Ashton Stone Alpacas

Marketing Seminar: Sell Alpacas in this Tough Economy

2011-10-14T07:23:00.000-07:00

Eliza and Her Alpaca Friend

2011-10-05T14:13:00.000-07:00

Okay....also not really alpaca related, but still fun! Watch Eliza grow in comparison to her Alpaca Friend...

12 Months Old
Happy 1st Birthday Eliza Darcine!

11 Months Old

10 Months Old

9 Months Old

8 Months Old

7 Months Old

6 Months Old

5 Month Old

4 Months Old

3 Months Old

2 Months Old

1 Month Old

Newborn

Farm Open House!

2011-09-20T09:18:00.000-07:00

Join us for our annual farm open house this Saturday, September 24, 2011 from 9am until 5pm. We invite you to visit our farm, meet the alpacas, learn how to spin fiber, check out our awesome alpaca products and to enjoy some donuts and fresh apple cider! We look forward to seeing you there!

Our address is 2345 W. 112th St., Grant, MI 49327

If you have any questions, feel free to email us at alpacas@ashtonstone.net

Rest in Fleece: Woolen Coffins Offer Green Goodbye

2011-04-07T13:37:00.000-07:00

Check out this great article about a wool mill in England who has created "green" environmentally friendly caskets out of sheeps' wool to help the shrinking textile industry survive and thrive. Hmmmm......I think there is something to this. I wouldn't mind being buried in a nice snuggly warm alpaca casket some day. Fellow alpaca breeders....a possible new niche for our luxurious fiber! Read the full article by following this link:

Rest in Fleece: Woolen Coffins Offer Green Goodbye

Halter Training

2011-02-22T08:40:00.000-08:00

We have five 2010 cria who are currently being weaned and need to be halter trained. Last weekend, Eliza bundled up and helped me start halter training Alchemy Jr. and Alpacula. Alchemy was a bottle baby and acts more like a dog, so I am pretty sure he would follow us even if he wasn't on halter. Alpacula was very resistant at first, but quickly fell into step with Alchemy. We walked them around the yard for a half hour. The first training lesson went very well!

Herd Health and Farm Chores

2011-02-21T11:54:00.000-08:00

Over the weekend before the weather took a turn for the worst, we spent lots of hours in the barn doing herd health and general maintenance. We got a big thaw and of the snow on our farm recently melted. It was also relatively “warm” this weekend, so we brought our 4 ½ month old baby Eliza out to the barn for her first lesson in farm life. We bundled her up in several layers of clothes, blankets, hat and fur boots and snuggled her into her stroller. The first time we went out to the barn was Friday night. We did a blood draw on our suri Otto because I recently realized that he has not had his BVDV test completed yet and needs it in order to go to show in 3 weeks. I called our vet on Friday to see if we could get him in, but we were told that our vet is the only one in the practice that does camelid blood draws. The vet was pretty booked, but was in Ravenna that day (which isn’t far from us). I asked how much it would be to stop at our farm to just draw the blood….well they wanted to charge us $74 for stopping over to our farm, plus $8 for a blood draw, plus $25 for a BVD test. I hate to complain, but I decided we would just draw the blood ourselves for free and then mail it into ARI (the alpaca registry) who will complete the test for $25. I mailed the sample out Saturday and called today. They informed me that it should take 10 days to process, so we should be set before show. Anyway, after drawing blood, we gave all of our 2010 cria and a few of our yearlings Vitamin AD injections and CD&T booster injections. I wanted to keep working, but Noah was tired and had to work early the next day, so we called it quits. Eliza did pretty good. She fussed a little bit when we were drawing the blood and then fell right to sleep for the rest of the time. Below is a picture of Eliza sitting in her carseat in her radio flyer wagon in the house getting ready to go outside. She decided Glowworm (who is her favorite toy) should go outside with us too.
On Sunday, we decided to attempt farm chores again. Noah finally has 2 days off a week now, so we try to get as much as we can done when we are both home on Sundays. As soon as Eliza went down for her first nap, we bundled up and took the video monitor out to the barn. She slept for about 45 minutes and then started fussing, so I went into the house and got her, bundled her up in her stroller again and brought her outside. We got a lot done on Sunday and Eliza seemed to enjoy watching us from her stroller. We weighed body scored the 2010 cria. We moved all the cria into the hay barn for weaning with the exception of Truxton who was limping slightly. We checked out his front leg and there didn’t appear to be anything wrong with it that we could determine from a physical exam. He most likely injured it running out in the pasture on the icy snow. While the alpacas normally stay in the barn all winter, they have been out in the pasture the last few days because most of the snow has finally melted and there were some patches of “green.” Anyway, we decided to leave him with his mommy until his leg improves; I didn’t want to add any extra stress to him. We also body condition scored all of the adults to determine who is fat, skinny and just right. Most of the lactating females were a little on the skinny side so we will up their grain intake and hopefully weaning their cria will help. We also gave all the adult Vitamin ADEB12 paste which is especially important in the winter with the lack of sunshine. We behavior tested the pregnant females and I am happy to report that all 8 of them spit off so we should have 8 little cria (6 of our own and 2 boarders) this year. We also fed and watered all of the alpacas, chickens, ducks and barn kitty. While Noah got hay down from the hay loft and cleaned the poop out of the stalls and put fresh stray down, Eliza and I started halter training the cria, but more on that in another post. After barn chores, Noah brought a bunch of wood into the house for our furnace. Lastly, I updated our herd health book and white board in the barn to reflect all our hard work.

2011 Farm To Do List

2011-02-10T13:32:00.000-08:00

At the beginning of each year, Noah and I usually sit down and make a to do list for our home, farm and life in general for the rest of the year. We also revisit our checklist from the year before and have fun checking everything off that we completed. Of course we never complete everything, but it is nice to feel like we accomplished something. While we got a lot done on our farm last year, our largest project by far was building our new hay barn. It consumed pretty much the whole year since Noah built the entire thing by himself. It is not completely finished yet, but when it is, I plan to add a whole entry devoted to it. I thought I would share our to do list for 2011. I have left off our personal goals and things that need to be done to our house since this is primarily a farm blog. This is the list in no particular order:

· Install new driveway gate and gate to hay field
· Finish batten in hay barn
· Finish running electric outside
· Cut, split and stack wood
· Finish inside of hay barn including stalls, heated room, medical cove, ladder, and chute
· Clean and organize barns
· Clean and organize garage and grain loft
· Complete Herd Health Monthly
· Update Alpaca Nation and Open Herd Websites
· Get fiber tested
· Add some new chickens and geese to the farm (Noah is not on board with this one yet, but I am working on him)
· Watch our cria be born and re-breed females for next year
· Continuing learning and practicing how to spin fiber into yarn
· Learn and complete some new alpaca fiber craft projects
· Build driveway to hay field
· Organize 2010 alpaca expenses and mileage and complete taxes
· Create alpaca financial spreadsheets
· Rake and weed flower beds
· Landscape around Alpaca Farm sign
· Harvest Hay/Sell Hay/Store Hay
· Sell more products created from alpaca fiber
· Bring alpacas to 4-6 shows
· Advertise more and sell alpacas
· Farm Open House
· Shearing (including Noah shearing more of our own alpacas)
· Build new alpaca hay feeders
· Purchase sprayer
· Purchase hay elevator
· Re-seed pastures
· Plant trees in fields
· Halter train
· Add new pasture and gates
· Attend educational seminars
· Learn to do our own fecal tests
· Continue involvement in MI-ALPACA on the Board of Directors and through Committees
· Attend a few SWMAA Meetings

Will all of this get done in 2011??? I sure hope so. Now all we need is for this snow to go away, so we can get started!

The 2011 Groundhog's Day Dump

2011-02-09T07:48:00.000-08:00

Last Wednesday which happened to be Groundhogs Day, we had a serious snow storm here in Michigan. Pretty much everything shut down that day, including my agency that I work for. The storm started the night before with high speed winds and major snow. Noah spent the night in Rockford near the ski area where he works so he wouldn't have to drive the hour to work in the storm the next day. I was worried about the alpacas since it was so cold and windy and even thundering and lightening (which I have never experienced in the winter before), so I was bundled up and out in the barn at midnight to move alpacas around and plug up any cracks in the barn with hay and hay bales since it was blowing through even the tiniest cracks. My mom was staying with me that night and was worried I was going to get lost out in the snowstorm (which was not likely since our entire yard is fenced in). We joked about tying a rope from the house to the barn like they did in one of the classic Little House on the Prairie television episodes where they got a nasty snowstorm with white out conditions. They tied a rope from their house to the barn so they could hold onto it when going back and forth without getting lost in the white out. Here is a view of our house from the road.

In our hay barn, we keep all of our boys. I was worried about the direction the wind was blowing because it was coming in at a strange angle, right through their stall doors and the snow was already so deep that I couldn't get their stall doors closed. Therefore I moved the little boys into our fat camp in the large barn (where all our fat girls live) and moved the fat girls in with our nursing/pregnant skinny girls. I am sure glad I did because the inside of the hay barn was covered in several inches of snow the next morning. The only section that stayed clear was half of the large boys stall because it was far enough from the open doors that the snow did not reach that corner. In the picture below, you can just barely see the big boys in the right corner. We are going to have some major cleaning to do in this barn in the spring.

Don't get me wrong, alpacas tend to be pretty hardy animals and do pretty well in the cold and snow. But I always worry about our skinny girls, our older alpacas, our suris and sometime our cria as they are more vulnerable. I can't explain it, but it always seems like the ones who are more susceptible to cold, are the ones who are more likely to be laying right where the draft comes in (maybe because they are at the bottom of the pecking order and all the good spots are taken). When I got into the big barn that night, Bellesa and Paisley, our 2 that seem most affected by the cold, were sitting right where the door kept flapping open and were covered in snow. We have coats on these two girls as I will often catch them shivering. Luckily I was able to get the girls stall doors shut and the alpacas completely out of the elements. I would like to think that they would be smart enough to get out of the elements themselves if they were cold, but I think that their herd instinct is so strong, they will just go along with the alpha herd leaders (who in my experience are often the hardiest of the alpacas) and expose themselves to the elements along with everyone else. The strong herd leaders are able to weather the storm fine, but the weaker animals that follow them like the skinny ones or crias will follow along and don't do as well in the harsh elements. I don't always lock the alpacas in, only when it is extremely cold and windy, and that night it got to negative fourteen degrees on our farm with a major windchill. Also, by locking them in, it locks in all the body heat. With roughly 20 alpacas in that barn, I believe it stays considerably warmer in the winter. In addition, when temps are low, we always make sure to put out lots of hay because alpacas burn more calories to keep themselves warm plus the digesting of hay produces heat and keeps them warm. The colder the temps get, the more hay I put out. We try not to ever let their hay feeders get empty in the winter.

The fat girls and the skinny girls all hanging out together around one of the hay boxes keeping warm.

There were major drifts everywhere on our farm including in the barns where the snow blew through cracks all night. Noah came home Wednesday evening and fired up the tractor and spent a few hours digging our farm out of the snow. Here are some pictures he took the next day after everything was cleared.

The "Girl Barn" is on the left and the "Boy Barn" is on the right. Luckily, Wednesday night, Noah plowed a path out to the barns and dug out the doors. Wednesday morning, I had to jump over fences and sneak in through side doors just to get into the barns.

The snow is piling up outside the barn doors.

Catch pen full of snow. It is hard to see in the picture, but the snow is more than half way up our 5 foot fence and almost completely covering our 4 foot panels. The gates are impossible to open and close.

The inside of the girls barn. Notice the snow drifts at the far end. There is just a tiny crack under those end doors and all that snow came in and piled up overnight!

As much as I tried to block off the cracks, all this snow still managed to come in over night in the stall that the chickens and ducks hang out in in the winter.

The trusty tractor that dug us out. Every time Noah uses it, he says it is the best purchase we ever made for our farm.

Our driveway and entrance to the farm.

Our side yard and hay field beyond. We unfortunately did not get any pictures of our dogs Roz and Lola out in the snow, but you can see some of their tracks here. You know the snow is deep when your 3 1/2 foot high Great Danes have a hard time getting through it and jump through the snow like bunny rabbits.

Snow on what's left of our wood pile. We go through about 2-3 times this much wood to heat our house per year.

Our other side yard full of snow and dog tracks.

Our house buried in pine trees and snow.

The mailbox.

A massive icicle on the outside of our house....this can't be good for our house.

More icicles.

The snow was several feet deep near the road. The snow was piled up so high that it covered the first couple of rungs on our fence in the front yard. I was worried the dogs were going to just jump right over the fence.

The snow day made me wish I was a kid again....or that Eliza was big enough to go outside and play. With all the snow, there were endless possibilities for sledding, climbing snow mountains and building snow forts on our farm.

On one last note, since it is Groundhogs Day (or at least it was when we got the snowstorm), I should report that the famous Groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, did not see his shadow so spring will come early this year. I sure hope Phil is right because I am not ready for any more nasty snowstorms like the Groundhog's Day Dump or as it was also referred to, the Snowpocalypse and Snowmageddon of 2011. Unfortunately, Phil only tends to be right 39 % of the time. Happy Groundhogs Day everyone!

Whole Herd Care and Monitoring Seminar

2011-02-08T07:25:00.000-08:00

Last weekend, Noah and I attended a Whole Herd Care and Monitoring Seminar put on by MI-ALPACA at the Michigan State School of Veterinary Medicine in East Lansing. The main presenter was Dr. Pam Walker, DVM, MS, DACVIM, Professor at Ohio State University and farm veterinarian for Alpaca Jack’s Suri Farm in Findlay, OH. Dr. Walker’s seminar covered:

Differential Diagnosis of Diarrhea in Camelid Crias Gastrointestinal Parasites in Camelids How to Know When Your Camelid Is Sick Neurologic Problems in Camelids Medications for Camelids Care of Pregnant Dam to Birth Then Taking Care of the Cria! Biosecurity Measures in Shows and Breeding Herds

Also, Dr. Judy Marteniuk, DVM, MS large animal vet and professor for Michigan State University presented a lecture on Generally Accepted Agricultural & Management Practices.

Noah and I really enjoyed Dr. Walker’s lecture and feel as though we took away a lot of useful information. We also received a helpful book with chapters on each of the topics presented which will really come in handy on our farm. While there were some veterinarians and vet students in attendance at the seminar, it was really tailored for alpaca farmers. Dr. Walker was easy to understand and interesting to listen too. In addition to teaching at Michigan State University and Ohio State University, she has worked for Alpaca Jacks, who has a herd size in the hundreds, for the last 8 years. She truly is an alpaca expert! She has pretty much seen everything! While I learned a lot of useful information from the seminar, here are some of the highlights that I found most interesting and helpful.

In the book that we received, there is a whole section on medications and de-wormers and it gives in laymen’s terms what they do, how they should be administered, what their uses are, and what alpacas they should and should not be used on (pregnant females, cria, etc). She also gave us information on pharmacies that only carry certain meds, including ones she has had them make up for her. We also learned where to get good plasma and colostrum.

Dr. Walker did an awesome job on telling us the symptoms of many different parasites, diseases, injuries, and illnesses that affect alpacas so that we can better diagnose our own alpacas when something is wrong. She also gave us information on what tests we should have run and what labs perform those test if we see certain symptoms so that we could pinpoint the cause.

