Well no matter the weather you have to keep up on heard health as we found out yesterday. We had to walk, dig and clean up around lots of very soft ground as part of our 6 week herd health weekend.
All turned out well though as we managed to get all the boys weight, wormed and a short walk around with the girls. Wow are they good for the girls!
I think I'm going to work with my brother in law on creating a top for on top of my scale though. The one that came with mine is a bit small for our largest boy. The smooth surface is horrible too.
Anyway, all well except the muddy/dirty legs of our alpacas!
Monday, January 25, 2010
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
The great alpacas search!
Well, for us it's a great search with many rules and things to follow. There are lots of questions to ask when doing this probably for every person at every farm. for us as non-breeders and male only it may be a little simpler but it does not appear to be much.
So our questions we are mulling through include do we venture into any suri alpacas? How much room do we have and how will it limit any future purchases? What are we willing to pay? Should we venture into colors since we have all white now? How do we make sure we have companions and the right group sizes to put the boys in? How much will the additions add to our costs for food and medications? How far are we willing to travel to get our new boys?
Well that seems like enough for us to mull over for now. We are debating the addtion of 2 or 3. We have 1 likely candidate and then 4 others we are reviewing closely. We'll keep you posted as we progress through the process.
So our questions we are mulling through include do we venture into any suri alpacas? How much room do we have and how will it limit any future purchases? What are we willing to pay? Should we venture into colors since we have all white now? How do we make sure we have companions and the right group sizes to put the boys in? How much will the additions add to our costs for food and medications? How far are we willing to travel to get our new boys?
Well that seems like enough for us to mull over for now. We are debating the addtion of 2 or 3. We have 1 likely candidate and then 4 others we are reviewing closely. We'll keep you posted as we progress through the process.
Friday, January 8, 2010
The holiday is over!
Well it really never was a holiday with farm animals I guess. It was a good holiday season. Our boys got some new toys a bag of grain and a fairly fresh cut batch of hay. They do not complain much that is for sure.
The snow has not seemed to bother them to much except for the waste pile. They do not seem to like that white stuff on the ground so they have taken to using the barn which I am not very happy about at all. We are doing our best to clean it out a couple times a day and keep down fresh straw but it's a real struggle.
I have also found that I made a bit of a judgement call error when putting in gates. I put them together perfectly and very well cut to fit but this turns out to be a problem when the weather changes. The front gate is now hard to open and shut right due to snow and the inner gates are not opening all the way due to changing in the ground shape or possibly wood swell. Nothing that can't be fixed.
Our good news is that we've had a couple little breaks and might be able to add a couple boys this year. I hope to purchase the much needed equipment to add gutters to the barn as well as some new ground tiles. We also well be adding another new fenced pen and internal pen this year. We will likely talk about how to go about this so we like it though. My original thoughts are not postively going to stay the same after a year of working with it as we have it.
The snow has not seemed to bother them to much except for the waste pile. They do not seem to like that white stuff on the ground so they have taken to using the barn which I am not very happy about at all. We are doing our best to clean it out a couple times a day and keep down fresh straw but it's a real struggle.
I have also found that I made a bit of a judgement call error when putting in gates. I put them together perfectly and very well cut to fit but this turns out to be a problem when the weather changes. The front gate is now hard to open and shut right due to snow and the inner gates are not opening all the way due to changing in the ground shape or possibly wood swell. Nothing that can't be fixed.
Our good news is that we've had a couple little breaks and might be able to add a couple boys this year. I hope to purchase the much needed equipment to add gutters to the barn as well as some new ground tiles. We also well be adding another new fenced pen and internal pen this year. We will likely talk about how to go about this so we like it though. My original thoughts are not postively going to stay the same after a year of working with it as we have it.
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