And they're off... Group sex on the hard standing at TOFT

Yesterday we began mating in earnest, well the males did. It's been a long winter for the boys and they've been waiting patiently in their paddocks this past month or so. The weather has been good if a little cold and although we could have had Cria born early this year there is no telling what next year will bring. 

Our Policy at TOFT is to begin mating as soon a shearing is over. In this way fleece can't get in the way or complicate the process in any way. As we shear around the second week in May it means our babies will not arrive next year until the beginning of May. It's an 11.5 months gestation period for an alpaca and they are ideally mated 2 weeks after birthing. So a little foresight and stamina is required over the next few months on all our parts whilst birthing and mating dominate at TOFT.

So yesterday it began mating with 8 stud males performing the first duties of the season in the pens on the hard standing.They went off like a bag of frogs. The sound of or 'orgling' males was deafening. The sex party was in full swing from the outset and those poor boys left in the field were non too pleased to be on the bench. 

TOFT will resound to these dulcet tones of mating males every Monday, Wednesday and Friday right through until the second week of August by which time hopefully all our breeding Mums for 2017 will be settled, scanned and the boys can rest all winter in the paddocks as their respective females concentrate on growing the next TOFT generation.

This year we are returning to scheduling all our 2017 births between May 1st and the end of July all things being equal. We did achieve this a few years back but birthing has got a little out of sync in the past few years. Any late birthers this year will be held over until this time next year. We much prefer our Cria to be on the ground early in the summer so they can thrive and be ready for anything our winter may decide to throw at them. 

It has been said and so it will be done- we hope. We can but try. As with any livestock operation we react to whatever the weather and circumstance throw at us and plan as a best we can against most eventualities. 'Twas ever thus!

Happy dry day.....phew! BAS National only a week away.

The National show is only a week away and as luck would have it we have hit a dry cold spell this week at TOFT. The alpacas love every single minute of it. These are some of our TOFT Intermediate boys who were practicing their 'strut' in the cold walking up and down the fence line showing off their masculine presence trying to impress the wee weaner females who were feeding at the time on the hard standing.

Their fleeces dry real quick in this weather and the cold makes their follicles 'ping' and they truly look magnificent in these kind of conditions. We shall be penning the show team up in the shed as soon as the weather looks like turning. Our elite boys and girls deserve to look their best next weekend at the showcase of the year. The British Alpaca Society National Show 2016 at the Internatinal Centre Telford. Friday and Saturday 8 am onwards. Let's hope TOFT do well, certainly the show team have a look and feel about them- we shall see.

Finally we get to the finish..

Finally we have knocked in the last staple fixed the last gate latch and crimped the last wire joint on the new TOFT quarantine paddocks. The new area is self contained, consists of 17 small paddocks enabling the visiting females to live as their own family group separated by a paddock either side from the other families in quarantine. They can all see each other but the only contact they make with another alpaca during their stay at TOFT is whilst mating with their chosen male. 

No system is ever perfect but this is pretty robust. Coupled with the existing 15 other quarantine paddocks at TOFT it gives us a minimum of 32 options to maintain strict  bio security for our visitors females during mating.  

Bang bang bang... Those gate posts take a while

26 in and 8 to go... It's a long old job banging in the fence posts on this new quarantine facility at TOFT. This is my view for hours on end. Stiff neck- tell me about it!

TOFT Princes in waiting ...on the new grass

Can you hear them munching? All the TOFT stock moved paddocks last week to enjoy the new grass growth. Centre here, surrounded by his gang of brothers is TOFT Timogen National Brown Champion in 2014 and 2015. 

These Intermediate brown males, sons of Lavender Park Tulley and half brothers to TOFT Timogen are loving the new chomp, look great against the green and are hopefully working up an appetite for the girlies! 

Timogen will be staying here but TOFT Titus, Tai Pan and Leander son of Jaina are all looking for new homes. We shear on the 20th so anyone interested in seeking out top colour genetics for their breeding programme needs to look soon as these wonderful fleeces will soon  be in the bag.

Are we gonna get on with it..... boss?

