Counting eggs–before they hatch

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

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

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

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

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

One of those rare things – a video blog!

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

Unsung heroes…

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.