TOFT Alpaca Show team stand down...

The boys and girls of the TOFT Alpaca Showteam are now officially stood down. On their return from their successes at the Ricoh last weekend they were homed in the TOFT quarantine paddocks. Where they will reside for the next month unitil they rejoin their pals in the main herd. They won't be up strutting their stuff in the show ring again until  October when a select TOFT team will be entered into Alpaca Showtime at Houghton Hall Alpacas. 

By then the makeup of the TOFT team will have changed considerably as we hope the Champion maidens will be pregnant and resident in the maternity paddocks and that some of the prizewinning males will have been sold over the summer to discerning breeders and possibly into Europe.

After this weekends  TOFT Alpaca Easter Open Day the focus will change to the maternity paddocks as the TOFT girls will start to produce cria in early May. We shall be studying breeding charts and pedigrees for the rest of the season as we begin mating the maidens for 2016. Hey ho a mating we shall go...!

Expectant mums

The alpaca maternity paddocks are currently full of the second wave of expectant alpacas all watching the weather looking for the opportunity to unpack their little treasures.

 It has threatened rain all week with the skies as heavy as the mums so we we have to remain especially vigilant. Luckily my wonderful mother in law who lives in the garden just loves being on cria watch and soon raises the alarm once the action starts. You're a star Mum!

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 chat

It's not all hard work when showing alpacas, there's always time for leaning over the fence and catching up on the goss!
Here's Shirley and friends talking, progeny, matings and alpaca sales at the Heart of England Alpaca Fiesta.
With the birthing season rapidly approaching there is a lot of alpaca chat in the air. There are wee huddles of alpaca owners leaning over fences all over the country getting excited about their imminent births and pondering their mating selections for 2014.

Harrowing the alpaca paddocks...

Weekend was glorious ,dry and sunny. With that combination at this time of the year comes shed loads of work. In between the normal herd maintenance tasks we are halter training the junior alpacas, preparing the alpaca females for their imminent births, cleaning and harrowing and slitting the fields. This on top of talking to clients about matings and sales, running alpaca husbandry introductory workshops and trying to get the fence repairs finished. 'Twas ever thus!
This week hopefully we start to get some fertiliser into the empty paddocks. With a rise of a few degrees this week by next you will be able to hear the grass growing.
This vintage Massey Ferguson 35 tractor first saw service sometime in the 60's but I was able to use it, to good effect, this week to chain harrow the alpaca maternity paddocks.
These paddocks stay empty most of the winter because with 60 births due this year they will see plenty of action in the coming months. The alpaca birthing will start in May but with this warm dry spell upon us we have to keep an eye out for any earlies.