No ladies, we are not. You will have to wait for next week for the boys to come over and play!

At TOFT we start mating the first week of May. On Monday these older TOFT ladies who did not get pregnant for this season will join the queue of maidens lining up for the boys attentions. Draycote water will start to echo to the sound of orgling males for the next four months. If you have not yet decided where you are headed this season for elite genetics then check out TOFT Alpaca Stud and come and join the orgy!

Ready when you are ladies....

Lavender Park Tulley and his mates are enjoying the dry readying for the off. If your breeding plan is veering toward Lavender Park Tullley then book early for he'll be a busy boy real soon. We are currently shuffling the females into their various groups for birthing and mating and on. May 1st we shall kick off making the next generation for 2016. 

TOFT Timogen takes Champion Brown Male Huacaya at the British Alpaca Futurity 2015

TOFT Timogen added to his successful Championship win at the BAS Nationals with a Champion ribbon today at the British Alpaca Futurity 2015. 

TOFT Timogen is a son of Lavender Park Tulley who  beat off seriously stiff competition this afternoon to take the Brown Male Champion Huacaya in the show ring to add to his Champion Brown Huacaya ribbon in the  British Alpaca Futurity fleece show. This young Tulley boy is not yet two and he is gathering a lot of momentum and if  I could get Linda our herds woman to smile at the same time he presents to the camera life would be Perfick!

TOFT Adele takes Reserve Champion Brown Huacaya Fleece at the British Alpaca Futurity 2015

TOFT Adele a beautiful Medium Brown Adult female out of Lavender Park Tulley took Reserve Champion Brown Fleece at the British Alpaca Futurity 2015. What a day for TOFT Alpaca Stud we walked into the Ricoh Arena this morning to find we had taken two broad ribbon Championships and a Reserve Champion Ribbon at the British Alpaca Futurity 2015. 

First Maters arrive in TOFT quarantine... from Derbyshire

Please, I know 'Maters' is not a word it just aptly describes these two lovelies from Derbyshire who arrived in the TOFT Quarantine paddocks last Friday to be mated to Lavender Park Tulley.  Tulley was a very happy boy yesterday at first sitting with his first go of the season. If any other breeders out there are thinking of using Tulley this season and have not yet booked in with us here at TOFT can we suggest you give Shirl and I a call ASAP as the boyo has a very busy schedule planned for 2015.

TOFT stud males this is your life....

From juniors through intermediates to adult- this is their life. Come the green grass and warmer days these Elite Champions and prizewinning TOFT boys will be looking for their own harem... Make a date to visit TOFT  and give your girls a valentine prezzy to remember.

It's all in the colour...

The late September sun yesterday  lit up the young stud males with a glow that was truly 'quad stopping'. The colours glowed like a New England fall and the phone camera had to suffice. There wasn't time to rush and get the real camera. The moment came and went and at least A taste remains of that autumnal glow amongst our young stud males.

 These elite young studs are really coming into their own now with the fleece outgrowing the shearing ridges. A number of these stunning males now grace the Toft website awaiting new homes.

The last one has hit the deck...

That's it, finally one of our top Australian girls, Maggie Mae gave birth to a stonking girl to go some way to evening up the score for the season but the boys won hands down this year. Fortunately the cria are of such a high standard across the board we could have a lot of potential stud males for sale in the next few years. Still that's up the line a ways. All the girls are done and dusted and we can now take some time to enjoy the progeny in what has been a remarkable summer here at Toft.

Young alpaca stud males eager for a partner...

These young boys are doing some serious fence time on the off chance that a young maiden or a 'cougar' may come knocking on the door.

 At just over two years of age they are not that fussy as long as she is willing. 'Twas ever thus! Pretty clear they are obviously maturing fast and taking an interest. These elite prizewinning stud males will soon be appearing on the for sales pages of our website now their fleece stats are back from the laboratories. And they make great reading, watch this space!

Wait your turn young ladies...

Early in the morning the sound of orgling males reverberates from the hard standings around Toft as the mating schedules get under way. Stud Males on head collars are walked around to the appropriate eager females waiting for business to be concluded.These young elite prizewinning females are showing a great interest but they will have to wait.