One interesting thing I learned is a slurry recipe that she makes for alpacas who are unable to eat or crias who are unable to nurse. I thought it was very interesting as I recently made up my own slurry recipe for a very thin cria we had and my recipe was very similar to hers. One of the main differences that I learned was that I had put Karo Syrup in my recipe for added sugar and energy (which our vet had recommended to us last year with a sick alpaca). Well according to Dr. Walker, ruminants, like alpacas cannot utilize the sugar found in kayro syrup and molasses. It won’t hurt them, but it doesn’t do any good.

Another thing I learned was that Dr. Walker recommends breeding large maiden females as early as 14 months old before they reach 150 lbs. She said that she first makes sure they are at least 120-130lbs and interested in breeding by kushing in the presence of a male. If they are not kushing, she does not force it. The reason she breeds earlier though is because large females who are more prone to be fat will have fat stored in their mammary tissue when they are maidens and can possibly cause them to be poor milk producers.

She also told us exactly how to best do fecal tests for alpacas. Unfortunately, I suspect our veterinarian is not doing them correctly for alpacas and they are charging us $20 each. Noah and I have decided that we are either going to try to find a fecal test seminar to take or get a parasite book and teach ourselves. We already have the microscope, and we plan to look for a centrifuge on ebay. I think being able to test our own alpacas will really help us to have better overall herd health on our farm. Also, we have been using the fendendazole paste to treat for certain parasites if they show up in our fecals and she recommends using the liquid as it is more affective. We also learned different drugs we can try if our parasites become immune to certain de-wormers.

I also learned that all alpacas have mites, especially the ones that live between their toes. The only time you see mange in alpacas is when alpacas have a sensitivity and allergic reaction to the mites. I have heard of farms treating this with frontline spray, which Dr. Walker said is not effective. She recommends using a lime-sulfur ointment that she has compounded at a certain pharmacy and that our vet can order. We have not had mange on our farm, but this is good to know if we ever do.

Another really interesting thing I learned was that Dr. Walker believes that any probiotic paste…including probios and jumpstart are not effective. She said that because the organisms are dehydrated, they are dead and therefore do nothing in the gut of an alpaca. She recommended using live culture plain yogurt, which is what I normally put in our alpaca’s bottles and slurries. But I have used the paste on adults. In the future, I will use yogurt instead.

Another interesting tidbit I learned is that she does not recommend using Diatomaceous Earth (DE) for parasite control in alpacas. In the last year or two, I have heard a lot of talk about this from other farms and on forums online. I have heard of farms putting it on their poo piles and some feeding it to their alpacas. Dr. Walker said that while it can kill parasites if they ingest it by lacerating their insides, she doesn’t think enough parasites eat it to be that effective. She said it can also be very dangerous for alpacas if they inhale it or get it in their eyes as it can cause the same type of lacerations in their eyes or lungs.

I also learned about some good and safe ways to disinfect the barn which I plan to try this spring.

There was also some good information in the dam and cria section, but we had already learned most of the basics of birth in our neonatal seminar we took a few years ago. But the refresher was nice hear.

I also enjoyed hearing Dr. Walker talk about all the different cases she has encountered. She talked about different treatments that she has tied and perfected or tried and decided are not helpful. It really helped me to normalize illnesses, disease and injury in alpacas and make me realize that you do what you can, but not all alpacas can be saved, and the sad fact is that some need to be euthanized. Also, sometimes the treatment can be more expensive than an alpaca is worth or leave an alpaca with a poor quality of life so it doesn’t always make sense to treat them. Although somewhat depressing, I found this refreshing as I am always worried something tragic might happen to one of our alpacas. I think it is just an anxious response I have after some crappy things happening in life over the last few years, including our first alpaca dying last year. I always expect the worst. Her talk helped me to understand that sometimes bad things happen to our alpacas and we can only do our best and if they don’t make it, it is okay.

Lastly, we learned about Vet-A-Visit Day 2011 at MSU. It is an open house for the Vet School on Saturday, March 19 from 9am-4pm. We probably won’t be attending as Noah has to work and I have something else planned that day already, but it looked like they were offering lots of fun and free events that day for adults and kids. I wanted to mention it in case anyone else was interested in attending.

After the seminar, I talked with Dr. Walker for a little while. I met her over the phone a year ago when we purchased our suri Paisley from Alpaca Jacks so I gave her an update on how Miss Paisley was doing. I also asked her if she has any females that routinely give birth during the night since one of our boarders has given birth to her first 2 cria at night without any problems even though alpacas will almost always give birth before 4:00 in the afternoon. The later you get past 2:00pm, the more likely you are to experience dystocia (birth complications). Dr. Walker said she will occasionally have females who will routinely give birth at night with no problems and they make sure to breed them in the warm months so crias aren’t born outside when it is cold. We also discussed our female Lady’s recurring mastitis. Actually, Dr. Walker suspects that it is not mastitis at all, but that Lady’s produces so much milk and her udder gets so engorged that it breaks blood vessels which is why there is blood in the milk. She said that she has had dams like this, although I don’t think as severe of cases where one of the teats actually ruptured like Lady’s did 2 years ago when her cria was only nursing off 1 of the teats. She said the other teats should have stopped producing milk if he wasn’t nursing off them, but obviously they did not. She suggested stripping milk out of Lady several times a day and forcing the cria onto her teats, but still supplementing with a bottle. We had completely bottle fed cria number 1 and actually tried this method with Lady and cria number 2 and it was a horrible disaster. Not only did Lady fight us tooth and nail….or maybe I should say spitting, bucking and kicking when we had to strip her out, but the cria would refuse the bottle even though he wasn’t getting enough milk because he preferred his mom. Also, Noah and I work full time, so we don’t have the luxury of being on the farm all day and having time to strip her a half dozen times a day. Needless to say with her cria number 3, we went back to completely bottle feeding and letting her dry up even though it can be a little time consuming, but much easier. Most likely, we will do this again this year as this method has worked best for us.

Dr. Walker used to be a vet for Michigan State and I wish that she still was. She would be an awesome vet to have nearby! On the way home, Noah and I daydreamed what it might be like to have such a large alpaca farm that we would be able to employ our own vet. Maybe someday if I win the lottery I suppose! : ) All in all, the seminar was awesome and probably could have been 2 days instead of 8 ½ hours. It was definitely worth the $65 for us both to attend! I would definitely recommend any of her seminars. It was also nice spending the day with Noah and getting back to our “alpaca roots.” We have been so busy over the last year with preparing for our first child, having Eliza and now working (Noah is working 75 hours per week right now) that we haven’t spent hardly any time together, especially doing “alpaca stuff.” The alpacas have really been put on the back burner the last year so I really enjoyed spending a day to focus on them again and make some new plans for our farm this year.

Not Alpacas....but Alpaca Related....

2011-01-08T18:57:00.000-08:00

Okay....so I really have wanted to catch up on our farm blog, but my time is so precious these days. I am back to working full time and spending every extra minute I have with my little girl and taking care of our farm and house of course, so it doesn't leave much time for blogging unfortunately. I wanted to post a few pictures of our little one. Eliza is wearing a hand knit alpaca hat and sweater. The fiber is from one of our alpacas Cafe and was hand spun and then knitted by our friend Cara of Oak Haven Alpacas. Thank you so much! We love the outfit...especially in these cold winter months. The first few pictures are when she was 2 weeks old.

At 3 months old now, she has grown more into the hat and sweater.

Welcome Eliza Darcine Schwander

2010-12-01T10:11:00.001-08:00

It has been over 2 months since I last posted on our farm blog. I apologize to all our of our readers, but I have been very busy with our new little baby. Eliza Darcine Schwander was born on October 5, 2o10. I have been spending the last two months trying to get a handle on this whole mommy thing. It is not quite the same as taking care of all the farm animals! Here are some pictures of our little one.

Hanging out at the Hospital with Mommy and Daddy.

Eliza loves her little white alpaca!

Newborn

1 Week Old

2 Weeks Old

3 Weeks Old

1 Month Old

6 Weeks Old

7 Weeks Old

I hope to start posting more farm posts soon!

Another Day in Blindnut Grove

2010-09-22T10:38:00.000-07:00

It has been a rough couple of weeks here on the farm. Two weeks ago, my great Grandma Josephine passed away at the age of 92-years-old. It was so sad to lose such a creative and wise soul.

Then a little over a week ago, Noah was grinding paint off of a chair lift pole at work and got something in his eye. He thought it was just sand or something else and would get flushed out on its own. It only got worse and by the next day, I could see something over the pupil in his eye and his vision became blurred so we ended up making a trip to the ER. Unfortunately, the doctor said it was a piece of metal in his eye and was beginning to rust, which is the spot I could see. The cornea had already begun growing over the foreign object and she was unable to remove it with a cotton swab, a needle and a tool called a Burr, which is like a tiny dremmel that cuts into the cornea. The doctor had horrible bed-side-manner and we didn't have much confidence in her ability. Luckily, they had Noah's eye numbed the whole time so he couldn't feel any of it. They sent him home with some antibiotic ointment and dilation drops which were supposed to help reduce irritation. They only put one drop in his eye and this is what it looked like for the next 24 hours so we didn't put anymore in.

On Saturday, we went to a specialist, who was able to remove the metal piece and most of the rust with the Burr tool. He left a little bit of the rust because he said that otherwise, he would have to drill through the whole cornea leaving a hole and it would be better to leave a little rust. The ophthalmologist did a very thorough job of removing everything and checking out the whole eye and lid. He told Noah to continue applying the antibiotic creme and to put a nighttime eye creme in his eye every hour to prevent the lid from irritating where he had drilled. He told Noah that his vision would eventually recover completely but said that he would feel pain for the next few days. Needless to say, Noah is now bringing his own safety goggles to work. Luckily his eye has seemed to heal a week later.

Then of course last Thursday, we had to put our little ferret to sleep because of an adrenal tumor. Rest in Peace little Wiz Pigger.

Then yesterday morning, I went out to the barn to take care of the animals and noticed our reddish brown rooster laying on its side. He didn't seem to want to get up or move around. Noah checked out his leg later and said it was either dislocated or broken. I think one of the big boy alpacas probably stepped on him when they were fighting. I talked with a large animal vet (I didn't call for the chicken, but for a completely unrelated matter). The vet laughed at me and said there wasn't really anything we could do unless we wanted to dump a ton of money into him. He of course only cost me $5, so I wasn't about to get him treated. The vet said if he could get around okay, he might heal, but said if he couldn't it would probably be best to put him down. I put him in one of our empty alpaca stalls with some food and water (which he gobbled up) yesterday and a few hours later, found him in the other barn back with his buddies. I will have to see how he is doing tonight before we decide what to do. I hate having one more thing to worry about. I hope he is not suffering a lot.
Then yesterday when we got home from work, Noah was out feeding the alpacas when he noticed something seriously wrong with Silver Sox's eye. He had me come out and help catch her and hold her still. It appeared as though a piece of her lower eyelid had been almost completely severed from her face and was dangling and dripping blood. We checked out her whole eye, and there didn't appear to be any other damage. We flushed the blood and any debris out of the eye with clear eye solution for horses. We have no idea how it happened. Alpacas will sometimes scratch their heads and sides on the fence line. All we can think of is that she was rubbing her head on something and got her lid caught and sliced it. Being so close to the eyeball, we were amazed that there didn't appear to be any damage to the eye. I called the vet and they had the on call vet call me back. This is not our normal alpaca vet, but is the vet who helped treat Snowflake back in January. He asked if we could bring her in right away to the office because eye injuries typically need to be treated right away and don't heal well. We were unsure as to what he would be able to do. He planned to stitch it back on, but I told him it was a very narrow piece hanging....just the rim of her eye. Here is what it looked like (sorry...a little gruesome).

This is her normal eye:
Here is her injured eye:
We loaded her and her cria up in the trailer. It was her cria Alpacula's first halter lesson and he really didn't like it. As soon as we got to the vet's office around 7:30pm, the vet looked at it and immediately decided that it would be better to remove the lid instead of trying to sew it back on. He said that he could try sewing it, but the tissue was already dead and the stitches would irritate the eye...he said we would most likely be bringing her in several times to redo the stitches. He check out her eyeball and was also amazed that it looked so good and appeared to have no damage. He helped close her eye and luckily, she can close it almost completely without the missing chunk. He said it would bleed for a while longer and then start healing. After cutting away the severed piece, he gave us an antibiotic eye cream to put on it every 4 hours and told us to continue flushing it out with the clear eyes. He also said it was okay to give her banamine for pain. Today, her eye is still looking yucky, but not any worse. I am praying that it heals well and does not get infected.

So what is the title of this blog entry all about you may ask? My brother always teases me and says I live in "Blindnut Grove." We grew up watching Little House on the Prairie (one of my all time favorite shows) and he is referring to how difficult life was on the Prairie and in their little town of Walnut Grove. Of course, he calls it Blindnut Grove since he swears in addition to bad things always happening on the prairie, everyone seems to go blind as well (which if you have watched the show, you know seems to be somewhat true). When he heard about our recent string of bad luck, he said..."Whoa! That Stinks. Another day in Blindnut Grove..." It seems like tragedy always tends to strike our farm and family all at one time, so I am praying Sox's eye was the last of this bought. I am a week and a half from my due date and trying to relax and not get too stressed out. Every time I get stressed, I get contractions and I am not quite ready for this baby to come. Please pray that the storm has passed for now in our own little Blindnut Grove.

Our First Children

2010-09-19T09:08:00.000-07:00

Back in the summer of 2004, when Noah and I were in college and just dating, we decided to start a family. No...not a human family, but a fuzzy one. We already had a turtle named Petey together and decided that we needed a larger family. So we added Rosco, Duncan and Wizzer (Wiz Pigger) to our family. They were 3 ferrets; 1 female and 2 males. Back then, we had much less responsibility and much more time than we have these days. Our little ferrets were a big part of our life. We bought them all kinds of ferret toys and treats and even splurged and bought them the largest and nicest ferret cage on the market....the FerretNation! We would play with our little ferrets inside and outside and occasionally take them to the pet store. The ferrets would travel back and forth with me from Ann Arbor whenever I would come home to visit Noah and my family. We took tons of pictures of them and I even had scrapbook pages of them in my scrapbooks (back when I had time to scrapbook). Ferrets have a life span of about 5-7 years and we joked when we first got them that when they died, we would have "real" kids. Well....those 5-7 years sure flew by quickly and at the time, I had no idea how true that statement would be. As time went by and we graduated college, got married and started a farm, our responsibilities got greater and our time got spread thin. While our ferrets had their own bedroom in our farm house and they would get playtime and care everyday, we just didn't have all the time that we used to to devote to them. Luckily...ferrets sleep about 20 hours a day and they had each other for company. While we had a few scares in the 6 years that we had the ferrets...once where they were given a bad vaccine from a vet and almost died, one where Rosco jumped out of a 3 story window and my mom found her running across the lawn when she was mowing it with the outdoor cat following her, and one where Rosco disappeared into a heating vent and had to be coaxed out.....the ferrets were healthy and happy. I know so many people buy ferrets thinking they are cute and fuzzy only to find out that they can be a lot of work and they give them up a short time later or they get neglected and sit in a cage all day long. I like to think that our ferrets had a nice long and happy life.
Last year, our little Rosco (the oldest of the 3) was the first to pass away. She had organ failure, probably due to old age and we nursed her for a week, but she didn't make it. I was so sad to lose our little girl!
Then this past summer, Duncan suddenly passed away in his sleep with no warning. He seemed healthy and happy. Although I was very sad that he crossed the rainbow bridge to be with his sister, I was happy he didn't suffer like Rosco.

