Alpacas in the News for 8/21 posted

In this week's "Alpacas in the News," we talk about what people in LA think an alpaca is (video) and an opening on the AOBA Fiber Committee.

Alpacas in the News for 8/14/09 posted

http://www.pacatalk.com/2009/08/an-8-14-09/

This week's Alpacas in the News includes a dog/alpaca incident and the mystery of the alpaca daddy.

Enjoy!
m

Alpacas in the News for 8/7/09 posted

http://www.pacatalk.com/2009/08/an-8-7-09/

Paca Talk #17, Alpacas in the News for August 8, 2009 is posted (late). Included are Bill the Alpaca Breeder and Tansy Ragwort pictures.

Enjoy!
m

Surprise! Cria a week early!

Sophie had her baby a week early! He's a surprise, not only because he's a hair early, but also because he's a darling little brown boy: his mama's black and his daddy's grey. It really is like Christmas with alpaca colors. 

Name suggestions so far include: Stampy, Moe, and Troy McClure (you may remember him from such movies as "cry hard!").

Do you have a suggestion for a name for this little guy? Drop me a comment or send me an email if you do!

m

What to do with Alpaca Fiber: Skirt it! Part 2/4

This is the second in a series of blog entries about what to do with alpaca fiber. These articles are taken from Paca Talk #2 “What to do with Fiber” which can be found on pacatalk.com. I’ve taken the time to expand each section a little more in these blog posts than we had time for in the podcast. These first four entries will focus on skirting a raw fleece.

In my previous post, I described how to make a skirting table. 

Once you have your skirting table, how do you skirt a fleece? Honestly, I can’t really TELL you how, but I’ll give you the basics. If you want to learn to do it, go find people who know how and watch them. I suggest asking to help them skirt fleeces for a day in exchange for a lesson. Certainly get help from someone if you are skirting a show fleece. Many show fleeces are marked down for improper skirting. 

To skirt a fleece, you must first decide what the fleece is for because skirting a show fleece is very different from skirting either a fleece for hand spinners or commercial applications. However, for all these applications your general purposes are the same: 

• remove dirt (some at least)
• remove poop
• remove big vegetation
• remove second cuts
• remove hair
• check for "tenderness"

Today, we'll talk about the first three since the others are a little more involved. 

To remove dirt, you can just spread out the fleece and bang the table a few times. This knocks out a surprising amount of dirt. You won’t find a lot of dirt in the fleeces if you used your shop vac (on “blow”) to remove the dirt just before shearing. Doing this just before shearing a show fleece isn’t recommended because it can compromise the structure of a fleece. You can do it a few days before shearing so the fiber can "reorganize" and get good results. 

Poop should be a no-brainer. Find a bean? Pick it out. Find a "smear?" Throw out the affected fiber.

"Big" VM should be removed

Big vegetable matter (VM) should be easy, too, except for that “big” qualification. My alpacas like to roll around in hay. Some places on them, especially the base of their necks, are just filled with tiny bits of hay, etc. How much work you put in to removing these bits is determined partly by the ultimate use of the fleece. If you are working on a show fleece, throw out any hunk of fleece that is badly contaminated by bits of vegetation. If the fleece is headed toward a small mill or hand spinner, do your best to get out the bits. Mills can remove a lot of VM, but remember that any VM left may end up in the yarn. 

A small amount of VM can be left in a fleece.

That's all for now! Next time I’ll describe how to deal with second cuts. 

New Items on Etsy!

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=7350164

I've posted some new bags of fleece on Etsy.com. These are some of my nicest fleeces, and they come in 2 ounce bags. Perfect for someone who wants to play with alpaca fiber, but doesn't want to commit to a whole bag!

Enjoy!

m

Alpacas in the News for 7/31/09 posted

http://www.pacatalk.com/2009/07/an-07-31-0/

In this episode, we have an ARI registration discount and llamas as golf caddies, among other things.

Enjoy!
m

What to do with Alpaca Fiber: Skirt it! Part 1 of 4

This is the first in a series of blog entries about what to do with alpaca fiber originally posted on thealpacaguy.com. These articles are taken from Paca Talk #2 “What to do with Fiber” which can be found on pacatalk.com. I’ve taken the time to expand each section a little more in these blog posts than we had time for in the podcast. These first four entries will focus on skirting a raw fleece.

So, let’s begin!

You’ve had a big day shearing (that was Paca Talk # 1 and #14 ), and now you have a room full of plastic bags filled with alpaca fleece. Now what?

Unfortunately, there are only a couple ways to make money from a raw, unpicked fleece in a bag: 1) sell it at a discount to a hand spinner, and 2) well, I can’t think of another way.