At Toft we never mate the females until they are fully mature at two years old. 

However these elite female stars of the Toft Alpaca Showteam are fully mature well up for it. They sit like dinner plates on the first note from the male. Haven't the heart to tell them that's as good as it gets for the next 12 months!

What's this -suns shining and no mating?

The weather turned so mild at the weekend the Toft Alpacas Stud males were beginning to stir again and spent all Saturday hovering over the fence looking for talent. 

Be patient boyos. The job was done a while back. Spring will come soon enough and there's a lot of weather to get through before then methinks.

Lavender park Tulley is resting

This is Lavender Park Park Tulley resting between matings. He's been a busy boy this season but all good men need a rest sometime.

We're on the last knockings a with our Toft matings now. We plan our birthing so that all Toft cria are born between the second week of April and the end of July. So there's only another week or so within that window and anything that isn't pregnant will wait to the spring. 

All our Toft males by now are seriously match fit and have worked well over the season.  Needless to say they will all be busy servicing client animals  for some time yet. 

Sometimes you just feel it

Introducing Toft Timogen only three days old when this was taken but already one can see in his fleece the potential of his pedigree. Toft Timogen is the first cria out of our champion fawn girl Toft Nashira. We were hoping for a stunning boy with stud potential so that we can put her fleece right across the herd. We also wanted a darker boy if at all possible. Such things dreams are made of but sometimes they just come true. 

If this alpaca boy grows into the potential that he is showing now then he will be a very important addition to the Toft Breeding programme in years to come. There's a long time between now and conformation of that hope, and it doesn't do o get too excited but sometimes after 16 years of breeding alpacas you can just sense that the signals are very right.

The Toft pedigrees are starting to produce  in spades and I can't sleep thinking about the births to come.

Busy busy busy

Well we reorganised the birthing schedules over the past two years to ensure that the births stared in the second week of May and were all done and dusted by the beginning of July so we can't complain. The births started last week and are now coming thick and fast. 8 so far. The boys are winning 6 to 2 as we speak but that is changing on a daily basis. 

This kind of means that every so often the job stops whilst we watch with expectation the dams doing their stuff and then spend the rest of the day dipping out to the paddock to ensure the little one is feeding. You can tell when there is a birth in as we rapidly gather a crowd in the birthing paddocks. The passing walkers and cyclists also can't resist joining in the excitement. That's one of the bonuses of the alpacas instinctive  preference  for giving birth before 3.30pm on a sunny day! Sheep farmers eat your heart out.

And what cria they are. The Toft Alpaca  stud males have excelled themselves and the colours arriving on the ground are truly amazing. Here's a few rapidly taken snaps from the weekend when the sun was shining. Currently they all look like coloured damp dishcloths on sticks as it has rained here constantly for the past 24 hours.

Alpaca stud males: so where're the girls then??

It's been all move on the farm this week with the pregnant female alpacas being split into May, June and July births. The pregnant female alpacas were then moved from their winter pasture to their separate  new summer paddocks. The May births were moved into the birthing paddocks nearer the house ready for the imminent arrival of their cria. 

The boys, in similar fashion were moved onto fresh paddocks so that their winter pasture can be cleaned, fertilised and regrow. The large Draycote field the girls over wintered in has now been cleaned, harrowed and fertilised and will be left to grow and cut for hay when the time comes.

All this movement meant the stud males could be let up the hill into to graze the lane way which runs along the now empty female paddock. 

The smell of the girls must be  strong in  that empty field as these alpaca stud males spend quite some time looking for those ladies. If one raises its head they all do just in case one of these big boys  is about to  get lucky. They walk up and down collectively sniffing on the wind for the chance of a mating- a bit like rampant teenagers patrolling the streets in 'mega luff' or wherever they congregate for this ritual nowadays! ( in my day sadly it was only Scarborough)

Don't worry boys you will get to work soon enough. Once shearing is over the farm will start to echo with the glorious  sound of alpaca orgling.