After Duncan passed away, we moved Wiz Pigger and his cage to our living room, instead of being upstairs alone. While he was the youngest of the 3, we always thought he would be the first one to go. Boy, did he prove us wrong. First of all, Wizzer was born deaf, not that that shortens his life expectancy, but something interesting to know. Two years ago, he was diagnosed with adrenal disease (which is very common in ferrets). It is where they have a tumor on their adrenal gland and it causes them to lose their hair. It can also enlarge their prostate, making it difficult for them to urinate. We brought Wizzer into the vet and successfully managed the tumor with a melatonin implant for a year and a half. Then last spring, he started having a difficult time urinating and was straining when he tried to go. We brought him back to the vet. The vet said he had an infection and the tumor was affecting his prostate. He gave him another melatonin implant, some antibiotics and a shot of estrogen, but said he didn't expect him to live past two more weeks. He recommended that we euthanize him once it got worse because once he couldn't urinate at all, it would be very very painful. Miraculously, our little Wiz Piggy pulled through! He got better and was almost completely back to normal, although this time, his fur did not grow back, and of course he was already deaf, and we noticed that he didn't seem to be able to see quite as well as he used to and seemed to be going blind. Anyway, we spent the summer giving Wizzer lots of attention, especially after Duncan died. Wizzy was just as playful as always (he was always the craziest and most playful one). Unfortunately, last Thursday I went to clean Wizzer's cage out like I do every morning and noticed he wasn't right. He had all his blankets all over the place in his cage and he had pooped everywhere. Every 20 seconds, he was jumping out of his bed trying to pee, but nothing would come out. It was so sad...he was making little struggling noises. I almost immediately knew that Wizzer's time had finally come. He had been such a little trooper for so long. I called the vet who was completely shocked that Wizzer was still alive after 6 months! He squeezed us in even though he was booked for the day. I came home on my lunch hour and let Wizzer out to play upstairs for a while. He still ran around and explored like he normally does, but would stop to try and pee every 20 seconds. After work, I brought him outside to walk around, but he seemed very uncomfortable and didn't want to go far. Noah met me at the vet's office. As the vet tech brought us into the exam room, I couldn't stop crying. I knew there was no saving our little guy this time. The vet checked him out and said his urethra was completely blocked and his bladder was almost the size of a tennis ball. He said we could try a catheter (which was extremely invasive in ferrets) and more of the estrogen injections (that are only meant to give them a few days more) but said it would be most humane to put Wizzer to sleep since he seemed to be in pain. We agreed that that would be the best thing for our little guy. I couldn't stand to see him suffer any longer. The vet went to get a sedative and I snuggled with Wizzer. He was never really much of a snuggler....he was always more likely to crawl all over you and try to jump from your hands, but today he just rested his little head on my chest and let Noah and I pet him. I felt like he was telling us goodbye and that's how I knew we were doing the right thing. They came in and gave him the sedative and left us to say our good byes. I told him I love him and that he was the best little ferret ever. We decided not to watch him be euthanized as the vet said if he couldn't find a main vein, he would have to inject his heart, which wouldn't be pretty. A few minutes later, the vet brought Wizzer back in. He said that he had luckily found a main vein so he went painlessly. He also showed us that he could palpate the adrenal tumor now that he was relaxed. It was almost the size of a golf ball! They are normally small...like a peanut! Again, the vet was shocked he had lived so long. It is just amazing to me that yesterday, he was just fine and was peeing normally and then today he took a sharp turn for the worse. I am just happy that we caught it before he was completely incapacitated and suffering greatly. We thanked the vet for all he had done for little Wizzer and asked him for the number of a local ferret rescue so we could donate our ferret stuff. When we went out to pay at the desk, he said to the receptionist "no charge" and turned and left the waiting room quickly before we could even say thank you. We decided to send some money and a thank you card to the vet to put towards the ferret rescue vet bills or towards someone else who can't afford their bill. We took Wizzer home and buried him under Sephiroth's Willow tree along with Seph, Rosco, Duncan and my childhood Scottish Terrier Mickey. (You will probably notice in the pictures below that it does not look like the same ferret....that is because he was very dark colored when we first adopted him and he eventually kept getting lighter until we was almost all white. Of course, he eventually went bald and only had fur on his head and legs, but I don't have any pictures of the little bald man. Also his weight would fluctuate greatly depending on the season.)

Life can be very difficult sometimes, but if you are going to survive, you have to realize that life is an adventure, filled with ups and downs. I read a quote today that said "Who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?" Noah and I really try to look at life as one big learning experience. I have really only come to this realization in the last year or so. We try not to get caught up in whether an experience is "good" or "bad" but try to examine what we have learned from each up and down. With each new experience, we learn skills that help us better deal with more experiences in the future. Our ferrets were our very first children. I believe they have helped prepare us to be better parents. They taught us what is means to be responsible for something twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. They taught us to care for something that is helpless that would not survive without our care. They taught us how to spoil them, especially on Christmas morning when they would open all their gifts. They taught us to love unconditionally, even when we would get so frustrated when Wizzer refused to use the litter pan on a regular basis. They taught us to work as a team and share the responsibility of taking care of them. They taught us to laugh at their silly little antics and life's little moments. They taught us how to protect a fragile little creature from our 130 lb Great Danes who constantly wanted to "play" with them. They taught us how to deal with pain and heartache when they were sick. They taught us dedication and how to stick it out for the long haul, even when life got really busy and stressed. We have learned so much from these little creatures in the last 6 1/2 years. Now that I am two weeks away from having our very first "human" baby, I feel truly blessed to have had them in our lives and as a part of our family. Thank you Rosco, Duncan and Wiz Pigger. You will remain in our hearts and memories forever.

Breeding...Breeding...Breeding

2010-09-18T11:57:00.000-07:00

Last year, we bred all of our alpacas from mid May to mid September. This year, we have decided to breed mid June through mid October. No real reason other than we have been a little less diligent about breeding this year than we were last year. Last year, we had 8 females to breed and we made darn sure that all 8 of them got pregnant and stayed pregnant. When we got ultrasounds last December, all our hard work had paid off and all 8 of them were pregnant over 90 days. This year, we are expecting our own child and have been very busy getting ready for that as well as building a barn, putting up fence amongst a million other farm improvements. Therefore, we have been a little less diligent when it came to breeding and even being around to see our alpaca births. In the past, we had only missed 1 cria being born on our farm because the dam had it in the night. This year, we missed 4 of the 7 births on our farm. Life has just gotten really busy.

Now that fall is just about here, we are working on getting all our females bred. While some farms are choosing not to breed right now because of the crumby economy, we are breeding all but two of our breeding age females. We got almost all boys this year and are hoping for a healthy crop of girls next year. We have decided not to breed our older girl Bellesa this fall because she is pretty old (over 13 years) and is very thin. We are working on putting weight on her. We are also not breeding our suri girl Paisley. She is old enough, but we don't have the money to spend on a breeding for her right now, our suri boy is not mature yet, and I couldn't find a good breeding/breeding trade. We will wait to breed these two girls until next spring.

So, we are working on breeding 6 of our own females and 2 boarding females. Two of them are just about 90 days bred, so we don't have to worry about behavior testing them too much longer. If alpacas are going to absorb or abort their pregnancies, it will almost always be in the first 90 days after being bred. For those of you who are not familiar with what behavior or "spit" testing is, it is when you bring a male in with a female to see how she reacts. If she stands still and lets him mount her or kushes (lays down) right away, she is usually NOT pregnant. If she puts her ears back, spits, screeches, or runs with what we refer to as "fear in her eyes" she is usually pregnant. This isn't a fool proof pregnancy detection method as alpacas can sometimes have false pregnancies (called retained CLs) and act like they are pregnant when they are not. But for the most part it is pretty accurate, especially for the experienced females. The maidens (females who haven't had a cria before) can be a little trickier to tell as they are more likely to "run with fear in their eyes" than to spit, but once you get to know your alpacas, it is pretty easy to tell. We feel confident enough this year in reading the females' behavior, that we will probably not be getting ultrasounds. We have always gotten them in the past, but now that our herd and family are growing, we are looking to save some money in a few areas.

Alpacas kush to breed and normally breed for 8-45 minutes. We do pen breeding where we bring the male in with the female in a small pen and make sure he gets the job done. We normally make sure he gets his business done where it is supposed to be done and we time the breeding. If the female is rolling or trying to get up, we stop the breeding, usually to the male's dismay. Alpacas are induced ovulators so they ovulate when they breed. The male makes an orgalling noise when breeding to help stimulate the female and to help her to ovulate. After the alpacas breed, we behavior test them 7 days later to see how they react. If they kush, we breed them again and repeat the process. If they "spit off" and are non-receptive to the male's advances, we behavior test every 3-7 days until they are 90 days bred. It can be a lot of time and effort (and frustration for the males when everyone is spitting them off), but we have found it is the best way to ensure that they get pregnant and stay bred. This year, once the end of October hits, we will probably stop behavior testing since we don't plan to breed any later than October anyway. Alpacas have an 11 1/2 month gestation and we don't want any cria born in the cold weather next fall/winter (even though our new barn has a heated stall in it). Its better for them to be born in the warmer months of the year here in Michigan.

Here are some pictures of us breeding a few females at one time last week. Alchemy and Lady are breeding on the right and Smokey and Maree Sol are breeding on the left. Notice Noah helping Smokey out a bit. Smokey is a small boy and Maree Sol is a very very large girl, so he needed a little helping staying on top. Also notice all the other females surrounding the breeding. There are 4 females kushed near the breedings. These females are not pregnant yet (open) and want some of the action. Also notice Cafe, Apple, and Jewel still with the herd, but standing at a distance. These females are 4-11 weeks bred and aren't really interested in the breeding which is a good sign that they are holding their pregnancies.

Coyotes

2010-09-13T11:55:00.000-07:00

I don't sleep well these days now that I am 9 months pregnant. I wake up every few hours to pee and then have a difficult time falling back asleep. Well last night, I was up around midnight to pee and take some Tums (the lasagna dinner gave me horrible heartburn). As I was laying in bed trying to fall back asleep, I suddenly heard coyotes howling very close by! We hear them occasionally from a distance. Once in awhile if we are out in the barn at night, we can hear them come as close as the corn field that butts up to our alpaca pastures...but last night....I swear they were right in our yard! Rozalyn heard them too of course and started barking and running to look out all the window. Roz and I woke Noah up and I told him I swear there were coyotes in the yard! We listened for a few more minutes and did not hear anything else. I assumed that if they got too close to the alpaca pasture, the alpacas would start doing their warning call (which sounds sort of like a donkey braying). They do this warning call when they see almost anything foreign in our yard, including porcupines, raccoons, opossums, etc. I kept waiting for a warning call, but heard nothing and Noah and Roz fell back asleep. Then about 20 minutes later, I heard it again, but it sounded further away. Noah got up this time and grabbed a flashlight and headed out to the barn just to check on everyone. The pacas, cat, chickens, and ducks were all fine and seemed relaxed and not alarmed at all. When he came in the house, he said it sounded like the coyotes we 1/4 mile down from our house and across the street. He said he could hear a dog barking from that direction too. They didn't howl for long and I eventually fell back asleep, but had nightmares about howling werewolves the rest of the night! I at least feel comforted to know that coyotes would have a difficult time getting into our alpaca pastures with our tall fences (they would have to dig under). Some of our alpacas will attack our huge great danes by kicking, spitting, huffing and stomping at them, so I can imagine they would take on a much smaller coyote to protect themselves and their cria. I think it would take a large, really desperate and hungry pack of coyotes to do any harm to our alpacas. Luckily, we have tons of smaller and easier prey for them to hunt here in Grant. I think the first time I heard them, they were probably across the street in front of our house; in the future, hopefully they will stay far away from our farm.

2010 Llama Fest and Alpaca Showcase

2010-09-10T11:55:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, Noah and I attended the Llama Fest and Alpaca Showcase at the Pavilion on MSU's campus in East Lansing. This was the first alpaca show we ever attended back in 2007 with Snowflake and Cinderella. Although it is not currently an AOBA certified show, it is still a great show to check out and participate in. We decided not show any of our animals this year with me being 9 months pregnant and all. Besides, we only have 2 that we could really show anyway. We instead went to the show to watch, network and set up and man the MI-ALPACA booth. While the show has always primarily been a llama show, the show organizers really tried to make it a bigger and better alpaca event this year. MI-ALPACA helped them advertise the show and the alpaca turn out was twice what it had been in years past, which is great considering many people are opting not to attend shows right now because the economy is so crumby. The show was fun and we met some great people who were just visiting and looking into getting alpacas. The highlight of the show was when Noah and I were sitting at our booth (which happened to be across from the restrooms and a woman walked by with her gigantic llama and brought it into the bathroom with her! I wish I remembered to bring my camera so I could have taken a picture. Oh well. If anyone is interested in possibly helping this show grow in the future and sitting on a show committee for next year, let me know!

Welcome FCA Incan Alchemy

2010-09-04T15:59:00.000-07:00

We added a new herdsire to our herd yesterday. We bred our girl Lady to FCA Incan Alchemy last year, which produced our little ASH Incan Alchemy's Peruvian Panacea. We are really happy with how he turned out and are excited to get him in the show ring next year. Our friends at Flying Cloud Alpacas decided to retire this year and were selling the rest of their alpacas this weekend. They contacted us a few days ago and offered us a deal on Alchemy that we could not refuse. They knew that we were very happy with our Alchemy cria, and had been interested in possibly purchasing him in the past. We have been looking for a good quality full peruvian fawn male to compliment our grey breeding program and Alchemy fits the bill. He has done well in the show ring and has awesome conformation and fiber characteristics. Here is some information about Alchemy from our AlpacaNation page, click on his name below for more information on his fiber, lineage, and show record:
Incan Alchemy is a fabulous light fawn, full Peruvian, 3/4 Accoyo proven herdsire. Alchemy is covered in bright crimpy bundles. His fiber exhibits uniformity in expression of crimp from his topknot to his toes. His coat also has excellent color uniformity. Alchemy's dam is Royal Peruvian Adelphi, a Royal Fawn daughter and full sister to Royal Apollo. She is an awesome producer of champions. Incan Alchemy carries on his mother's beautiful, stylish phenotype and outstanding fiber characteristics. Incan Alchemy has world class genetics on his sires side as well. He is sired by WLM Camillo who is sired by Caligula and his great grandsire is Peruvian Hemmingway.

