Author Archives: kestlealpacas

I can see the flowers growning faster than the crias coming. Six days over the year and Grace still holds on to her baby. She’s let pass a few days of good weather. Still warm though, and better a well cooked bun than an early unexpected arrival. It’s just that I get overexcited about theContinue reading “A bit more patience”

For some time I couldn’t figure out where I placed some of the halters and leads. We need them for husbandry tasks and taking the animals out for walks or visits. We’ve managed with a couple of baby halters missing. I remembered eventually, but I may have to leave them there for a little longer,Continue reading “Do not disturb”

We could barely find the boys in their field. They have plenty of pasture. Maybe more than they can handle. We just need to cut the grass to keep it evenly managed and reduce pests and parasites. This field keeps a clean paddock ideal to grow clean fleeces. After shearing, Raspberry’s fleece uncovered a beautifulContinue reading “Cut the fleece, cut the grass”

Taking the chance of the sunny spells, we had a look in the hives. Here are some pictures taken during the inspection. The queen is very healthy and prolific. We shall have plenty of honey and bees. Can you see the queen? We marked her in green earlier in the year.

With the good weather, anyone would expect to pick up more eggs. But not the owner of marsh daisies, as they just have a tendency to go broody as soon as they start laying. Picking eggs now starts with lifting the hen to see if the others have laid yet. She only gets out forContinue reading “Chick”

While we observe the dams for signs of anything related birth and health, and we assess any movement in or around the belly area, with the hope to receive soon a nice bunch of healthy crias, we get distracted by the maidens that all happen to have a very pretty face. Last year we receivedContinue reading “Pretty face”

Once more here we are, WAITING. The dams look healthy, with a good weight. Now the fleeces are harvested it’s easier to tell the ones that carry from the ones that don’t. After losing the chance to have an extra field for them, Raspberry and Helium are not far from the rest of the herd.Continue reading “Back to the waiting game”

Click for a quick update. Shearing done!

Keeping the coats dry can be a bit of a challenge. But we’ve managed to keep the alpacas fairly dry with help of the later weather. With just few days to shearing, it’s all about keeping the pesky debris away from the alpacas. We have already work on the paddocks throughout the previous months preventContinue reading “Coats”