line is that there is much tastier meat available which is much cheaper to produce - currently I remain unconvinced.

My own opinion is that it will happen, it will become part of the industry. Here in Adelaide alpaca is already served at the Hilton and I know of one butcher in the hills that stocks it from time to time. But I think that there will be, at least for the foreseeable future, a split in the industry based on size of breeder. Pets and guardians sell at a higher market price per head than as food but they carry a much higher overhead to the breeder in terms of sales and after-sales support for the new owner. I think the meat industry will appeal far more to the biggest breeders who can produce larger numbers of stock animals and don't necessarily want to take the late night phone calls because little Susie's pet alpaca is off its feed. Smaller breeders who are more suited to the personal touch should then be better positioned to satisfy the needs of the lower volume market.

Hope I haven't put anyone off with this post. I know this an issue that is only really relevant in Australia at the moment as we pass the million animal count, but it will inevitably follow in other countries as well as the various national herd sizes increase.

Mad dogs and ex-pat Englishmen...

2009-01-19T09:21:00.001+10:30

Running a small farm means that you never have nothing to do. There is never a time when there aren't several jobs that need to be attended to. Many of these are essential maintenance or are related to the care of the animals but then, in a class of its own, comes fencing...

I can't remember a time when there wasn't fencing that needed to done, nor can I imagine a time in the future when there won't be still more that needs to be done. Maybe it's one of the basic physical laws of the universe, probably something to do with quantum - most things are these days.

Anyway, this weekend saw the start of another fencing project as the advancing army of Alpacadom annexes another part of the garden. It's a sensible idea - we're going to make a small area next to the house into a hospital and show paddock. Somewhere to keep clear of debris, clover and other nasties where we can put animals that need a close eye kept on them and where we can put the show team for a week prior to a show to try to minimise the rubbish in their fleeces.

So, Saturday morning comes along and the post hole borer won't start (let this be a lesson for me about buying cheap kit from EBay - it may be a third of the price, but it's a third of the price because it's a quarter of the quality of a decent make). After an hour of mixed and creative tinkering and swearing, the inevitable defeat is conceded and it's off to the hire shop where we were introduced to the Stihl BT360 two-man earth-auger. What a monster! It takes two people to lift it, let alone use it.

Then it's time to discover another failure in planning - there's a good reason why people round here don't do much heavy work on the land during summer - we're on clay - you know what happens to clay when it gets baked...

So, after two days of (very) hard labour, we have the posts in, but no gates or fencing yet and everything aches, creaks or is sunburned. It's almost good to get back to the day job.

Weather... Again.

2009-01-14T19:22:00.005+10:30

It's probably bad blogging form to talk about the same subject in two consecutive posts.

It's been considerably cooler today having just crept above 30 degrees - hardly news at all here, but it's still a bit on the warm side for the animals and it gives me an excuse (as if I needed one) to nip out with the camera and post some pictures...

Arequipa Colin (I will get around to doing a post about his name) making the most of the irrigation

Prados Lysander trying to ruin his fleece before show season starts

You'd think that we put the irrigation system in for their benefit! It never ceases to amaze me how much animals, whose natural home is in the high country of South America, where water is not in really that much in abundance, love the stuff.

But for some, it's all too much like hard work and the only thing to do in the heat is flop down and catch some rays...

Ambersun Iquique working on his tan

2009-01-13T20:32:00.003+10:30

January 13th and we’re hitting 40 degrees already! I know most of the people reading this are in the UK or in the north east of the USA so would probably welcome a couple of hot days – but, believe me, I’d give a lot for a week of rain...

Looks like we’ll be supplementary feeding before long, luckily we were able to cut a lot of hay back in the spring.

Choco, one of our boys cooling down in an irrigation spray

Quality Time

2009-01-11T22:12:00.004+10:30

Quality time with the animals is something that is getting more and more difficult to achieve these days. With a fulltime job and a growing herd there’s always something that needs to be done. But it was a lovely afternoon today, it’s a great time of year here, it’s warm, but not yet the blistering heat of February, so, in-between jobs and for the first time in weeks, I found an hour to just sit with some of the girls.

