Better Technology coming soon!!!

For the past year we have been on 'mobile internet'. Supposed to be good - lets say it has been better than no internet. The problem has been that the signal keeps going, so doing anything at length can take even longer than you think as you need to keep re connecting. However, all is about to change - hopefully at the end of this week we will be on 'proper' broadband. Pat has to sort all that - me and technology don't go together. Give me a spanner and screwdriver any day.

Our 2 cria are growing nicely, the first born 'Toad Hall Storm' has settled nicely. Gem wasn't sure what to do at first but when Hiccup gave birth to 'Toad Hall Sunrise' she seemed to learn from her - very apt really as Hiccup is Gem's mother. Pat was also here in the day to push Storm in the direction of his mother for food so we were able to stop the bottle feeding. We are very pleased with both of them. Let's hope the next two girls give birth uneventfully and all goes well. Shouldn't be too long to wait.

A new day - A new Cria

Pat had left for work at 7.30am telling me to keep an eye on Hiccup. Off I went on my rounds and Hiccup seemed a little unsettled so I thought that we may have a new arrival later in the day. However, I didn't have to wait too long. After an hour a head appeared and no legs so I knew I had better assist. It was quite easy to correct the legs and fairly soon a healthy male cria arrived.

He is a lovely solid white by Cambridge Ice Cool Lad. Here is on the right of the picture with 'Toad Hall Storm' introducing himself.

50% of our cria have now arrived, let's hope the others arrive safely.

The Changing Face of Toad Hall

We have had a very busy year. This time last year we had just got planning permission to live here so we quite literally moved our house. Well one year on we have established our home area away from the workshop and have been busy putting up more field shelters and creating more paddocks for our expanding herd.

Gem's cria is doing well, she has accepted him well but only seems to feed him when reminded so we are still giving him a bottle as well. We think we will call him 'Toad Hall Storm' as he was born during a week of storms.

We have a further three cria due, all by Cambridge Ice Cool Lad. Hopefully they will arrive over the next couple of weeks

More pictures

Our new addition is handsome chap, weighing in at 7.5 kg. Poor Gem is not sure about being a mum but will stand still for him to feed - the problem is getting her to stand!!! She is now in a small paddock with Bluebell in the hope it will calm her down. Fingers crossed. No name yet so he is referred to as 'Charlie' at the moment.

Gem's Surprise

We have 4 cria due over the next few weeks and have been keeping a close eye on the girls. I checked them early afternoon and all was well - when I came back at 5pm and went over to check them again I was greeted by a solid white very healthy looking male cria. One problem, it wasn't immediately obvious who was Mum. He was going from one to another but mostly to Gem. Gem was our first born here and this has been her first pregnancy, she was mated to 'EP Cambridge Samson' , a stunning male at Wellground Alpaca Stud. There were little signs of birthing but we decided to put Gem and baby together and they seemed content. Poor Gem was confused, we gave 100ml of Colostrum to the cria to play safe but we have just managed to get him sucking off Gem and hopefully they will settle together over the next 24 hours.



What a good job we live here - we can check and feed overnight if we need to.
This morning we welcomed Les Rawlins from Wellground Alpaca Stud. What a pity our new arrival didn't come yesterday. Les brought 'Cambridge Buckingham' to do a spit off with Blue Ember which was negative so Cambridge Buckingham set to work.. Rob wasn't feeling too well - hope you feel better now Rob.
Off to put on the thinking cap for a name for our new arrival.

Back at last

Due to a few gremlins in the system I have been without the computer for a while - doesn't take much to put me off technology. However I'm glad to say all seems well now.
I am so glad the Alpacas were shorn at the beginning of May, it was a shame we missed the Three Counties Show but as we have had extremes of temperatures it has worked for the best. It was nice to go to the Three Counties Show as a social, it was a shame that the Alpaca ring was behind the Young Farmers Arena which is always very noisy but the alpacas seemed to ignore it mainly and it was better from the public point of view as they were more high profile. It was wonderful to see so many entries. Let's hope the last Royal Show goes well.
Our four adult females are due to give birth within the next month but from talking to other people it seems that a lot of cria are overdue this year - even longer watching and wondering.