Noah picked Alchemy up last night and got home around 7pm. He checked his mouth and found that his fighting teeth had already been trimmed, so we felt okay about putting him in with our two big bully males Smokey and Sequoia. While Smokey is 7 years old and Sequoia is 4 years old, they are both quite a bit smaller than Alchemy who is 5 years old. Alchemy is a very big boy and I was a little worried to see how all three males would do together. At Flying Cloud, they had Alchemy in a pen by himself. He used to be housed with other males, but is sounds like he starting beating on them once he started breeding. Well, we put Alchemy in with the bullies. They attempted to jump on him and pummel him, but they bounced off like he was a brick wall. Alchemy is so large and solid that they looked like little cria playing with an adult alpaca. Instead of fighting back, Alchemy would just spit at Smokey and Sequoia. So far they are all doing really well with each other. I am a little worried what might happen if Alchemy decides to really fight back because I am pretty sure he could beat the smaller boys up with no problem. It's probably better that Alchemy went into their territory and not the other way around....otherwise Smokey and Sequoia would probably have ended up in a world of hurt. I am very happy they are all getting along well though....maybe Alchemy will be a peacekeeper in the boy herd and things will be more quiet around here. I am very excited to add Alchemy to our herd and we will be changing our plan of who we will be breeding who to this fall. Also, we might have to start calling our little Alchemy something else, because having two Alchemy's around might get confusing. Here is a picture of Alchemy when he was younger.....I just love his look!

Herd Health

2010-08-29T09:44:00.000-07:00

On Friday night, Noah and I both came home from work, took long naps and then went out to the barn at 8pm to do herd health since we were feeling rested and it had cooled off outside. We gave everyone their ivomec shot (to protect against meningeal worm and other parasites) and checked every one's body score. We currently have a normal/fat girl pen and a skinny girl pen. Because many of our females are nursing their cria right now, they can lose weight dramatically and it is important to monitor their body scores to make sure they don't get too skinny. We have a livestock scale, but tend to only use it for our younger alpacas since it is stressful on both us and the larger alpacas to actually get them to stand on the scale. We ended up moving some alpacas out of the skinny pen and putting others in depending on their body score. The alpacas in the skinny pen get pasture, free choice alfalfa/grass mix hay and extra grain, while the other pen just gets pasture and a little grain. The majority of our alpacas are right on with their body score or slightly overweight. We also checked every one's toenails, but no one needed trimming at this time. Lastly, we behavior tested the girls who have been bred or who need to be bred to see if they are receptive. We brought Sequoia in with these girls and fortunately all the girls who have been bred and should be spitting off were.

After doing all the big alpacas, we weighed each of the 7 cria. They are all gaining weight well which means they are eating well and getting enough nutrients. We checked out their umbilical stumps to see how they are healing. Everyone but Noir's is healing well. She has a umbilical hernia, so we have been treating that. We gave the cria their appropriate shots, including ivomec for the older ones, and BOSE, Vitamin AD, and CD/T for the younger ones. We also checked out each one's fiber and conformation. While their fiber and conformation can change and improve (or get worse) as they mature, there are 3 that I am really keeping an eye on to show next year....Alchemy, Alpacacula, and the new Sol cria (who still needs a name). But we will keep a close eye on them all as they grow to see how they mature.

After all this, we did our normal nightly barn chores, but it was of course dark by this time. Luckily we have lights on the barn. We fed the pacas grain and hay, rinsed out and filled water buckets, and cleaned up the poo in the barn and catch pen. We of course fed and watered the ducks, chickens, and barn kitty too.

It took us about 2 hours to do all of this. Despite me almost being 9 months pregnant, I am still a pretty good alpaca wrangler....although a little more cautious now. There was a beautiful huge deep orange moon coming up on the horizon while bats flitted through the air as we headed in from the barn. I love the farm life!

Alpacamobile

2010-08-28T13:23:00.001-07:00

We finally got our alpaca mobile last week! I took last Friday off of work so we could shop for mini vans all day. We looked in Hudsonville, Grandville, Grand Rapids, Cascade, and Kalamazoo. We narrowed it down to 2 vans but finally decided on this one which we found at Galesburg Ford near Kalamazoo (the salesmen who worked there were really nice and not shiesty like a lot of the other salesmen we had talked to that day).

I love this van! It is perfect for our growing family, great danes and for transporting alpacas. My favorites are the leather seats, stow and go seating, seat warmers, DVD player, 6 disk CD player, moon roof, power doors and windows, and built in navigation system! The stow and go seating will really come in handy for transporting alpacas. This is the perfect alpaca mobile!

Maree Sol's Cria

2010-08-26T13:21:00.000-07:00

We had a really busy week this week. On Thursday, Noah and I worked all day and then we had an ultrasound and prenatal appointment at 6pm. After that, we went to the south side of Grand Rapids to pick our new mini van up. We didn't end up getting home until close to 9pm. Noah headed out to the barn to take care of the pacas and I went into the house to prepare for an hour long presentation I had the next day for a training for work. I told Noah to make sure to check on Sol since she was getting close to her due date; last year she had her cria at 347 days and she was on 341 days today. As soon as I got into the house, Noah called my cell and said that Sol had her cria. I went out to the barn to check him out. Yes....another boy! He is a solid dark fawn out of Sol who is white and Smokey who is modern dark silver grey. The cria was already up, dry and moving around. She probably gave birth to him early that afternoon. The birth appears to have gone well. The cria weighed in at 15 lbs and the placenta was surprisingly small for Maree Sol being such a huge girl. The cria was already nursing well and Maree Sol is a great and attentive mom....even confronting our great danes when they tried to sniff the new baby. The cria is smaller in size and looks to be stocky like his sire. He has a cute short little face. We are also impressed with this little boys fiber so far. Smokey is known for having very soft cria, but they aren't usually very dense. This little guys is the most dense Smokey cria I have ever seen and the most dense baby born on our farm this year. Noah is still coming up for a name for the little guy. While he is the same color as his full brother d'Artagnan who was born last year, his fiber and body type look much different. Here are a few pictures of him:

Second Cut of Hay

2010-08-23T13:21:00.000-07:00

We harvested our second cut of hay this week. We got 175 bales....we were hoping for a little more, but is has been so dry lately. I felt really bad that I could do nothing more than drive the truck and trailer while the boys picked up the bales. Especially when Noah carried each and every bale up the ladder to our hay loft while I stood by watching. On top of that, Noah is very allergic to hay, which is not a good for a farmer. Luckily it is all stored and we are ready for winter. Here are some pictures.

Capitola's Montpelier Noir

2010-08-22T13:19:00.000-07:00

Cinderella is a beautiful grey female that we sold to a farm in Florida last year. She is boarding at our farm though and we have anxiously been waiting for her cria. Last year, she had a beautiful true black little girl named Ashton Stones Little Miss Rosco who now lives at Oak Haven Alpacas. Rosco was the first cria we had missed being born on our farm as of last year. Cinderella decided to have her very early in the morning, probably around 4am or 5am on a dreary morning after a rainstorm. Rosco was wet and cold when we found her at 7:30am and we had to blow dry her to warm her up. Needless to say, I was determined to see Cinderella give birth this year.

Yesterday morning, Noah and I were rushing around packing our car up because we had planned to spend the whole day with family out of town. My brother and sister-in-law were in town for 2 days from North Carolina for my baby shower and Noah's brother and sister-in-law were in town from Indiana for my baby shower and our nieces second birthday. Anyway, we had a full day planned. I went out to check on the alpacas and Cinderella at 9:30am before leaving and thought she looked just like Silver Sox had a few days earlier when she was in early labor. Also, there was a thunderstorm the night before, just like last year. Cinderella was laying with her legs to the side, breathing heavily, nostrils flaring, not chewing cud, and her belly seemed to tighten every so often and her tail/back end was pulsating. I told Noah that I was positive she was in labor. Noah came out to the barn to see for himself and Cinderella instantly tensed up and sat up straight, not showing any signs. I sent Noah out of the barn and stood on a bucket peeking over the stall so Cinderella could not see me. She relaxed again and showed more labor signs. I could even see that her back end was open. I told Noah again that I was positive that she was in labor, so we decided to stick around to see what happened instead of going to visit family. I checked on her every hour by standing on the bucket and by 3 o'clock, Cinderella seemed the same. Her labor had not progressed and every time we were out in the barn, she would sit back up like nothing was going on. We went in and lifted her tail and she clenched up her back end. I was so sure she was in labor earlier, but now we saw nothing. Since 99% of alpacas will have their cria between 6am and 4pm (for reasons based on their daily movement in the Andes Mountains in South America), we decided to give up and go visit family. We were still playing cards at my mom's house (40 mins from our house) at 12am when I decided it was time to go home and check on Cinderella. Noah and I were both very tired, and Noah wanted to spend the night at my mom's and go back and check on her early the next morning, but I insisted we go home. I know I would be up all night worrying about Cinderella if we didn't go home.

I drove us home and at 1am, pulled the truck right up to the barn so I could flash the headlights into our catch pen to see the pacas. As I did this, Noah and I immediately saw Cinderella standing next to a newborn cria. We jumped out of the truck to go check on the little thing. It was a true black female. She was standing up, but still wet and felt cold (it got pretty cold that night so I am so happy we went home....the cria may have not survived the night being wet when it was cold and windy out). We took her temp and it was 96 degrees, so we blow dried her until her temp came back up to 100. We also put a cria coat on her and put our foam pads down for her to lay on in the barn. We locked her and Cinderella in the barn and left some lights on so the cria could see to nurse. Normally, they have all day to work on nursing in the daylight, so I wasn't sure how this little one was going to do in the dark. We milked Cinderella out and gave the cria a few oz of colostrum to give her a headstart. Then we made sure she could latch on before leaving them alone. I left a bunch of food and water for Cinderella, which was gone by the next morning....she must have been famished. After taking care of the cria, we got the tractor out and turned the headlights on and went looking for the placenta out in the field. Luckily we found it whole, so I didn't need to worry. We finally got into the house at close to 3:00am. We figure the cria was born sometime between 9-11pm because she was still pretty wet, yet was able to stand up and walk to the barn from the field. Also, Cinderella had already passed the placenta which was cold to the touch. It was a very crazy night. I wish I would have gotten to see the birth, but I know that if I were home, I probably would have been extremely nervous because when an alpaca has a cria outside of the hours 6am to 4pm, there is usually something wrong with the labor and delivery. I should have just known that Cinderella is an odd duck who has her cria at night. I think she really likes her privacy when giving birth...like I said, she would visibly tense up and her labor would stall when she knew we were watching. This is something interesting for me to think about since I will giving birth myself in a few weeks. It makes sense that if an animal thinks a predator or threat is watching, it will not give birth to a vulnerable baby. Anyway, it was a very long night to say the least and I have the satisfaction of knowing that I was right after all.....Cinderella was in labor. Not sure if it is my mothering instincts kicking in or if I am just really observant, but I am getting good at knowing when the alpacas are in labor.

This morning the new cria and Cinderella are doing very well. The cria looks like a carbon copy of her full sister Rosco. We called Cinderella's owner and let her know the good news. She decided to name the new little girl Capitola's Montpelier Noir. Here are a few pictures of little Noir.

Simplifying

2010-08-15T13:19:00.000-07:00

Things have been absolutely hectic around here lately. Noah has started back to work at Cannonsburg Ski Area, which has made us adjust our whole farm routine. There is just so much to do and with us both working full time, things have been crazy. We have been scrambling to get ready for the arrival of our new baby....including completely gutting and refinishing a nursery, baby showers, prenatal appointments, reading books, birth classes, buying a mini van, and keeping a baby blog (which I am simultaneously downloading pictures onto as I write for the farm blog). We have been busy trying to get things done on the farm, including finishing building our barn, putting up a fence around our yard for the dogs, herd health, birthing baby alpacas, cria shearing our own cria and cria at other farms, breeding alpacas, harvesting hay, keeping up with the farm blog, sitting on the board and committees for MI-ALPACA and all the day to day farm chores. Somehow, I feel like my 3 months of maternity leave is going to feel like a vacation....maybe a sleepless vacation....but a vacation nonetheless.

Because we have been so busy and have been spending so much money this year on our farm and baby, we decided to simplify things for this fall. Normally fall is a busy and expensive time of the year for us. We usually attend alpaca shows, are busy breeding alpacas before winter comes, have alpaca booths at local events and fairs, and have a farm open house for National Alpaca Farm Days. This year we have decided to simplify and skip most of these things. We will still be visiting one alpaca show for a day, LlamaFest and Alpaca Showcase, but will not be showing any animals. If we feel up to it, we may try to visit the Michigan International AlpacaFest, but I am not counting on it. We will also be breeding most of our females, but do not plan to purchase any breedings this year. Any outside breedings we get, we are trading for to save some money. We also do not plan to travel far for breedings this year and are looking locally to save time and money. I am also not quite as determined as I was last year to make sure every single one of our females is bred by winter. We will not be participating in any fiber fairs, including the First Annual Alpaca Showcase at the Harvest Fest in Calhoun County (it is the week following our due date) and we will definitely not be having a farm open house since National Alpaca Farm Days is the weekend before my due date.

I am a little sad to not be participating as much as we have in the past in all these alpaca events, but at the same time I am relieved because I feel like my plate is overflowing right now. Right now, a little simplifying is what we need. We plan to get involved again next year.

Chicken and Duck Update

2010-08-11T11:56:00.000-07:00

This is our second year of having chickens and ducks. I wanted to give you an update on how it's going. Our chickens and ducks are free run, so we don't pen them up at all. This has its advantages and disadvantages. Advantages being....better quality of life for the bird, no messy pen clean up, and they do a better job at parasite and bug patrol. Disadvantages....they can be more easily preyed upon by predators or become roadkill. We have gained and lost many ducks and chickens this year.

We started out this spring with 4 ducks....a male and female Rouen and a male and female Indian Runner. The Rouen and Runner females each hatched a clutch of eggs. The Rouen hatched 12 Rouen ducklings. Seven of them eventually disappeared, probably due to predators. We gave 4 male ducklings to a neighbor and kept one female duckling. Unfortunately, that female duckling got hit by a car this week. The chickens and ducks have always been good about staying out of the road until recently. The Runner hatched 17 rouen/runner cross ducklings. A week after hatching her ducklings, she was attached by a predator and we had to put her down. Then a neighbor gave us another male Runner that we had given them last year, because a raccoon had killed all their other ducks and he was the only one left. So we were back to having 2 grown runners. Then one of the male runners got hit by a car a few weeks ago. Of the 17 ducklings....only 2 disappeared, possibly due to a predator. We gave 13 away to a few different people, because we had close to 30 ducks...and that was way too many to feed and swim in our little pond. So, now we are down to 7 ducks...2 grown Rouens, 1 grown Runner and 4 Rouen/Runner ducklings. Here are some pictures.

As for the chickens, we started this spring with 3 silkies....1 hen and 2 rooster. The hen hatched 9 chicks. All but one survived (no thanks to Rozalyn who stepped on one of them with her horse-a-saurus paw). Of the 8, 4 were males and 4 were females. We decided to keep all the females, giving us 5 hens and gave away the 6 roosters. Now the original hen is sitting on eggs again (in our alpaca hay feeder bin), so we may have more chicks soon. While I gave the 6 white roosters away, I bought 2 new roosters. One is a blue calico and the other is a red buff. They should make some interesting colored chicks with our white hens next year. So we have 7 chickens now...5 hens and 2 roosters. Here are some pictures of the white hens and new colored roosters.

