Hot weather and heat stress

All of our girls are fortunate enough to have access to our cool barn in the summer. The alpaca boys however have shelters that don't stay as cool as our old barn. We are able to remove side panels on one of the shelters for a cross breeze to keep it cooler inside. Another shelter for a younger group of boys has an overhang for shade that we enclose with tarps in the winter. Last Saturday, the panels and tarps were removed for the season, and just in time.

It's been hot and humid for the last several days with temps in the upper 80's and into the 90's. On Tuesday afternoon, Leroy was looking like he needed a break from the heat so I brought him and Lucas inside the barn to cool off. To be on the safe side, I wetted some towels and used them to cool his belly. I did the same for Lucas, too, although he didn't seem like he needed it.

Several years ago, our large male llama Java Joe suffered from heat stress. We saw him out in the pasture, wobbly on his legs, with his mouth open and panting. This was the first time we had seen this happen and one call to the vet gave us his diagnosis. We immediately hosed his belly with cold water and brought him inside the barn. We continued to cool him down in the barn with cold water and got him to drink water. Eventually, he improved and we kept a very close watch on him for the next few hours. Since that time, we have seen him on another occasion get early signs of heat stress by breathing with his mouth open and we take him into the barn as soon as we notice. We had heard that he is more susceptible to heat stress since he had it the first time.

It's a good idea to have electrolytes on hand to mix in the water on hot days for your alpacas. We've actually mixed powdered Gatorade into water buckets for our alpacas and llamas when the weather gets really hot and humid. They love it!

Also, hosing down their legs and bellies with water will help keep them cool. Our alpacas have been afraid of the sprinkler and the water hose so I try to atleast wet the pasture so they can lay on the wet grass or sand after I remove the sprinkler/hose.

Make sure you have clean, fresh water for your animals when it's hot and humid like this. If the alpacas are dipping their stinky feet in their water buckets, raise the buckets up so their water stays fresh.

Take care and stay cool!

That's a mouthful!

Leroy just can't get enough of the long grass we pull and feed to him and his friends! I took this picture the other day after I sheared him. The temperature is already up to 75 degrees at 10:00 this morning so he should be really happy with the new haircut.

Plans today are to fix a barn window and clean some pastures. Tomorrow we will be picking up a "new" (used) haybine so we can get started on cutting hay soon.

Happy Birthday to our nephew, Noah!

Have a great weekend!

Hand shearing suri alpacas

Today, I finally made time to hand shear Leroy and Lucas, our two youngest suri boys. It took me just under four hours to get them both done. Check out the photo of Lucas above that I took after shearing him. The inset is a photo I took of him just a couple of days ago.

This second before and after photo is a close up of Leroy's fiber. Again the shorn photo is from this afternoon and the photo of Leroy's long locks was taken just a few days ago.

I have to say I'm very pleased with the beautiful job on these guys! Rick and my mom agreed. They look almost as though I used the electric clippers, but I actually used really good, sharp (Fiskar) scissors.

This wasn't my first time hand shearing. The first couple of alpacas I hand sheared several years ago, I had given them a layered look. This time I tried a different technique in order to give them a more uniform length. Rather than cutting straight across horizontally, I cut from the top of the back and down. I pulled out each section of fiber and cut straight down, trying to cut at the same length all the way down. It's difficult to describe in words and unfortunately I was unable to take pictures as I did it.

Fortunately, both Leroy and Lucas were relatively cooperative. They did get a little nervous when I sheared their legs and close to any "important parts" but otherwise they were very well behaved. I was hoping to get photos of their really shiny, lustrous fiber close up, but they both decided to roll in the dirt after we let them back out in their pasture...before I got the camera out!

So this officially wrapped up our shearing season. Now it's time to skirt the blanket fiber and prepare it for the fleece show.

Ready for my close up!

I just wanted to add this fun picture of Frances Bean. What a cutie!

Rotated to new pasture!

Can you see the alpacas hiding in this photo? After grazing next to this grown out pasture for so long, the girls were excited to finally get a chance to enjoy themselves and roll around in the long grass! This will give their other pasture a break and a chance to grow a little before we let them back in.

Our first fleece show

The AFCNA Continental Fleece Show will be held in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, August 1-2. It doesn't look like I'll be attending, but our farm will be represented.

This will be our first time entering a fleece show competition and I now need to get moving on skirting those entries! I want to make the early bird deadline of July 11th to save money on entry fees. That gives me one whole month to pick out all the vegetation and pack up our fleeces. ... Plenty of time, right?!

A cool thing about this show is that they will include a free DVD with judges comments about why they scored each fleece a certain way. So even though we most likely will not attend the show in person, we'll get to see the fleece show and the seminars. What a great bonus for entering the show!

Beautiful, sunny day today at the farm with more sunshine in the forecast!

Rainy day

It rained all day and was chilly and breezy. I spent a good part of the day with wet shoes and socks. I shouldn't complain -- it sure beats farming in the middle of winter!

We're running low on our hay supply. I was hoping we could start cutting and baling our first crop soon, but with all the rain lately we can't get started. We'll be switching our girls to a new pasture soon and that will help us cut down on some hay.

The rain has been great for growing hay but we now need a good week or two of dry hot weather to get a nice supply of hay cut and baled.

Great news!

I'm on Twitter (@ElizabethWoodky) and I follow (and am followed by) some alpaca farms. On Friday, one of my Twitter friends attending the AOBA National Conference in Ohio made the following tweet:

"ARI will be offering BVD testing by Geneseek. They will test from the bloodcard."

Although I did a quick (very brief) internet search for more info on Friday, I have not heard an official announcement from ARI (Alpaca Registry Inc.). I'm very excited about this because the BVD testing is an extra expense and trip to the vet for us with our crias.

I'll post a link if I hear more info on this topic. This will be great if we can have BVDV testing done at the same time we are registering our crias with ARI!!

On another topic, Rene' just purchased a microscope and fecal testing kit so we can start doing our own fecal tests on the farm! Way cool! First we'll have to read directions (ugh! how boring!) and then we'll figure out how to do the testing...I'll keep you posted on our new educational experience!