The point is that you need to pick your fleeces clean of debris and of second cuts before you can sell it. The first thing you’ll need is a skirting table.

Here’s a picture of my El Cheapo brand skirting table:

(I’ve since moved the whole operation to the garage). It is made of PVC pipe and 1/2 inch hardware cloth and duct tape. I have lost the “plans” but basically, you need a frame of about 3’ by 5’ of either wood or pipe. Then you need to attach the 1/2 hardware cloth to it. Hardware cloth is wire mesh, and 1/2 inch holes will allow dirt, poop and some second cuts to fall through. Then you need to set it up on legs or sawhorses. Over the years, I’ve added duct tape to the edges of the cloth to keep it from snagging fiber and an anti-fatigue mat so I don’t get so worn out standing on the concrete garage floor.

That’s all for now. Next time, we’ll talk about how to skirt a fleece!

Paca Talk #15- Alpacas in the News for 7/24/09 posted

http://www.pacatalk.com/2009/07/an-7-24-09/ 

This week, we have some VERY cute pictures of 4-Hers and their llamas and alpacas. Plus, lots of communiques from AOBA. 

Enjoy!

m

Paca Talk #14 Posted! "The Normal Delivery"

http://www.pacatalk.com/2009/07/pt-14-delivery/

That's right! A real, full-length Paca Talk has been posted! We cover the normal alpaca birth, what to do with placentas, and revisit shearing day 2009.

Enjoy!

m

Cute nick-name

"Canyonera" is a mouthful, and it doesn't fit the cute little baby girl out in the barn. Charles suggested we call her "Can Can."

And so it was. :)

m

My first contribution to The Alpaca Guy!

http://www.thealpacaguy.com/2009/07/21/fiber-skirt-1/

I'm now a contributor on thealpacaguy.com.

Hooyah!

m

Welcome Canyonera!

Dawn's cria was born on July 15, 2009. She appeared in the pasture about 12:30 in the afternoon, a nice surprise.

She's a little one: born at about 12 pounds. She's quite a personality, however. She's what you would call "vigorous."

Let me explain the grandiose name. Her daddy is Escalade, which is the name of a very large SUV. There was an episode of the Simpsons that was about another very large SUV: the Canyonero.
This little one is a girl, so we just feminized it to Canyonera.

Here is a group shot of Canyonera (a few days), Margie (22 days)and Apu (almost 4 months).

Margie is now over 18 pounds, which isn't bad. The vet looked at her when he came to give Canyonera the once-over and decided to try a couple things: creep feeding, more vitiamin B and one more round of antibiotics because he heard a tiny rumble in her lungs.

I'll post more about the creep feeder I built in a later post. For now, just enjoy the baby cuteness.

m

Alpacas in the news for 7/17/09 posted

http://www.pacatalk.com/2009/07/an-7-17-09/

This week, a TB scare in the UK, and the results of the alpaca kissing contest! Enjoy!

m

Lil' Margie's gain rate

Margie is gaining about 4 ounces a day. That's half of what I'd like to see her gain. But she's bright and active, which are good signs.

Because Margie seems so sensitive to stimuli, I would hate to put her and her mama in a trailer and leave them on a strange farm for breeding. Thank fully, the person who owns the stud we want to breed Lisa to has offered to bring him to our farm so we can hand-breed them. We're close enough neighbors that this isn't too much of a problem, but there's enough distance between us that he'd rather not be driving back and forth multiple times if the first breeding doesn't take.

In other updates, Dawn will be pregnant a whole year come tomorrow. You'd think a 13 year-old dam wouldn't hold a cria this long. I have heard that one llama vet has changed his due dates this year by assuming a year plus two weeks. That would be close for all our alpacas except Cabernet, who had her baby at around 335 days this year (she's always a week or more early).

In still other news, I've picked through four or five bags of light-colored fiber. Man, I have a lot of fiber. A start is a start, though. Here's a reminder of what my fleece table looks like, though I've moved the whole operation to the garage.

That's all for now!
m

Alpacas in the news for 7/10/09 posted

http://www.pacatalk.com/2009/07/an-07-10-2009/

This week's Alpacas in the News has items about a TB outbreak in alpacas in the UK, poachers killing vicunas in Peru and a cute baby seal.

Enjoy!
m

Margie gaining weight!

Li'l Margie has put on 11 ounces since the vet visit. She's FINALLY over her birth weight of 14# 13oz. She's 13 days old now. A normal cria would have put on 5-6 lbs. by now.

Here's a chart of her weight in ounces (240 ounces is 15 pounds). "a" is am and "p" is pm weights:Click on the chart to get a bigger view of it.