So that is a quick update to bring you up to speed on all the comings and goings of our crazy birds on our alpaca farm this year.

Cerberus the 3 Headed Alpaca?

2010-08-10T11:45:00.000-07:00

Okay.....it's not really a 3 headed alpaca, but we have had 3 solid black males born on our farm in the last few weeks and thought we would try to snap some pictures of them together. They are so cute playing out in the field together.....like the 3 Musketeers!

Rest in Peace Peruvian Macusani

2010-08-09T11:57:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I got an email from the farm we bought Silver Sox and Bellesa from saying that the famous Macusani was not doing well. He is around 20 years old and his health has been failing. This morning we received this email from the same breeder.

It is with a heavy heart that we inform you of the passing of Macusani. As you knew he was failing fast, the vet was out earlier to help him along his way. He is buried overlooking the girl's field where he can keep an eye on "his herd". He will be deeply missed. I am so thankful his last cria is Happy!

We feel so lucky to have Mac's very last cria....ASH Macusani's Happily Ever After. I am confident that she will spend many years on our farm passing on her Daddy's genes and legacy.

Rest in Peace Macusani

Thank you for your tremendous impact on the alpaca industry in the United States. You hold a special place in our hearts! May the pastures be greener on the other side!

Baby Shower and Alpacas

2010-08-08T11:57:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was my first baby shower. Noah and I got some amazing gifts, but my favorite gift was a hand made alpaca sweater and hat from Cara Stray at Oak Haven Alpacas. Not only did she spin the fiber into yarn and knit the outfit herself, but it is out of one of our very own alpacas Cafe who used to be owned by them. I love it so much! I can't wait to see our little one sporting it this fall and winter! Thank you so much Cara! Here are some pictures of the garments and Cafe.

Cafe

Also, here are a few pictures from the shower. My cake had a cria on top of it and my cousin thought it would be interesting to integrate it into a few other pictures at the shower! It's like playing Where's Waldo? I joked that I am going to put this alpaca on our child's birthday cake every year until they turn 18 years old!

Thanks to all my wonderful Aunt's, Grandma and cousins for hosting such a wonderful shower!

Ashton Stones Peruvian Alpacula

2010-08-05T11:56:00.000-07:00

Today, we had the third black boy cria born on our farm in 3 weeks. So far, we have had 5 cria born and 4 of them have been boys. Obviously someone did not get the memo that I ordered all grey girls, because we have only got one so far. We still have two pacas due on the farm in the next few weeks, so we will see what we get. Anyway. I went out to the barn this morning to check on the pregnant girls before I left for work. Silver Sox is normally laying in the barn most of the time these days in front of the fan. This morning, she was laying in the catch pen by herself with her back legs out to the side....which they normally do late in pregnancy. I think it is more comfortable for their big bellies. I noticed that her back end was more open and puffy than it had been in the last week. Her ligaments seem to have been stretched out for the last week in her back end making it more open and puffy, but today it was more pronounced. Also, her back end seemed to be pulsating and I noticed that her belly looked like it was getting tight with contractions. I ran back to the house and told Noah to keep a really close eye on Sox because I thought she was in labor. I went to work and called in several times to check in and Noah said she just looked normal, so I figured I must have been wrong. Then at 3:30pm, when I was on my way to Oceana County for work, Noah called and said that he had been in the house for an hour and a half and came back out and Sox had already had the cria and the placenta and the baby was standing up trying to nurse. I was pretty upset as I would have gone home to watch the birth earlier if I would have known. My office is only a few minutes from our farm and my schedule is luckily very flexible. I have seen lots of alpaca births, but it is one of my favorite parts of being an alpaca farmer. I wait almost 12 months to see these little ones arrive and I hate to miss it, especially when I am around and could have seen it. Apparently, mine and Noah's definitions of "watch her really closely" differ. Sometimes I wonder if I just am more observant and have better intuition about these things because I am a woman. Oh well. In the end, all that really matters is that we have a healthy dam and cria.

Like I said, the cria is a true black little boy. He weighed 19 lbs at birth and is pretty tall. He makes the little 16 lbs cria born yesterday look like a shrimp. He is strong and nursing well. He is already running around and trying to interact with the other cria. I am trying to let Noah name most of the cria this year, since I have done it the last several years. I believe he has decided to name this little one Ashton Stones Peruvian Alpacula. I have high hopes for this little guy since he is out of Accoyo Mavericks Smoke n' Mirrors and his grandsire is Accoyo Maverick! This little guys fiber looks crimpier and more dense than the two other black boys on our farm. We will probably be taking him on the show circuit next year to see how he does. His full brother who is also black did well in the show rings last year. If he ends up being herdsire quality, he will have a great chance of throwing greys some day since both of his parents are tuxedo greys. We will see what the future holds for this little guy.

The birth appears to have gone really well, which I am thankful for. Sox has had trouble maintaining pregnancies in the past, so I am happy that this one worked out. She has now had 2 grey cria and 2 black cria to date. She has always been bred to grey, so we have decided to try breeding her to a fawn male who has a grey sire in a few weeks. I am hoping we will get a rose grey out of this combination next year.

Here are some pictures of the new little guy. I am thinking we will probably have to call him Al for short.
He is always sticking his tongue out licking his lips. He reminds me of a little dragon! With all the black cria running around, the mom's are having a difficult time figuring out which one is theirs!

Ashton Stones Peruvian Alpacula

Onyx's Cria

2010-08-04T11:55:00.000-07:00

One of our boarders Onyx had her first cria today. We got to see the whole birth which was awesome. Everything went really well. Onyx was so calm to whole time, until the cria's head, neck and legs were dangling out and then she started humming frantically and spinning in circles trying to see what was happening. The poor girl seemed so confused. The cria is a true black male out of our herdsire Smokey. He weighed 16 lbs at birth. He is one of the cutest cria we have had born on our farm to date. He is small and stocky like his parents and has an adorable short little face. One of his ears is a little floppy still and I think he looks like a little black lamb. So cute. We nursed Onyx out a bit and gave the cria some colostrum and now he is nursing really well on his own. Onyx is a good mother, but she seems to forget about her little guy sometimes and then realizes he is not next to her and then searches frantically for him. He doesn't have a name yet, but I will let you know what his owners decide on. Here are some pictures of the birth and cria.

Testicle Receptacle?

2010-08-03T11:55:00.000-07:00

I mentioned a few posts back that we had planned to put our two older breeding males together to make room for a younger suri boy who they were both trying to beat up. Here is an update on how that experiment went.

First of all, Noah cut Sequoia's fighting teeth out yesterday. He usually uses OB wire to saw them off, but used the dremmel yesterday because it looks like Sequoia's teeth had been cut out in the past and were now growing back in, but too small to get the OB wire around. Then last night after work, we put Smokey and Sequoia in the small trailer together and drove them around the block to shake them up a little bit and confuse them (I had read on the AN forum that this might help). There were some skirmishes and spitting in the trailer, but it went well. Then, we unloaded both boys and put them in a new pasture, furthest from their old separate pastures. We also moved all the girls so no one shared the fence line with the boys. We unhaltered both boys and let them go. I was instantly amazed! They just ran around checking out the new pasture and ignoring one another. I thought...what a miracle! I had the camera ready and everything, but there was nothing interesting to record. Wow.... I was happy. But then, a few minutes later....the testosterone started flowing and the boys attacked one another. They reminded me of professional wrestlers, laying on a mat spinning in circles. Each boy had their face to the other male's back end trying his hardest to get a hold of his testicles. Evolutionary wise, the fighting teeth are meant to damage other male's testicles so they cannot reproduce and the alpha male gets to pass all his genes on. Luckily, both these boys have had their fighting teeth cut out. I was cracking up laughing 2 days ago when I read someone's post on the AN forum about inventing a "testicle receptacle" to put on male alpacas to protect their sensitive region from the other males. I am not laughing now. Those boys were viscous in their attempt to emasculate each other! After spinning around on the ground screaming and biting for a while, they both got up and took a very short break. Then, while Smokey was looking through the fence at the ladies, Sequoia ran at him full speed and T-boned him in the side with his full force. Smokey was not expecting this and went rolling like a barrel. I think this knocked the wind out of him. They continued to fight on the ground until Sequoia got a hold of Smokey's leg with his mouth and Smokey was sitting on Sequoia's head. They both laid like that for a while breathing very heavily. I made Noah go out and check on them to make sure they were both okay. I think they were just very tired and winded. After this, they didn't fight the rest of the night. Sequoia would attempt to fight, but Smokey would just put his ears back and run. Although Smokey is older, it looks like Sequoia is the new alpha male on our farm. I feel bad for Smokey, but he has been top dog for many years because he has never had much competition. I tried to take video of the boys first fight, but it turned out really dark and you can't see anything. Here are some pictures of the two fighting when they were still separated.

Because I am really behind in blogging right now, I have back dated this post and can give another update on how the boys are doing a week later. They are still living together in one pen. This past weekend, we moved them back to Smokey's original pen and have made Sequoia's old pasture a pen for young boys and weanlings. Sequoia and Smokey still fight at least once a day, but I haven't seen anything quite as bad as the first fight. I did come out to the barn on Saturday and found Smokey laid out in the barn like bambi and breathing really hard and covered in spit. Sequoia was standing over him like a big bully. I felt so bad for Smokey. I locked Sequoia out and gave Smokey some fresh water, hay (which he doesn't normally get in the summer) and extra grain. He really seemed to appreciate it. He had a tough time standing up, but once he did, he seemed fine. I was so sad though because he kept trying to follow me out of the stall. Last night, they were at it again, so I threw a bucket of water on them which stopped their fighting right away. I wish the boys would just get along. I am hoping things calm down once all our girls are bred and their aren't so many enticing smells. We will see.

Great Dane Party

2010-08-02T09:27:00.000-07:00

(Picture taken by Amy Caswell www.darkroomdivas.com)

A few weeks ago, we brought Roz and Lola to Lola's breeder's home (FerriDanes) to celebrate Lola's first birthday with her siblings. All her siblings showed up except her one sister Sprout. There were 9 danes total in attendance. Despite the rain and mud, a great time was had by all. Roz and Lola were some of the smaller danes there because they are females and most of the other ones were big boys. But none of them could keep up with Rozalyn's energy level and speed. She was the ring leader and had a whole pack chasing her all around the yard. We found that Lola is a lot like her mom Zada. They have similar personalities and both tended to hang back and not jump right into the fun with the rest of the danes. Even though Lola is bigger than her mom, they had the same head and eyes. They even made the same faces and expressions. We had a blast! Here are some pictures from the party.

(Picture taken by Amy Caswell www.darkroomdivas.com)

Lola and her mom Zada hanging out.

Welcome M Peruvian Macchiato

2010-08-01T08:22:00.000-07:00

Today, we added M Peruvian Macchiato aka "Otto" to our herd. He is a full peruvian grey suri who will be turning 1 year old in another week. We currently only have 1 suri alpaca, Paisley, a silver grey full peruvian suri female. I absolutely love the grey, appaloosa, and fancy suris and have been looking for a male to breed Paisley to this fall or next spring. I found Otto at Nel Vickers Farm, Maplewood Farm Alpacas in Charlevoix, MI. He is young and still needs to grow and mature. He won't be ready to breed until next fall, but I have high hopes for this little guy. We hope to show him and see how he matures over the next year and then hopefully add him to our herdsire line-up. Here is a picture of Otto when he was a cria.

Not sure if Otto is rose grey or silver grey. He appears to have black, dark brown, white and grey fibers in his blanket. His face is black with grey freckles all over it which I love. Otto looks very similar to his sire, Peruvian Gryphus, who is a Peruvian Condor son, so he has lots of grey in his background. Otto's dam is a Peruvian import. She is a very unique looking alpaca. She is a brown and white pinto with appaloosa spots all over her. Otto definitely carries some unique genes and should hopefully produce some interesting looking cria. I think he will make a great match for our little Paisley. She is a tuxedo (white markings on her extremities) and has blue swirls in her eyes, so it would be best to breed her to a darker colored male like Otto who does not have white spots or patches to avoid getting a blue eyed cria. Otto also has density which Paisley lacks.We picked Otto up at Nel's farm in Charlevoix today. We took the scenic drive up there through Traverse City which was really nice. Then we spent a few hours with Nel. I always love visiting with her! She has been in the alpaca industry since the very beginning and is an absolute wealth of knowledge. She and her husband who was a veterinarian imported some of the very first alpacas from Peru 25 years ago. She has pretty much seen and been through everything alpaca related! After our visit, we loaded Otto up in the back of our pick-up truck (it has a cab so he can't jump out....we didn't want to drive our trailer up there since he is one small alpaca and hauling the trailer sucks so much gas). After a half hour of standing, Otto kushed and spent the rest of the 3 hour drive munching on hay.

When we got him to our farm, I had hoped to put him in with one of our bigger males Smokey or Seqouoia. That did not work out very well. We brought him into each pen on a halter and haltered the big boys one by one. They were very aggressive towards him and pummeled him. Otto is only 100 lbs and the big boys are about 150 lbs. If Otto was a little larger or older, I may have just left him in there to fight it out, but I don't think he is mature enough to stick up for himself at this point. So, we ended up putting him in with the girls for now. In the 4 years that we have had our farm, we have never had many males, so have never really had to experience male fighting. We have always had our breeding male Smokey and he has always done pretty well with our little weanling boys when we put them in with him because they are so submissive. Things completely changed when we got another older breeding male. Now those two are constantly at each other through the fence and seem much more agitated and aggressive in general. We read a bunch on the Alpaca Nation forum this evening about it. When Sequoia came to our farm, his fighting teeth (razor sharp, hooked canine teeth used for fighting) were not cut, so Noah plans to put him in the ropes and cut his teeth tomorrow. This is important because male alpacas can really do some serious damage to one another with these teeth, including splitting ears open, gashing each other especially in the neck and face and doing damage to one another's testicles. Noah and I have noticed at other farms and most of the farms on alpaca nation agree that the more males you have together, the less fighting there is. Possibly because they work out a better pecking order and there are more males to mediate and diffuse aggressive situations. Also, people agree that gelded llamas or big gelded alpacas or livestock guard dogs tend to help mediate and keep the peace as well. Also, males tend to fight less the farther away they are from the females. They seem to fight the most if they share a fence line with the girls and fight the least if they have their own bachelor herd where they cannot see or smell the ladies. Unfortunately, on our farm, we don't have it set up to separate the girls and guys by more than a fence line or a few pastures. Also, we only have the 2 old breeding boys and 2 young male cria, and at this time, I am not really interested in committing to a livestock guard dog, a gelding, llama or a bunch of boys, so we are going to have to try and figure something else out. So back to the plan, we read that it might help to mash the boys in a trailer together, take them for a short ride and then plop them down in a pasture that neither of them have been in, so they don't feel like they have to defend their territory. People also suggested having the hose ready to spray them when they get aggressive, because it usually deters them. I think our plan tomorrow night is to cut Sequoia's teeth, put him and Smokey in the trailer together, take them for a drive and then put them in the pasture furthest from their current pastures and away from the girls. Then we will have the hose ready and maybe the video camera to see what happens. We will not be including Otto in this plan because I don't think he is big enough to defend himself yet against the big boys. I do think that Sequoia and Smokey are pretty evenly matched....they are both older, pretty aggressive and about the same weight (although Sequoia is taller). I am hoping they will just duke it out for awhile and then establish who is dominant and then leave each other alone. We will see how it goes. I have gotten a little side tracked. We are doing all of this craziness because I am hoping that Smokey and Sequoia can live in one pasture without injuring one another, so that frees up another pasture to put Otto and other younger males in. Right now, we don't really have anyone to put in with Otto as a buddy though, and he is getting a little old to be with the females since he was trying to mount them at Nel's farm, so we will have to figure something out until our cria boys get a little bigger. I thought about putting our suri girl in with him since she is old enough to breed in case anything happened and we planned to breed her to him anyway once he matures. We will see what we come up with I guess. This will be quite the experiment! Despite the extra work and hassle, I am still so happy that we added Otto to our herd! He is quite the handsome boy.

