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Wispa & Llancellot
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This spring we moved Pepsi, our stud male along with his mate Nazca up to a rented field, and during the two months or so that they were there, their toenails have grown amazingly!
Under normal circumstances they wear them down by pawing the ground and by walking along the roads or the rough & tumble of the hard standing in their paddocks, but in the rented field there’s just soft grass, and so the nails didn’t wear down and os they needed to be cut.
Llamas are big animals, and getting your head down to feet level is quite a scary thought, and a few bruises in the shin is testament to the fact that they can kick, so… we gave in and called the professionals.
Often, it is the shearers that do the toe nails. Whilst they have the llama under control for shearing they just cut the nails, almost while they are not looking, but as we have no intention of shearing our llamas, at least not with electric shears, we needed someone special.
The lady in question comes up from Cornwall and uses a system called Camelid Dynamics to train llamas and llama owners and Vicki has been on her course, but doesn’t feel confident to do the nails, so this lady just pops up, we get the llamas in a pen one by one, and five minutes later they look at me and say – what was all that about, and the nails have been trimmed almost without them really knowing!
It’ll be done so infrequently, and despite us watching and learning, I suspect that we’ll have this lady back again!
…it’s the rutting season for goats but poor old Titan has no one to rut with!
He shares his run with two wethers, his first two youngsters from last year, and they enjoy running him a bit ragged! He has however started to bark at them – a sort of rowrowrow sort of noise – quite amusing coming from a goat!
He stands in the corner of his run – I’m sure he knows the girls are not far away – looking quite forlorn at times. He does pick up and get quite excited about the odd bramble or hazel branch being thrown in to his run.
It’s the smell though – he has found his old perfume, quite a nasty smell in many many ways – it is quite off putting – we may have to move him and his run away from our summerhouse, especially when we have guests over for a BBQ.
He’s going to have to wait though – the girls won’t be ready for a couple of months yet
…had a young kid today! Frostie is the larger of our female pygmy goats, and the way she was waddling around the last day or so we were convinced that she was going to have triplets.
Our holiday guests have been coming out at feeding times most mornings – we have a holiday cottage and one of the attractions is to join us at feeding times morning and afternoon, and families especially enjoy coming out and getting up close and personal with all of the animals, but the pygmy goats are a real attraction in the way they want to be fussed & fed.
Frostie was put into her maternity enclosure at the weekend as she was starting to “bag up” which is a sign that the birthing is due very soon, and the guests noticed strange noises and low & behold this morning at around 8.30am the birthing had started.
I won’t go into the gory details, but by 8.45am we sent the guests off to the house, something wasn’t quite right and we decided to call the vet, and by 9am the head of a young pygmy goat was sticking out, the youngster was breathing but poor thing it couldn’t get out, she was well and truly stuck. Most goats, and our llamas too, normally come out with feet first with the head in between, like a diver, but this one had left her front feet behind.
The vet was soon there but it took nearly 30 minutes of pushing, pulling, twisting etc… to finally get the little one out, and I am glad to say that everything appears to be fine. She has been given a good clean, belly button sprayed with iodine, and has had some nosh!
Amazingly though, Frostie just had the one!
You can find out full details of our llama experiences on our website!
www.ashwoodllamas.co.uk – I know a shameless plug, but heyho! Also, I know our website doesn’t mention Thursdays as a regular day for these sessions but we are flexible, so if you want any other day just call and ask!
So, this afternoon we have a family turning up to spend 3 hours with Vicki & I to play with our llamas, and meet the goats, chickens and maybe the cat!
I have a funny feeling the cuteness of our pygmy goat kids might get more “aaahs” than the llamas will, it just happens to be that time of year!
Wilbur & Cusco will get to be haltered and walked, and Wilbur in particular just loves the attention and will enjoy showing off! Out of all our llamas he is the one that will allow you to stroke him through the fence, most of the others will shy away at the last minute.
Buster & Sir Llancellot will both be in attendance – too young to walk, but they are learning the ropes, and need to be shown that it is an enjoyable experience!
And, I have been told the sun will shine this afternoon – can’t wait as it gets me out of the office for the afternoon!
Over the last winter we had 14 llamas, 4 of whom were youngsters, and 8 pygmy goats, 3 of whom were youngsters. Their main diet during the winter months is hay, as there is little fresh grass to eat and so they have hay to eat as they need it!
I also thought that we wasted about 20-25% – hay that dropped to the floor and got wet and therefore was no use to anyone!
At the weekend, we met a few other llama owners and one lady said that she got through just 200 bales of hay for 20+ llamas & alpacas and a handful of sheep – so we must have wasted closer to 50%!
So, how to save hay and ensure that it doesn’t go to waste – any ideas?