Last week, I went out on a boat to go swimming with some of our local dolphins. I mention this because it occurred to me afterwards that the approach that is taken these days with wild dolphins is exactly the same as the way that I like to relax with the alpacas. The boat approaches a pod without intruding, swimmers get into the water and from that point it’s up to the dolphins. If they want to go off and feed or do their own thing then that’s their choice, but they’re curious creatures and more often than not they will come over to check us out and sometimes will stay to play.

I like to work the same way with the alpacas, going to the paddock and just sitting down close to a group of animals and letting them decide whether or not to visit. Usually they do, after a few minutes, the first ones saunter casually over to see if I’ve got any lucerne or grapes. They’re soon joined by more and we go through the ritual of ‘alpaca kisses’ the gentle nuzzling and sniffing that is such an important part of alpaca socialisation. After a while most will wander off, but not too far, while others settle down in the grass nearby.

And then there’s Madison...

Maddy isn’t like any other alpaca I’ve seen. I always go to great lengths to tell new owners who want pets that alpacas are wonderful but they’re not pets in the same way as cats or dogs are – they know their regular humans, but they’re not going to climb up onto your lap for a fuss. But, then there’s Madison – the exception that proves the rule I suppose. 10 minutes after sitting down she’s there, sitting next to you with her head in your lap or on your shoulder demanding a neck rub. Soft as anything, but good therapy all-round.

Mustardseed's story

2009-01-10T21:36:00.006+10:30

Mustardseed was born in May 2008, a little later in the year than we like as winter is beginning to show its face and we like to have the youngsters well and truly established before the bad stuff starts in July.

From day one it was clear that she was a bit special, medium fawn with one of those shiny, almost ‘glow in the dark’ fleeces that promise so much on a cria (even if they don’t always deliver).

She did well through to the beginning of August when we had some bad weather (yes, it does happen in Australia!). Alpacas are hardy critters, but a combination of cold, rain and wind can really challenge them when they’re young.

In the second week of August she was clearly having a bad time of it; we coated her, gave her some b1, and had to bring her indoors a couple of times to warm her up.

Finally, on the 14th I found her in the maternity paddock where we were keeping her (lots of shelter and close to the house) on her side with her neck thrown back in obvious distress. We warmed her up again but she was clearly in trouble and couldn’t put any weight on one of her back legs – time to call the vet.

The vet couldn’t see anything wrong but agreed that there was a problem somewhere. He gave her a painkiller (Flunixil), antibiotic (Rilexine) and more b complex to try to cover the all bases with the instruction to keep her warm and bring her back the next day if there was no improvement.

We took her back and after a series of x-rays they found that she’d broken her hip. This is one of the things that new breeders have to come terms with – Alpacas are tough. Generally, that’s a good thing, but it means that often they only have two states, healthy and near-death and the transition can be very abrupt.

Luckily, our vet is a camelid specialist, rather than difficult surgery or putting her down as some would have done, he recommended that we do absolutely nothing... That we put her and her mum somewhere warm and comfortable, with minimum opportunity for movement and see what happens. So, for the next couple of months we had two alpacas living in a tent on the lawn outside the house.

I’m delighted to say it worked. Recovery was slow but steady. We even managed to shear her in October, although we did bring in a professional rather than doing her ourselves to minimise stress. She’s now back in the herd and has done so well that she will be in our show team for the first show of the year in March.

The joy (or otherwise) of spinning.

2009-01-09T13:43:00.004+10:30

Alpaca is fantastic fibre for spinning; it lacks the natural oils of sheep’s wool, so some say that it’s more difficult to learn on, but once you have the knack it’s far nicer to work with. I like to spin straight from raw fleece, no washing or carding, just pull it apart a bit, shake out the worst of the dirt and vegetable matter and start work – I wash the yarn once it’s made up into skeins. I have tried having some fleeces professionally prepared into rovings and true, they are easier to work with (and a lot cleaner) but the cost far exceeds the benefits.

But I do have one big problem – the one of ‘image’. You see, it's not normally something that you associate with a 110 kilo, ex-rugby player… People come around to visit, they see the spinning wheel and automatically assume that it's my wife's. When she tells them that I'm the spinner, well, you can see the confusion on their faces - men just don't do that!

But they just don't understand. After all, in the evening, I'm not really just sitting on my fat backside, watching TV and drinking beer - I'm working!

Oh, and the wheel? It's my second one, an Ashford with some extra attachments that was an exchange for a trailer-load of alpaca dung - there's gold in them poo piles!