Welcome CCAP Cafe au Lait

2010-07-29T20:14:00.000-07:00

First of all, I feel like I haven't been blogging on our farm blog as much as I would like to. We have just been really busy this summer and I am keeping a baby/pregnancy blog as well, which is sucking a lot of my time and creative juices. Between the two blogs, this will already be my 156th entry for the year and we are only half way through! So anyway, we added a new face to our farm this week. Her name is CCAP Cafe au Lait, better known as Cafe....or Bangle as Noah likes to call her because of a white fiber bracelet around one of her ankles. So far she is doing great on our farm and fitting right in with the rest of the herd. I borrowed the pictures from our friends at Oak Haven Alpacas (and some other farms including Magical and CCAPS) because I have not had time to get out and take pictures of her yet. Maybe this weekend. Because I don't have a whole lot of time to write today, I am just going to copy and post her page from Alpaca Nation.

Cafe is the daughter of Magical Farms elite fleeced macho herdsire Peruvian Abundance, son of Snowmass Millennium. Cafe's banner winning sire has an "abundance" of everything! He displays ELITE fleece characteristics with outstanding fleece length, exquisite bundling, outstanding fineness, advanced crimp and density, as well as a superior macho head. With excellent conformation and coverage from head to toe on a solid, robust frame, he is a phenotypically flawless herdsire. Abundance is the unique blending of Accoyo Legacy and Peruvian Hemingway lines. Pictured below is her sire Abundance:
Cafe's dam is a wonderful production female herself. Her sire is MFI Peruvian Donovan and grand sire is Accoyo Peruvian Augusto, bloodlines noted for their dense, elite fleeces. In 2007, she produced Cafe's full brother CCaptain. He has fineness, wonderful coverage, stellar conformation, powerhouse genetics, awesome crimp and density, and of course cuteness. Pictured below is her brother CCaptain.
How many ARI Certificates read like this?

- Snowmass Millennium
- Accoyo Legacy
- Peruvian Charmingway
- Peruvian Hemingway
- MFI Peruvian Donovan
- PPPeruvian Augusto

Cafe has some amazing alpacas in her ancestry. She is soft, with fine buttery fleece. Cafe is also 1/4 Accoyo. Pictured below is Cafe's 2010 fiber.

Cafe is bred to a full Peruvian fawn male Georgio for a spring 2011 cria. He has big names in his background including Northcoast El Accoyo Asante,PPPeruvian Royal Fawn, 4Peruvian Legacy, and 6Peruvian Conan. We can't wait to see what they produce! Georgio is pictured below.

Happy First Birthday Lola!

2010-07-20T10:57:00.000-07:00

Lola turned 1-year-old on the fourth of July! It is difficult to believe that she went from a one pound newborn who could fit in your hand to a 34 in tall, 135 pound dog in one year! We had a birthday celebration for Lola which included party hats, unwrapping new toys and treats and a special meal. Before showing you birthday party pictures, let's take a trip down memory lane.

Here are newborn pictures of Miss Lola from FerriDanes. Wasn't she tiny and precious!

One week old!

Two weeks old when we visited Lola for the first time and fell in love!

Three weeks old!
Four weeks old!
Six weeks old!
7 Weeks Old and in her new home!

8 Weeks Old
9 Weeks after the horrible accident. Doesn't she look so sad : (

10 Weeks Old

11 Weeks Old

13 Weeks Old
16 Weeks Old
5 Months Old
8 Months Old
9 Months Old
10 Months Old
11 Months Old
Okay....that was a trip through Lola's first year of life. Now here are pictures of her first birthday party! Happy Birthday Miss Lola! We love you!

All partied out!

Wild Critters

2010-07-19T13:37:00.000-07:00

One of the great things about living on a farm way out in the country is all the wildlife you get to experience. We have tons of wild critters wandering around our farm at any given time. Last weekend, I was glad that Apple was on guard. She has been more sensitive lately since she has a new baby. I let the dogs out the other night just before dusk. As I was watching them from the door they headed towards the hay field to do their business and Apple ran to the fence line and started doing warning call. While she is very protective with the new baby, she doesn't normally do this to the dogs. Once she started doing the warning call, the dogs stopped and stood at alert looking at something out on the fence line. I called the dogs back worried that it was a skunk. I told Noah that I thought something was out by the paca pasture and he went out to check it out. He came back and said that it was a porcupine! While I will occasionally see them as road kill on the back roads around our house, I don't think I have ever seen a live wild one. We grabbed the camera and ran back out, but by the time got out there, it escaped into the hay field. Forget about trying to find a needle in a haystack.....try finding a porcupine in a hay field! We couldn't find him. I am very grateful that Apple warned us so the dogs didn't get attacked and a bunch of needles to the noses.

While we are on the subject of wild critters, here is another story from the farm. I went out to the barn this morning before work to feed the ducks. Noah often forgets to feed the ducks (mostly because he also has to feed the alpacas, cat, dogs, and ferret in the morning too). Anyway as I was getting in my car for work, they were all quacking at me so I ran to the barn to give them some food. We recently started keeping our duck and chicken food in a large plastic trash bin because the mice had been infesting our barn and eating all the food. I would often see five at a time eating the cracked corn that was put out for the chickens. Anyway, since we recently had ducklings I also had a bag of duckling food which I kept sitting in a tall white bucket. I didn't have a top for it so every time I went to feed the ducklings there was always a little mouse in the food bucket that would jump out and run away. Well, I fed the ducklings the rest of the food yesterday and now the bucket sits empty. So this morning when I went out to the barn, I happened to glance at the bucket and notice a big brown blob. At first I thought it was a rat, but on closer inspection, I found that it was about 30 little mice trapped in the bottom of the bucket all piled up on top of one another. Because the food was no longer in the bucket, they could jump out. I ran into the house to tell Noah that I invented the best mouse trap ever! He went out and looked in the bucket. I had to leave for work and I asked Noah if he was going to kill them or let them go.....he said not to worry....that he would "let them go".......and then he added "humanely and not cruelly," which I think was code for he was going to take care of them once and for all. The little mice were cute and felt sorry for them, but they creep me out and I don't want to scurrying all over our barn and eating all our food. Hopefully we can set the trap again and catch some more mice!

Cria Shearing Services

2010-07-16T13:24:00.000-07:00

We bought alpaca shears last year and Noah has been learning to shear alpacas. He's done about half a dozen yearlings and full grown alpacas successfully. He has also sheared close to a dozen cria. He has really gotten good at it now. While Noah will probably not be making shearing into a career anytime soon, he is offering his cria shearing services. If you or someone you know would like to have your cria sheared this summer, contact Noah at alpacas@ashtonstone.net

Ashton Stones You're My Euro

2010-07-12T19:18:00.000-07:00

Noah came up with a name for our new little boy. Like I mentioned before, his sire, grandsire, and great grandsire have a theme having to do with money for their names....like No Small Change (aka Peso), Tribute to Money, and Money Maker. He also has a half sister named Pesos to Pennies. After throwing around a ton of names, most to do with money....Noah came up with Ashton Stones You're My Euro.....like You're my hero! A hero refers to character who, in the face of danger and adversity or from a position of weakness, display courage and the will for self sacrifice—that is, heroism—for some greater good of all humanity. Ashton Stone refers to our farm of course....we have also used ASH instead of the full Ashton Stone if the name is too long. And Euro of course refers to the money theme that is now tradition! We plan to call the little guy "Euro" for short.

Ashton Stones You're My Euro

Apple's Cria

2010-07-12T16:02:00.000-07:00

I slept horribly last night. Pregnancy induced restless legs syndrome + stress/worry + thunderstorm + fat belly and hard time getting comfortable + bizarre dreams = no sleep. I have a blood disorder called Beta Thalassemia Minor and it is causing some pregnancy issues. Noah and I had planned to birth at a freestanding birth center called the Greenhouse Birth Center, but now because of recent complications due to the disorder, may have to birth in the hospital instead, which I am pretty bummed about. Anyway, some frustration and stress surrounding this issue has caused me to sleep poorly lately....especially last night. So, because I had such a rough night, I ended up sleeping in and rushing off late to work without even checking on Apple like I normally do in the morning. I wish I would have because shortly after I arrived at work, Noah called to say that Apple had her baby that morning (probably around 9am...which is about the time I left for work) and was passing the placenta around 9:45am. On top of my recent frustration, I felt even more frustrated that I had missed the birth. She was humming a lot last night...more than normal....I should have known. Seeing the baby alpacas being born is one of my favorite things about being an alpaca farmer! But I suppose I would rather have a perfect unassisted birth that I miss seeing than seeing a birth that has complications and needs assistance.

Anyway, I came home from work to check the cria out since I live less than 10 minutes from my office. The cria is a little boy. He looks like he will probably be solid bay black. He looks like he has black fiber with dark brown trim on the inside of his legs, on his belly and around his eyes. Almost like really dark vicuna markings. So far, his fiber is very bright and soft, but doesn't have much character. It almost looks like straight human hair. Hopefully he will get some crimp as the fiber grows out. He weighed in at 14.6 lbs and even though he cooked for 345 days, looks like he may be a little premature. His teeth have just barely erupted and his ears are floppy. Also his front legs are very knock kneed and he is walking on his pasturns (backs of legs/ankles) instead of his feet. He looks a lot like a creature from a Dr. Suess book to me. This happens occasionally with newborns and with some sunshine, vitamin D and exercise he should straighten out and be fine. His sire No Small Change aka Peso was also premature at birth and had floppy ears and knock kneed but turned out just fine and actually won lots of ribbons. Actually, comparing the pictures from this morning to the pictures I took this evening, his legs are already looking a little better. Here are pictures of the little guy when he was still damp.

(he looks so tiny next to Alchemy who is 2 months old and twice his weight)

Despite his leg issues, he gets up and around well and is nursing like a champ. Apple is a doting mother and constantly humming to him and chasing him around. Although, she did step on him when he was sleeping and he cried and tried to move and she kept standing on his foot until I moved her leg. Hopefully she will learn to be more gentle. Noah will be naming this cria since I tend to always take over the naming. We are thinking it would be cool to stick with a money theme....his sire is No Small Change aka Peso...his grandsire is Tribute to Money....and his great grandsire is Money Maker. He also just had a half sister born at another farm named Pesos to Pennies. We will see what Noah comes up with.

Here are some pictures of the new little guys this evening after he has dried.

It's Hard Being a Farmer

2010-07-08T08:04:00.000-07:00

Farming has traditionally been a labor intensive career choice, where you need to be in peak physical shape for hauling hay, water buckets, building barns, raising fences etc. While big muscles, bronzed by the sun, come in handy for farmers and are important for getting all of the farm chores done, they are not nearly as important as a strong emotional grip. I find the day to day decision making much more difficult and tiring than the physical labor. I did not grow up on a farm, so I have been faced with so many new experiences over the last 4 years since we began our alpaca adventure. There is so much more responsibility, worry, and decision making than I would have originally anticipated. I know of several farms who have thrown in the towel after having alpacas and/or a farm for just a short period of time.....and I can see why....it is not the physical labor that gets to you.....it is the emotional stuff that becomes tiring and too much to handle. Don't get me wrong, I would not trade in our farming experiences over the last 4 years for anything because I feel like I have learned so much and grown into such a stronger person physically, mentally and emotionally, but sometimes I just think.....life could be so much easier without the animals and farm. But then again, life might be much more boring and unfulfilled too.

Having the farm and all the animals has probably prepared Noah and I to be good parents, more than anything else. Everyone tells us that we have no idea how much more difficult life will be with a baby....but really....after raising and caring for over 50 different animals on our farm at any given time, many who have been very demanding, adding one more to the menagerie doesn't seem like it will be that difficult. Sure, human babies are not exactly animals, and I imagine are very time and energy consuming, but I think we will adapt well. The farm has taught us so much. The farm has taught Noah and I how to really research every aspect of each major decision we make so that we can hope that we made the best decision. It has taught us to finish things completely with quality workmanship, instead of "doing it half ass" as my dad would say. It has shown us that life is not always fair and that experiencing loss and heartache are just as important as experiencing joy and happiness if you want to be a well balanced and whole person. The farm has taught us to appreciate each day that we are on this earth and to spend it doing the things we love with the people we love. It has taught us responsibility and unselfishness; sometimes we are very tired at the end of the day....but those animals deserve to be taken care of properly and depend on us for survival. It has taught us that no matter how much you plan, organize, and research, there are always unknowns and you can still make mistakes and that you just need to learn from them so that you don't repeat them in the future. It has taught us to enjoy the simple pleasures in life; whether that be picking cherries, walking through the woods, sitting down and enjoying a beautiful sunset, or gazing up at the beautiful stars (which out in the country where we live are very bright and vivid at night). The farm has taught us the importance of appreciating one another and all the hard work that we each put in to make the farm run as smoothly as possible. It has given us something to do and talk about together. The farm has shown us how well we can work together as a team; we each excel in certain areas of maintaining the farm and help one another when we are weary. The farm has taught us to dream...dream about how it could look when we finally finish every renovation....dream of what the rest of our lives will be like here....and yes, even dream about leaving the farm one day (hopefully to retire in Costa Rica). So despite all the hard physical labor and emotional heartache that this farm has brought us, I believe it has given us so much more than we could have even hoped for.