I have a few, and action is needed right now, although there is plenty of grass to eat right now, and the consumption of hay has slowed right down, but with hay soon to be cut I could do with saving some money by not buying quite as much as I thought I would need for this winter!
Poor little thing – she was ..actually, she still is…only 3 weeks old!
Tallara is our second cria of the season, a daughter to Lima. A big moment for us as Lima has only had boys before. She’s a tall gangly young lady and has a floppy ear which gave us some concern for the first few days of her life as sometimes this indicates an issue, but she was a big girl and weighed in at around 30lbs and was as big as Princess, who was born 3 weeks earlier.
We moved all of the girl llamas across to a new paddock to try out the fresh grass, and everything appeared fine and they settled into their new surroundings very quickly – particularly as it was only 6 or 7 weeks ago since they were last there. Princess was born in this paddock and was moved the same day so that she was closer to the house for us to keep an eye on! She couldn’t remember it that well, so the two of them had a good nose around.
Next morning all was well, but when it came to evening feeding time (this was Thursday of last week) Vicki noticed a white protrusion coming from Tallara’s mouth and summoned me to check it out – ooh weird, had never seen or heard anything like it before, it looked like her tooth was sticking out and all wobbly – just like a child who was hanging on to a milk tooth until it fell out naturally!
Not sure why this would have happened we decided to call the vet, and whilst llamas do lose their teeth naturally.. they don’t lose them at 3 weeks old, so the vet came out, checked her out and the offending tooth came away with a slight tug. The other front incisor was also a bit wobbly, so to be safe the vet pulled that too! All quite stomach churning really, but we’re a bit wimpish sorting this type of thing out!
The vet checked her jaw for signs of breakage, but all was well, albeit a bit bloody, and a 3 day painkilling injection later she went back to mum. Her first instinct was to suckle, so we hoped everything was going to be OK!
We’re not sure how this happened and we will never know! We have some good theories though!
Here we are several days later, and Tallara is fine – she gets most of her nutrients suckling but is still nibbling at hay and grass, and can still be seen grinding it down with her molars!
Phew… enough traumas already!
On another note – Evelyn our bought in “believed pregnant” llama has not had a cria this spring, so we just have two, but they are both healthy girls and so we wait for autumn when we have 2 and maybe 3 (another story) new mums, currently in waiting!
My last post about how easy it is to mix up an alpaca and a llama has prompted a raft of people asking the same question – well what is the difference, well…..
The llama is roughly twice the size of an alpaca!
The llama has a coarse outer coat over the top of a soft inner coat, whereas the alpaca has a single coat, made of very fine fibre.
The alpaca produces more fibre than the llama despite being much smaller!
Llamas were bred to be pack animals, whereas the alpacas were bred for their fibre!
Out and about you tend to see more alpacas per acre than llamas, 4-5 llamas per acre or 6-8 alpacas, although it is common to see smaller herds of llamas as there are not so many in the UK compared to alpacas, which are farmed in larger herds for the fibre!
We’ve also noticed that alpacas tend to be (but are not always so) a single solid colour whereas the llama tends to be at least two coloured, although this is not a strict difference!
So, to summarise – size!
Yesterday, we took a day off to visit the Devon County Show – a 3 day event finishing this Saturday 21st May – and what an excellent day out it was.
Having finished our morning chores, animals all fed & watered, emails answered or prioritised, a few Must Do’s ticked off the To Do list, which is not getting any shorter, we set off about 9am and didn’t get into the showground until after 11am – the queuing to get in started a good mile on the M5.
Once there the first big marquee is the Alpacas one, and it’s always nice to wander around the marquee – two this year – and have a good look at the animals, always in pristine condition as they actually show & judge them here. Next, we take an amble up to lone display of llamas – Tom at Llamalland, near Truro in Cornwall, to see who he has brought with him.
This year, he had brought 8 young yearlings, all girls, and they all looked as if they were enjoying their first trip out! Tom uses the occasion to not only see if he can find buyers for his llamas, but also to educate the public and is happy to spend 3 days there showing off his amazing knowledge. We bought some of our llamas from Tom last year and also used Llamalland’s stud services with both Lima & Clara who have had nice cria this spring.
Next, well next we just amble around and see what we can see, we found Devonshire Tea’s marquee where they were trying to break the unofficial world record for the biggest scone & cream tea – huge it was too, and then some lunch, a sit down and a chance to read through the programme to see if there is anything we specifically want to catch before we head home. We have to be back by 5pm-ish to do the evening rounds!
Well, on page 32 of the programme, under the Displays & Features section, was the Alpacas listing, and whoops ….there was a photo of Tom & his llamas from last year!
We had a giggle, not sure the alpacas owners would have seen the funny side of it though!