Webcam upgrade

2009-01-08T13:14:00.005+10:30

Near the top of the to-do list is major revamp of the farm website. It’s looking a bit tired and it’s a pain to maintain. It’s the old 80-20 rule - 80% of the work on the new site is complete, but the last 20% is taking 80% of the time.

One of the time-consuming jobs has been to improve the webcam. It’s been 'sort of' running on the old site for months (www.prados.com.au), but it’s been less than reliable. A couple of weeks ago I finally got around to ripping out all the old Windows based camera software and putting in something a bit more flexible and reliable. For anyone with a techie interest it’s now running on an old desktop pc that was being thrown out at work using Zoneminder under Ubuntu Linux and a cheap Chinese capture card. Bottom line is that so far, so good. It’s been rock-solid and the quality is quite acceptable. Most importantly I have a live camera feed into the maternity paddock that I can view on my mobile phone – I love it when technology just works.

Waiting waiting waiting...

2009-01-07T13:09:00.004+10:30

The first cria of the New Year should arrive any time now. It shouldn’t really be for another two weeks, but she looks ready to pop. I suppose that’s one of the things that make the difference between a small breeder and a large one – for the smaller breeder, each birth is eagerly anticipated and fretted over, you make sure someone can check on the animal every few hours and when it happens it’s a significant event.

And this is going to be an interesting one. Juno is a strange beast – more a pet than part of our breeding program. We picked her up from a farm where she had been purchased as sheep guard/pet but hadn’t really worked out for them. She’d not been mistreated at all, but she wasn’t in great condition either. Our intention was really just to give her a caring home and use her as a companion for any animals that had to be separated from the main herd. From a breeding point of view I couldn’t even begin to list the things that are wrong with her but, female alpacas really don’t like not being pregnant or having a youngster to fuss over so last year we tried an experiment. Although her lineage is solidly huacaya, she does have some suri characteristics and her fleece is, while far from being show quality, a real pleasure to work with. So, we mated her with a really good champion suri and are eagerly awaiting the outcome – it won’t be a show animal, but it should make someone a wonderful pet.

Looking back

2009-01-05T15:46:00.001+10:30

It’s been an interesting second year in the alpaca world for us. Starting with a ‘hobby mob’ of nine animals at the end of 2007, we’ve more than quadrupled the herd – 38 alpacas, four of them certified males, with more on the way in 2009!

The biggest event was being joined by our son, James, who has also been bitten by the bug and is building up his own ‘Kobler Alpacas’ herd on our farm while he finds a place of his own.

We’ve had a good year at the shows, with a respectable haul of ribbons from our first Royal Adelaide. The highpoint though came from an unexpected place – we did our first interstate show this year, taking three of the boys down to the Ballarat Sheep and Wool show in Victoria where Colin (more about that name in later post…) our suri stud male, came away with a reserve champion ribbon and medal. It took weeks to wipe the grins off our faces!

There have been some tough times as well. The year started with a very difficult birth, we thought for a while that we were going to have our first fatality – possibly a double one as both mother and cria had a hard time of it. But thanks to some help from other breeders who had seen similar problems before, both made it through and made full recoveries. In October we purchased a female alpaca at auction, although we (and other breeders) inspected her and found nothing wrong at the time, we found shortly after that the poor girl had mange and a fungal skin infection – four weeks of isolation, daily treatment, a huge vet bill and lots of TLC though and she’s back with the herd as right as rain. Finally, the odd weather we had over the last couple of months has resulted in our first case of staggers, again treated and full recovery but still a worry at the time.

Here we go again....

2009-01-05T14:50:00.000+10:30

So ends 2008 and a new year begins...

I've tried this blogging lark before but, despite the best intentions I always find myself running out of enthusiasm after something like the third or fourth post, there always seems to be something so more interesting or important to do. After all, why sit at a keyboard typing when there's a paddock full of alpacas outside who would much rather I sat with them (as long a I bring a bunch of grapes and a beer with me to share).

So, here goes. We'll see if I have the patience to keep things going a bit longer this time.

The idea is to share some of the highs and lows (very few lows so far) of running a small alpaca farm in the Adelaide Hills in South Australia with anyone who is interested.

Let's see how it goes...