You may ask what brought on this somewhat emotional post. Last night, Noah and I worked all day, drove to Lansing for an OB appointment and then came home around 8:30pm to find the new momma duck (the runner with the 17 little ducklings) injured pretty badly up in our barn. One of her thighs and legs was pretty much mangled with no skin and the muscle and bone were exposed. We don't know exactly what got her since she was fine before we left for Lansing. We don't think it was a coyote, raccoon, fox or opossum as they tend to hide out during the day and hunt at night. Besides, I would think they would go for the ducklings or at least the momma's neck and not her leg. I don't think it was any type of bird of prey either as it was just her leg that was mangled. I am pretty sure a dog, bear, cougar or other large predator would have been more successful in killing and dragging off one small duck. The only other thing that Noah and I can think of is a snapping turtle. Snappers don't normally go after full grown ducks, but will kill ducklings. One of our ducklings was killed by a snapper in our pond last summer and one of our adult runners faces got injured by it too...and who knows....maybe that's where the missing 7 ducklings went this summer. Last year, Noah caught two snappers from our pond, but it looks like more may have moved in because our momma duck was in pretty bad shape. I am probably making a much bigger deal of this than I needed to and any "traditional" farmer wouldn't have thought twice about putting the animal down, but I felt so horrible for the momma duck and her little ducklings. She continued to hobbled around on her one leg to protect the ducklings when we came near. Noah cleaned out the wound and checked her out. Of course, my emotional side was first to take over and it ran through my head that we could try bandaging the leg up and nursing the momma back to health....or that we could take her to the vet and have the leg amputated, but my logical side told me that this would just prolong my heartache and cost a lot in vet bills to save a duck that we only paid $2 for last year. She was clearly in pain so we decided it was best to put her down. Noah and I both felt bad for doing so, but being a farmer is hard and sometimes difficult things need to be done. I said goodbye to the duck and Noah took care of her while I rounded up the 17 ducklings and locked them securely in the barn away from predators. So this incident is what triggered some reflection on why we put ourselves through what we do. The other day, Noah was talking to his brother and telling him everything he does on the farm. Noah pretty much works on the farm from sun up to sun down each day. Noah's brother asked him if he actually enjoys it....and Noah said that he does. At the end of the day, despite all the physical labor and emotional heartache, we have become much more stronger and balanced people because of the farm.

When I feel this way, it always reminds me of me of one of my favorite Jimmy Buffett songs called Happily Ever After where he sings:

One thing I can conclude
One has to learn havin fun is just smilin through
Those changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes
Take it from me cuz Ive found
If you leave it then somebody else is bound
To find that treasure, that moment of pleasure
When yours, it could have been

Some people never find it
Some... only pretend, but me:
I just want to live happily ever after every now and then

In the words of the great philosopher Jimmy Buffett, I hope that one day, many years from now, I can say.... Some of its magic, some of its tragic, but I had a good life all the way.

Bad Boys, Bad Boys, Whatcha Gonna Do?

2010-07-07T09:19:00.000-07:00

Like with most animal species, female alpacas tend to be more docile than the males. Although the females still have a pecking order and will spit at one another, the males, especially the breeding testosterone filled males can have aggressive and bloody battles. We have always just had one breeding male on our farm and young boys not old enough for breeding. When we put the young boys in with Smokey the breeding male, they tended to get along pretty well. The young boys have always been submissive and Smokey tends to leave them alone, but would give them the occasional nip or mounting to show them who's boss. We recently added another breeding male, USA Peruvian Sequoia to our herd which has been quite the learning experience for us. At first we had the males separated by a couple pastures so I don't think they were even aware of one another's existence. We put Sequoia in with our young boys (before they went to a new home) and they got along fine. Then a week or two after we got Sequoia, we started breeding and the two males suddenly became aware of their competition. While we would have the male and female in the catch pen to breed, the other male would pace the fence screaming, jumping, spitting and trying to escape, which completely distracts the breeding male from his duty because all he wants to do is fight his competition. Sequoia got so worked up during one breeding that he busted a whole row of panels down and escaped (luckily he didn't go far and we caught him). I was hoping we could have put the two males together in one pasture, but I just don't think that is going to happen. We decided to split one of our pastures into two, dividing it with a 6 foot fence instead of 5 foot and putting extra wooden fence posts in for reinforcement. We also divided the large stall in the new barn into two smaller stalls with a floor to ceiling panel separating the two smaller stalls. As a side note, I am so happy to finally be able to put stalls in the new barn because our boys have been left without shelters all spring and summer and I worried about them in the sun and thunderstorms. In the future, these boys will have to learn to get along with other males. There is no way we will be able to give every male a separate pen, plus there is plenty of room in each of these new pastures for a few boys. I have heard that the more males you have, the less aggressive they are with one another. Anyway, we moved the boys in next to one another a week and a half ago. I am very happy that we opted to go with the extra reinforced fence. They spent about a week running up and down the fence line next to one another screaming, screeching, spitting, kicking, biting, pummeling the fence, and jumping up on the fence. The first night we had them next to one another, I checked on them and found both of them with bloody faces. I was worried something happened as Sequoia still has his fighting teeth (sharp teeth in the back of the mouth) which we need to cut out. Noah checked both boys over and determined that Smokey probably bashed his face into part of the fence (that was also covered in blood) and split his lip. Then he proceeded to spit red blood all over Sequoia's white face. Smokey's cut wasn't too bad....it just looked a lot worse with with blood all over the place. For the first few days, I would run out to check on the boys because I could hear them screaming and was always afraid that one of them got their leg stuck in the fence and was dangling, but I would always rush out to find the boys covered in stinky green spit. I took some pictures of their nonsense last weekend.
Now that the weather has been in the 90's the last 3 days, their fighting behavior has been reduced to a minimum. They were fighting every half hour or so before and now it is down to a few scuffles a day. Because of the hot sun, the are both forced into the shade of the barn. We often see them laying side by side with only a panel dividing them in the barn. Once in awhile, one will screech a little bit, put his ears back and glare at the other one, but they don't get up. The hot weather has really seemed to calm them down some. On a positive note, Smokey had gotten pretty chunky after this past winter so hopefully all this exercise is slimming him down some.

17 New Ducklings!

2010-07-06T09:19:00.000-07:00

When I was home on my lunch break last week, I looked out the window and saw that our Indian Runner duck finally hatched her ducklings. There were 17 total; she hatched every single egg in the nest! These babies look like Indian Runner/Rouen crosses....they are a strange light brown, yellowish-greenish color. Most of their faces have the Rouen duckling markings, but they tend to stand up straight like the runners. They are very cute; I am excited to see what they will look like when they are adults. I locked them in the barn for the last week to keep them safe from predators. Our last Rouen duck hatched 13 ducklings and only 5 of them survived. One of them was smooshed my Rozalyn stepping on it and the other 7 disappeared...probably snatched by predators....coyotes, raccoons, opossums, minks, snapping turtles, hawks, or eagles. I am hoping this little brood will have a better survival rate, but I guess we will see. I let them out of the barn last night because the little ducklings kept squeezing through the cracks and escaping, much to their frantic mother's dismay. She took them down to the pond for the first time last night...it was so cute watching them swim around. Here are some pictures of the new babies.

Here are some pictures of the 5 remaining ducklings from the first brood with the adult ducks. They are almost 2 months old and their feathers are coming in. They are getting pretty large now and are starting to quack instead of chirp. If you notice, there are two adult rouens and two adult runners in the flock. We recently re-adopted the male runner that we gave away to a neighbor last year because the other ducks were being really mean to it. They had to bring him back last week because a raccoon killed the rest of their ducks and they wanted to get him out before the predator came back. Although the other male runner jumped him and tried to mount him at first, they are getting along well now. Maybe because there are more ducks in the flock now....who knows.

4th of July and Cherry Picking

2010-07-05T09:17:00.000-07:00

Noah and I had a wonderful 4th of July weekend. We spent time with my mom, with Noah's parents and just with each other. We watched movies on DVD, went swimming, played board games, slept in, went for walks, took the dogs to a park, cooked out, went to a movie, watched fireworks and lit some of our own off, and had a first birthday party for Lola. We also got lots of work done around the farm....we cleaned to house and barn, marked out where we will fence in our yard, went grocery shopping and Noah worked on the new barn. We also had a few people over to see our alpacas. Our weekend was really packed with activities, but it was relaxing too. My favorite part was going cherry picking with Noah, Roz and Lola. We have tart cherry trees on the far end of our hay field and they are perfectly ripe right now. They are so delicious; mostly sweet with a little tart kick. I ate way more than I picked. It was so much fun and so nice to be out in the sunshine and beautiful weather with the ones I love. Here are some pictures.

This is when we were walking out to the cherry trees. You can see them in the distance at the end of the corn and hay field.
Roz watching Noah pick cherries.
Noah accidentally picked a walking stick bug with the cherries.
Roz wanted to know what all the fuss was about and decided to help pick cherries too!
Noah decided he wanted to make a homemade cherry pie with the cherries. He bought a device called a Cherry Chomper that is supposed to pit the cherries. Noah called it Mr. Chomper and was not impressed with how it worked. He found that it worked better to squeeze the pit out by pinching the cherries between his two fingers. Mr. Chomper would probably work better with larger cherries. Another alpaca farm that we are friends with keeps a farm blog as well and I am always reading on her blog how she forages and gathers all kinds of fruits, veggies, and plants around her home for eating and dying alpaca fiber. I think it is so neat! I hope to be able to do more things like this. We have blackberry bushes on the property as well as morel mushrooms that we have picked. We also have a pear tree that the pears are just starting to come out on. I plan to pick some and turn them into baby food and freeze it this fall. I really enjoy foraging much more than actual gardening! We really had a wonderful weekend on the farm!

Appalachia- 335 Days Today

2010-07-02T08:23:00.000-07:00

Ashton Stones Appalachia was the first cria ever born on our farm back in 2007. She is almost 3 years old and due with her first cria now. She is 335 days today. Here is a picture of Apple with her mom Lady this spring before shearing.
Apple is bred to IVF Tribute WSA No Small Change aka Peso. I fell in love with this little guy back when he was a juvenile. I was so excited when we could finally breed one of our girls to him. I can't wait to see what we get in the next few weeks! I am hoping the cria will be a black or grey girl as Peso and Apple both have silver grey sires. I am thinking the cria will probably be light brown though. I also predict she will go in the 340 range. We will see. Peso is picture below:

Tragedy Avoided- Preventing Surgical Death in Great Danes

2010-07-01T07:22:00.000-07:00

Because we purchased both our danes Rozalyn and Lola from reputable Great Dane breeders, they both came with a contract. One of the things in this contracts says we needed to spay them. Neither of them are show quality dogs (not because there is anything wrong with them, but because their specific markings and colors are not recognized by AKC as show markings). Breeding any dogs, especially large breed dogs like Great Danes is a huge responsibility and the breeders want to be sure that only the best quality genes are being passed on and that their dogs are going to responsible pet owners. Great Danes can have a lot of health issues and even though purchasing from a reputable breeder who does health screenings on all their breeding stock can be quite costly, it will normally save you so much heartache and vet bills in the future.

Like our previous Great Dane Sephiroth, Rozalyn and Lola are like our children. They are a very important part of our family and although they can be a lot of work and can be expensive to maintain, they give us something intangible and priceless that nothing else can. Therefore, when it comes to any sort of treatment, we are sure to research everything and check with our circle of trusted dane breeders before going ahead with anything. I tend to be distrustful of doctors and veterinarians....especially ones who are general practitioners and not specialists. I believe they mean well, but if they do not specialize in whatever procedure needs to be done or in that particular kind of animal, I have a difficult time believing that they are experts at what they do.

Anyway, Roz went through her first heat back in February. Our breeder recommends waiting until after female danes first heat cycle and after male danes turn 18 months to spay or neuter them. This is to ensure they reach their full physical potential. Danes who are altered too early tend to be very tall and skinny; they never put on the appropriate muscle mass. It is best to have females spayed 2-3 months after their heat cycle. If you do it to soon after their heat cycle or too close to their next heat cycle there is an increased risk of bleeding out because their capillaries are enlarged. We had hoped to get Roz spayed in May, but then she went through a false pregnancy, began lactating and developed mastitis. Surgery is not recommended until the dog finishes their false pregnancy and the mastitis is cleared up. It took several hundred dollars and a lot of time to get the mastitis cleared up, so we kept pushing the surgery back. Finally last week, we were scheduled to bring her in for surgery on Wednesday. If you read our baby blog, you will know that I was feeling unusually anxious and fearful last week and was having disturbing dreams. Since our last dane Seph died in his sleep and I never really got to say good bye to him...it is now a habit for me to pet, hug, kiss, and tell the girls how much I love them each evening before bed. Last week, I found myself doing this throughout the day with Rozalyn, like I was telling her goodbye, just in case. I know all of this sounds a little silly and somewhat crazy, but I have found that I seem to have an intuition about these sort of things. I don't think I have always had this 6th sense, but since our last dane Seph died, I seemed to have developed this sensitivity. It is difficult to explain. It's like having a pit in my stomach or a gut feeling about something. If you have ever read The World According to Garp by John Irving, it is the feeling described as the lurking "under toad" in this book. It is a horrible feeling, like you know something is out there waiting to pounce, but you can't really put your finger on it, so you don't know how to best protect yourself. Anyway, crazy or not, I felt these feelings last week. I have been very calm and relaxed this whole pregnancy. I am normally pretty high strung and emotional, so Noah just attributed my feelings last week to hormone changes.

I contacted one of our good friends and the best Great Dane expert I know, Seph's breeder from Rainmaster Danes in Ohio. I shared my fears with her and she emailed me a link. It is for the Great Dane Club of America's Surgery Guidelines. She told me to request that all these guidelines be followed by the vet for the surgery. I called our vet up and told her that I wanted to meet before the surgery to discuss the guidelines. Here are the guidelines:

Surgery Guidelines for Great Danes

The following information regarding both routine spay and neuter surgery as well as emergency situations in the Great Dane (such as those involving C-sections) is presented as a basic protocol to help avoid complications such as DIC (Disseminated Intravascular Coagulopathy) which appear to occur in a higher number of giant dogs undergoing surgery than the norm. Therefore, the GDCA offers the following information for owners and breeders of Great Danes.

Several veterinary clinics with regular and extensive experience dealing with giant breeds have developed similar protocols for surgery that can be recommended preferentially for giant breeds. These are techniques that have proven highly successful; both in routine spay/neuter surgeries as well as more critical care situations, such as C-sections. Such a set of protocols is offered below. We suggest you download it and discuss this with your veterinarian PRIOR to any surgical appointment.

Please review the following with your attending veterinarian before deciding to have surgery done on your Dane:

1. First find a veterinarian experienced with surgeries involving giant breeds.

2. All elective surgeries, such as spay/neuter, should be done ideally only on healthy animals. Spays are best planned in anestrous: about 3 months after the last season. Please insure your veterinarian is aware of any health concerns you might have about your dog prior to surgery.

3. Prior to any surgery, request that the veterinarian do a complete physical examination, including a good heart auscultation, and EKG.

4. Ensure that you elect to have the pre-surgical blood work done (CBC and serum chemistry panel) and ask them to also include a CLOTTING PROFILE.

5. If all blood work and the exam are normal, then schedule the surgery and fast the dog overnight. It's not generally necessary to withhold water for 12 hours (simply put the water bowl away at bedtime).

6. Ask that the surgeon insert an IV catheter prior to surgery. Fluid therapy should generally be administered as a safety precaution. Pulse oximetry and cardiac monitoring are also recommended. If blood pressure monitoring is available, consider any extra costs as potentially insuring additional safety margins.

7. Spay surgery in conjunction with C-section is not always the safest option in giant dogs. Be sure to discuss the pros and cons of two separate surgeries vs. doing both procedures at once with your veterinarian.

8. Currently, the induction agent, Propofol (deprivan), and the gas anesthesia, Sevoflurane, are considered the most ideal (safe and effective) anesthetic agents. These agents are not always available and always cost more to use. Valium, ketamine, and the gas isoflurane are widely available and generally acceptable. Due to the variations in physiology in giant breeds, drugs such as acepromazine, rompun and the thiopentals are less appropriate choices. Discuss this with your veterinarian. Also discuss appropriate pain control for your dog when contemplating surgery for your Great Dane.