You can see that we really had some trouble there. The biggest dip happened the day we saw Margie nursing and turned her and her mom out with the herd, like we have with every other baby we've had. That was a mistake that took a week to recover from.

I'm going to err on the side of caution and keep them confined to the barn for at least another day, then perhaps we'll let them out into the 50-foot run for a day and see if she keeps gaining weight.

She's going to make it. I wonder how long it will take for her to "catch up," though.

In other news, Dawn is now approaching the 360-days pregnant mark. She was bred on 7/14/08. Her baby is doing jumping jacks inside her and she looks alternately profoundly uncomfortable and in zen-like peace. Please, Lord of Alpaca Births, let this one be a girl.

m

Little Margie update

Lisa's cria is healthy, but not gaining weight.

Those of you who follow me on Twitter (@marenster) have been getting periodic updates on Lisa's cria, whom we have named Marge Simpson (Little Margie until she outgrows it). To those of you who rely on my blog entries for updates, I apologize for the lag in information.

The good news is that Margie is a bright, happy, vigorous little girl. The bad news is that she is 10 days old, and is not gaining weight. She even weighs 4 ounces less than she did when she was born!

As a reminder, Lisa is a first-time mom, and it took her and Margie about two days to figure out the whole nursing thing. We bottle-fed Margie for several days while they figured this out. We have been trying to bottle feed her for the past few days, but she has been refusing it. Yet, she hardly gained any weight at all.

We finally had the vet out today. He has declared that Margie is healthy, but isn't eating enough. This would sound dumb, but my own little human child had trouble eating enough when she was a week old, so there. The vet gave Margie a shot of B-vitamins to stimulate her appetite and some antibiotics just to be safe.

So, we're not going to harass her with a bottle anymore, and she and mom are confined to the barn until Margie gains some weight steadily. She is a cute little fighter, and I think she'll be fine, but man, she's absorbed a huge amount of time.

It's worth it.

m

Bottle-feeding update

We won't have to bottle-feed Lisa's cria until she's weaned! Hooray!

We may, however, need to supplement her with a bottle during the day.

The little girl began nursing on her own on Sunday night. Light bulbs were flashing that whole day, but that evening was the first time we saw Lisa stand still as the baby connected with the teat. We heard satisfying slurping sounds, and afterward, the baby refused the bottle.

We watched her nurse again on Monday morning, she refused the bottle, and she maintained her weight overnight, so we let them out into the beautiful June sunshine. Lisa hadn't quite figured out how to defend her baby from the larger cria, and sometimes wandered off to graze, leaving the little one alone, but she is a teen-aged mother. She is much better about this today (Tuesday).

The long day outside must have been quite exhausting for the little baby, though, because we discovered when we weighed her that night that she had lost 1/2 pound since breakfast! Oops. Tuesday morning, she had maintained her weight overnight, and had a marathon nursing breakfast, and refused the bottle again. We let them back out into the fields with the herd with a little trepidation.

If she loses weight again today, I will give her a bottle (if she'll take it), and call the vet in the morning for advice. She is very bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and bouncy, just as a cria should be, so I am not too concerned.

Here are some things we tried to get Lisa to let the baby nurse:

• Kept an older dam in the stall with them
• Moved a nursing dam into the stall next to them
  
• Milked the dam to stimulate Oxytocin and so we could include mother's milk in the bottle feedings.
  
• Held the dam while letting the cria walk beneath her (some new dams are afraid of things under them or near their backends)
• Held the dam while directing the cria towards the udder/nipples.
  
• Expressed some of the milk from the nipples and rubbed it on the baby's nose/let her lick it off our fingers.
  
• Bottle-fed only after we tried the above.
  

Some things that were suggested to us, but that we couldn't or didn't try:

• put the placenta back into the stall (it was already in the freezer at this point)
• put the dam of the new mama in the stall with them (Grandma was on another farm being bred)

This whole experience will be part of a future Paca Talk episode, to be sure. We have learned a lot since Friday night!

m

Lisa's Cria update

Lisa's Cria, June 27, 2009

The vet says everything is great, except mom is being a dummy about nursing. He showed us a couple techniques to try to get the light bulb to turn on, but until then, we're doing hourly feedings. Our goal is to get the baby girl strong enough that she can follow her mother around and finally nurse on her own.

The timing couldn't be better for this. I shudder to think what would have happened if the baby had been born while I was teaching, for example.

Well, anyway, I'm going to supervise my human baby. Maybe I'll go to bed when she does and make DH do the night feedings? THAT will be popular. :)

m