Mixed Blessings

The good news is that today Bluebell produced a beautiful solid white girl, almost by herself.  Just before 10.30 this morning there was a head visible but no legs.  Sid scrubbed up and we went to her assistance, the cria's legs were pulled out and she was delivered all OK.  The first straightforward birth for Bluebell.  The sire, Bozedown Flurry is owned by some friends at Grovesnor Alpacas.

Unfortunately the bad news is that our 'Lady Red' has deformed feet.  The flexor tendon on both front feet is too tight meaning that the feet are tucked right up.  Survival looked very bleak at the start as she couldn't stand and seemed very weak.  We gave her glucose through a syringe and before long she had been very adaptive and standing on the joint. We had put them in the shelter but she managed to make her way outside.  If you look closely at the picture you can she how the feet are turned backwards.  We gave her colostrum as she couldn't really stand for too long and we needed to give her the best start - no problems that was gone in a flash, no trouble with sucking.

The vet came and showed us how to give physio to stretch the tendon.  We must do this as often as we can but the vet is hopeful that the problem can be corrected but it will take time.  She certainly is doing her best as she can now stand and feed from Bluebell and follows her around the paddock.

You can see from the picture why she is called Lady Red.  The vet has bandaged the legs and padded the joint to protect it or that will be at risk of infection and put the feet as far forward as they will go.

 They are now shut in the shelter with the infra red light on and we can watch them via the monitor in the house but hopefully she will continue to gain strength and we will continue to stretch the tendon so she has a good chance of pulling through.

Old and the New

As usual life has been very busy at Toad Hall. Our neighbouring farmer was installing a new water supply so we seized the opportunity to upgrade ours. We are a long way from the water mains at the end of the road so a digger and driver had to be hired to do the long stretch.

The moling man then had to come to bring the pipe under the lane and Sid and our mini digger had to do the last stretch - where the old meets the new. Now all ready to be connected up and hopefully we will have better pressure.

The Alpacas are all well and very contented. This is a picture of 'Bluebell' who is now in the 'birthing window' so hopefully we will have a healthy cria before too long, together with a normal birth - which would be a first for 'Bluebell'.

Skye continues to grow well and give the older animals the run around. At the moment she is fairly white, we haven't had much rain but when we have she has delighted in having a mud bath.

Scriptwriter's Birthday

We are very pleased to have received our sample results from Yocom-McColl Testing Laboratories. Five samples were sent for testing and we are very pleased with all of them.



Wellground Scriptwriter (our resident Stud):
Mean 20.1; SD 4.2; CV 20.9 (3rd fleece)

Sample taken at 2 years 10 months.

Unfortunately the photograph does not really show how good it is.

His sire is EP Cambridge Commish Lad who was sired by Jolimont commisario and his Dam is The Hermitage Lady Ruffo of Cambridge who was sired by NWA Ltd Ruffo. An excellent pedigree.

Scriptwriter's Stud Services are only being offered to selected breeders who, like ourselves are taking the risk of TB in Alpacas seriously and are keeping Biosecurity at the forefront of their business.

So today we wish him a very happy birthday and gave him a few extra grains of Camelibra to celebrate!!!!

We are also very pleased with Toad Hall King of Diamonds who is almost 2years old:
Mean 20.5 SD 4.3 CV 21.0 Known as 'Barnaby' at home he is a good future herd sire as is

Toad Hall Cool Troy: Mean 17.6 SD 4.0 CV 23.0 who is also almost 2 years old.

The other samples that we sent off were from our cria born last year and these are very similiar to Barnaby and Troy.

Hiccup has now been on different antibiotics for 2 weeks and seems to be moving around more and generally socialising with the others more - hopefully this will continue. We have now bought a bale of Alfalfa with Lucerne to give her as well as the camelibra and oats in the hope we can get her to gain weight. Any other ideas?