9. During and after surgery, dogs are highly susceptible to hypothermia (lowered body temperature). The body loses heat directly through the surgical opening; stress and anesthetic agents further impair ability to maintain body temperature. Hypothermia adversely affects the cardiovascular system, coagulation, anesthesia recovery time and increases the risk of wound infection. Preventive measures, including warming of IV fluids, placing the dog on a heated pad (circulating water heating pad or other heating pad set on “low”) and covering the body and extremities with warmed blankets, towels, bubble wrap, or other protective coverings post-surgery are vital in conserving body heat. Temperature monitoring, either via electronic device or rectal thermometer, should be done during surgery and periodically throughout recovery.

Prepared by the Health and Welfare committee of the Great Dane Club of America. Written by Sue Cates, RVT and reviewed by LeAnn Lake-Heidke, DVM.

I am so glad she sent me these guidelines! It most likely saved Roz's life! We took Roz in for surgery and brought the guidelines into our vet and went over each one. I think they thought we were crazy for requesting all the extra stuff including all the extra monitoring during surgery, the CBC blood panel and the blood clotting profiles. All the extras cost about $500 more and they couldn't do the surgery as planned because they had to send the blood clotting profiles out. Although I hated to spend all the extra money on the testing, I didn't feel right not doing it. The vet didn't really seem to think the blood clotting test and all the extras were necessary, but I pressed and I told her that Roz is related to our first dane Seph and when we had Seph's necropsy done at Michigan State, they suspected that he had a blood clotting issue since he seemed to hemorrage and bleed out so quickly with his thymus gland, but they said they could not test for the blood clotting thing post mortem. So I insisted on post poning the surgery last week and having the tests run.

I am so glad that I did! The test results came in yesterday. Everything was normal on the CBC panel and Von Willebrand test, but the blood clotting test came back with abnormalities. They ran a PT Scan to check her prothrombin time (basically how fast her blood coagulates and clots). The vet said the normal range for dogs is between 5-12 seconds. Roz's took just over 100 seconds! She said that Roz's blood does clot, just very very slowly. The vet said that she was so so happy that we had pushed for the tests because making an incision into Roz probably would have been a disaster and most likely fatal! She asked if Roz had gotten into any rodenticide....this is what they originally thought with Seph as well....but when they ran toxicology tests on him, he had no rodenticide in his system. I told her that we are very diligent about watching what our dogs eat and our farm, house, barns, basement, and garage have been thoroughly searched for any rat poisons after our last dane died. The vets recommendation is to give Roz vitamin K for a month and then do another PT scan. If it was due to rodenticide, her PT time should go back to normal. If it is a blood defect, then it probably won't affect the PT number. She said at that time we can decide what to do. She is going to consult with some surgical and internal medicine experts to see what they think. She said that if she does have the clotting defect, then they would either not recommend surgery, or if they did do surgery, it would be with a specialist and they would probably have to do a blood transfusion.

While I am very bummed about Rozalyn possibly having a defect, I am so happy that I followed my gut feeling and had the expensive tests run. It has almost been 6 months since she went into heat the first time, so it could have been really really bad if we had went through with the surgery. I asked the vet if this would have any long term affects on Roz. She said that if she gets a cut or bruise it will take a lot longer to heal, but that she would not bleed to death from it. She said we would just have to be very careful if she ever needed surgery or got a large wound and she would probably need a blood transfusion. I plan to research and see if there is a medication she can take to stop her from going into heat. I would hate to have her develop a false pregnancy and mastitis every time she went into heat. Noah and I are thinking that this is why it took so long for the mastitis to heal and the blood to stop coming from her teats. On a positive note, the CBC panel came back perfect, so the lumps that are still left from the mastitis on her belly must not have any bacteria or infection left.

I am so thankful that I followed my instincts and spent the extra money to have the test run. If I hadn't, we would have lost our darling Rozalyn and this would have been a completely different post. For more information on preventing surgical deaths in danes and other larege breed dogs, check out this article which also contains the surgery guideline link for the Great Dane Club of America.

STEPS TO PREVENT SURGICAL DEATH IN GREAT DANES

A Swift Kick...Ouch!

2010-06-22T11:16:00.000-07:00

When it comes to survival skills, alpacas don't have much going for them. Sure they can run, but when it comes to close combat, their major weapons are spitting and kicking. Sure they buck up and occasionally bite, but they mostly rely on their rancid spit and a swift kick. Neither of these are much of a deterrent when it comes to humans handling alpacas as the stinky spit washes off and because they have padded feet instead of hard hooves, their kicks are normally close to painless. Unfortunately, one of our alpacas, Paisley showed me otherwise last night. Paisley is the only suri alpaca on our farm of huacayas. I have been told that suris tend to be more high strung and skittish than huacayas and we have found this to be true...at least in Paisley's case. She is getting more used to us, but is still rather hyped up and crazy if we touch her. Well, last night, I was innocently walking down a line of feed bowls, putting pellets in each one. This is normally a chaotic time of day because all the alpacas are screeching and spitting at one another as they try to claim a food bowl. Well, I was walking along and out of nowhere, Paisley ran in front of me to try and claim a bowl. Then other alpacas came charging after her to claim the same bowl and I am only assuming she attempted to kick them (she is one of my favorites, so I like to tell myself that she wasn't aiming for me). Well I was wearing shorts and her kick nailed me right on the bare front of my thigh. It stung like crazy and left an instant imprint of an alpaca foot print on my leg. It also scared me because she hit the bucket I was holding as well which made a loud bang. Of course, I was a huge baby about it and started crying. Then Noah got frustrated and yelled which made me cry even harder. Really, I was acting like I was 3 years old, but I had had a long and tiring day at work and was already feeling frustrated about some other things, so maybe a good cry is what I needed. We went in the house and put ice on it. It was so crazy, I had a red raised up foot print right on my leg. Alpacas have a padded foot and two toes, like this.
I of course had to take a picture for the blog.

While alpaca farming is usually relaxing and enjoyable...sometimes it can be a pain too! Ouch!

The Boys Find a New Home

2010-06-21T11:39:00.000-07:00

Riphaeus and d'Artagnan went to their new home a week and a half ago. We had high hopes for these little guys, but unfortunately, they are just not what we are looking for in herdsire quality males on our farm. Because we have 7 babies due on our farm this year, we thought it best to make room and find them a new home since we won't be using them in our breeding program. Luckily, they are both friendly and absolutely adorable, so they found a good home where they will be pets and companion to a horse who just lost his horse buddy due to colic. We will miss Riph and Dar, but luckily we can still visit them as they went to live with one of my co-workers, who happens to be an animal lover too. So far, they are doing well in their new home and getting lots of love and attention from kids who take riding lessons at the farm. I even got to see pictures of them posing with lots of kids on someone elses FaceBook page today. I am so glad they went to a good loving home!

Growing Up Chicks and Ducklings

2010-06-19T11:44:00.000-07:00

Here are some updated pictures of the chicks and ducklings. They are growing fast! There are 8 chicks left (Rozalyn accidentally stepped on one and squashed and killed it...considering she weighs over 130 lbs and her feet are as big as my hands, I suspect the chick didn't suffer). There are 10 ducklings left. Again, Roz tried to play too hard with one and squashed it. One was half the size of the others and seemed to have something wrong with it and didn't make it and another one disappeared. It is funny, the roosters and male ducks follow the mommy hen and duck around. The roosters seem to help care for and protect the chicks, but the male duck beats up the ducklings and is always trying to mate with the mother duck. Men! Our female Indian Runner duck has built another nest on the other side of our house and is sitting on eggs again, so we will see if these ones hatch.

Cria Shearing- Happy and Alchemy

2010-06-18T07:24:00.000-07:00

Last week, we sheared our two cria before we left for vacation. We wanted to make sure they didn't get too hot when we were away and Noah wanted to get some practice in as he has been asked to shear cria for a few other farms. The cria did great during shearing. Noah made his own new pulley system to tie them down; you can buy them for hundreds of dollars online. I am always amazed at how crafty and innovative Noah is. I am luckily to have such a handy man around. Unfortunately, our new shears weren't working quite right, so it took us 2 or 3 times longer to shear them than normal. Either the new cutters we bought weren't sharpened well or something is wrong with the shears. Noah is going to figure it out when we get back. Because they weren't working well, we had to go over the crias 3-4 times to get them shorn to the skin, so they don't look that great. Alchemy looks better than Happy. Here are some before shearing pictures.
Here are some after shearing pictures. We are still trying to decide what color Happy is. Her neck above has some dirt on it, but underneath, we did find a small silver grey spot. We are thinking she may end up light rose grey, but she is such a strange color. I loved Alchemy's fiber when it came off of him....it was so crimpy and bright.

Breeding Season has Begun

2010-06-12T08:20:00.000-07:00

Alpaca breeding season has begun at Ashton Stone Alpacas. We normally breed alpacas between June and September on our farm so we have babies due mid May through mid September. We like to avoid the cold Michigan weather months. We are boarding a couple females who are at our farm for breeding. We have also started breeding our own females. So far, the only one of our own who we have bred is Lady. Alpacas are most receptive to getting pregnant 2-3 weeks after they give birth. Lady and Bellesa both gave birth 3 1/2 weeks ago. We decided to wait to breed Bellesa. She is an older girl and is underweight. Since she is nursing Happy, she could use some time off. We don't plan to breed her unless we can get her weight up. So far, she is doing well. We have her on alfalfa hay and 3 cups of high energy grain per day and she seems to be putting on some weight.

We bred Lady last weekend. We always have such a tough time deciding who to breed all our alpacas to and the more alpacas we get, the more difficult it gets to find the perfect herdsire for each of them. After much discussion, we decided to breed Lady to IVF Red Hot Fiesta this year. Lady is full Peruvian and we normally breed her to other full Peruvian boys, but this year, we decided to try something different since we have plenty of other full Peruvian alpacas on our farm right now. Fiesta is an adorable little rose grey male. He has taken blue ribbons at every show he has attended and has taken color champion at every show but one. He is the son of the elite grey sire A of O Silver-Celebration (deceased). Fiesta's dam is a AOBA Nationals blue ribbon winner. Fiesta has herdsires like Leon, Bueno, Don Julio, Quicksilver, Silvino, Shaquille, and Jericho in his background. He is truly an elite grey alpaca. Lady has thrown grey in the past so we can't wait to see what we get! Lady is our best foundation female and Fiesta is an awesome grey alpaca, so I am hoping they will be an awesome match and produce something wonderful for us next year.

This is Fiesta's first year breeding. Some males catch on to the techniques of breeding much faster than others. Fiesta is still trying to get the hang of it. He did get the job done last weekend though on a drive-by breeding, so we will see if it takes. We are keeping our fingers crossed. Lady has always gotten pregnant in one or two breedings. Here are some pictures of Lady (full fleece and still pregnant a few weeks ago) and Fiesta.

Naughty Boys and New Barn

2010-06-11T09:30:00.000-07:00

I plan to blog more about the barn in another post, but it happened to be in the background of these pictures. Noah has built this new 30 x 30 barn all by himself which is just amazing to me....I am so blessed to have such a talented and hard working husband! I can't wait to move the animals, hay and supplies in when it is finished!

But the real reason for this post are the naughty boys. Riphaeus is 13 months old now and d'Artagnan is 11 months old now, even though he is the bigger of the two boys. These boys have a pasture to themselves right now and I often hear and watch them play fighting. It is very entertaining to watch. They spit, bite each others heads, legs and necks and neck wrestle and throw each other to the ground. Sometimes they do get angry with one another and really try to take the other one out, but for the most part, they are just playing. These little boys may be going to a new home this weekend. I will miss their silly antics out in the field. Luckily we will have a whole new crop of cria to watch play this summer. Here are some pictures Noah caught of them the other day.

Happy and Little Alchemy Update

2010-06-10T07:34:00.000-07:00

Our little crias Macusani's Happily Ever After (Happy) and Incan Alchemy's Peruvian Panacea (little Alchemy) are 3 1/2 weeks old now and doing very well. They are growing everyday...especially Happy. She was born 19.6 lbs and already weighs 29 lbs. Little Alchemy was born 19.2 lbs and weighs 23.5 lbs now. I suspect he is growing at a slower rate because we are bottle feeding him instead of him eating from his mama....but Happy seems to be growing at an extra fast rate too. They are so cute playing together. They run through the field, jump on each other and neck wrestle. They remind me of Rudolf and Clarice from the old Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer claymation movie. They are so cute together!

Alchemy's fiber is looking really good already. We are very impressed and hope that he matures well. He has a tight little crimp and dense fiber already. We would love to use him for a herdsire some day if he turns out well. Happy's fiber is less dense and crimpy, but very fine. She is very fuzzy. It looks like she may be light rose grey after all. She has a lot of greyish white fibers coming in at the skin throughout her fawn coloring, which will make her rose grey. We plan to shear both babies in another week or so. Here are some updated pictures of the little ones at 3 weeks old.

We finally have ducklings!

2010-06-09T12:33:00.000-07:00

About a month ago, our silkie hen hatched 9 chicks. They are all doing well now and are already starting to get their little silkie feathers. We did lose one little chick because our great dane Rozalyn stepped on it and squashed it, but the other 8 are still doing well, especially since they are free run and we don't lock them in at night.

Our Rouen duck has been sitting on eggs for what seems like at least 6 weeks now. Noah and I had pretty much given up on seeing any ducklings since it had been so long. We figured the mama duck was crazy and the eggs either weren't fertilized or they weren't incubating well. Well, mother duck and mother nature are much more wise than we are. Our duck hatched 13 ducklings a week ago! We couldn't believe it! Unlike the chicken who all of the sudden one day had 9 chicks, we got to see some of the ducklings hatching out. It was very neat. I wanted to bring the eggs in the house to watch the whole hatching process, but decided it was probably best to leave them with their mama. 13 ducklings are a lot! There were actually 6 more eggs in the nest when she stopped sitting on them. We checked out the eggs left behind. 2 of them seemed to have died while in the process of hatching....survival of the fittest I guess. 2 of them must have died sometime during their gestation because there were little ducklings in there, but they didn't look fully formed. And then the last 2 eggs were not fertilized. The mommy duck kept the ducklings in the nest for a couple days before she finally brought them down to our pond. I made sure to put out duckling food and a waterer for the babies near the nest which the gobble up.
Above is one of the eggs that is in the process of hatching. The little baby was wiggling around inside and breaking through the egg.

The little ducklings are a week old now and I can't believe how fast they are growing! I haven't actually seen them swim in the pond yet...just play at the edge, but then again I don't have the time to sit and watch them all day (although I would if I could). I am a little worried that one of the little ducklings will not make it. He is about half the size of all his siblings and this morning, wasn't really moving around much. We will see if he pulls though. I thought about bringing him in the house and trying to nurse him back to health, but decided against it since I have so much going on and don't think now if the time to get attached to something that probably has something wrong with it and is probably going to die anyway (we had a very good friend and one of our ferrets pass away this week which I am already trying to work through emotionally). A few years ago, I would have never thought like this, but living on the farm has really taught me a lot about life and death. I will try and get some updated pictures of the ducklings and chicks this week.