Snowshoe Farm Alpacas

We’re having a stretch of very hot and humid weather that’s a bit unusual for us.  Thank goodness! Neither Ron nor I like this weather. And the alpacas don’t like it much, either.

We spend a lot of time trying to keep the alpacas cool in this weather.  Of course, they have access to the barn and we have overhangs on most sides that provide additional shade.  We set up fans in the barns to help circulate the air and provide some cooling. Water buckets are filled over and over with cool water.

All our pastures have a sprinkler or two.  We use the round brass rings. These work well as the alpacas like to lay down on the sprinklers and there are no moving parts or sharp edges. We set them to spray up just a couple feet above the ground. This lets the alpacas cool off their legs and bellies. We rotate sprinklers all day, just leaving them on for 15 or so minutes at a time in each pasture.  The alpacas cool themselves off and go back to grazing or to the barn.

We picked up our first load of 2010 second cut hay yesterday! We usually get our first load of hay in late August, so this is early and very welcome!

It always feels so good to start putting up hay for the season. You have to keep in mind that we don’t have pastures available year ’round in Vermont; they’re usually covered with snow for months. So we depend on hay to feed our alpacas during the winter. The weather can wreak havoc with haying – too much rain and it won’t dry, fields are too wet for tractors, etc. The weather’s been cooperating so far this year and allowed farmers to get in first cut early and gave us some good drying weather this week to start on second cut.

Putting up hay is not a fun job. Hay doesn’t dry well on cold, rainy days, so it’s HOT on haying days.  Ron picks up the hay in the field or from the wagon and the two of us stack it in our hay mow. So he gets to handle it twice – throwing it in the trailer and throwing it to me in the hay mow.  My job is to stack it in the mow. That’s not too bad when we start, but as the layers pile up and I’m working higher and higher up in the mow, it gets really hot!  And hay bales are really scratchy, so you want to have pants and long sleeves, but can’t stand it because of the heat.  Which means you end up with “hay rash”.  And the bales are heavy. But the smell of fresh hay is heavenly and the satisfaction of having a full mow, ready for winter can’t be beat.

Join us at Snowshoe Farm for a sale on breeding quality alpacas. On Saturday and Sunday, July 31 and Aug 1, we will open our farm and barns for sales, seminars and more. Visit our website for more info.

Our newest cria was born yesterday morning. We’re not sure yet if this young male is fawn or rose gray.  His grandsire is gray and he does have a gray tint to his fiber. We’ll see how it looks over the next few weeks. The gray fibers seem to grow out gradually.  Anyway, the little guy is out running with the others this morning.  His dam is a first-time mother and she’s doing great.

Interesting mix of genetics in this boy – Nishio, Magic, Legacy…could turn out to be quite interesting, especially if he is rose gray!

Another wet day. The grass and weeds are loving this, but we’re not.  The garden needs weeding and the lawn needs mowing. And wet weather means wet dogs – ugh!

We’re hoping to get a break from the wet weather soon, but the forecast sounds like we have scattered showers and humid weather again tomorrow.  It’s shaping up to be a good day to spend skirting fiber in the barn. I hope to get a few batches off to the mill this week – finally!

Spring is a very busy time on the farm for many reasons, but mainly because Ron is busy shearing at other farms every day. Now that shearing is winding down, we are starting to catch up on all we let slide for the last few months…like posting to our blog. I’ll do better from now on!

We’ve had 8 crias born on the farm so far this year and lots more to go.  I’ll post some updated cria photos soon – promise!

After three boys, we finally had a female cria born yesterday. This girl belongs to our client, Nu Leafe Alpacas, from Calais, VT. She’s a beautiful, light fawn cria with lots of energy!  I couldn’t keep up with her yesterday; she was up and nursing in no time and wandered all over the pasture. Just what we like to see!

BC, a female alpaca owned by a client, gave birth to a fawn male yesterday. This was another easy birth with a vigorous cria who was up and nursing in no time.  Makes my job a lot easier!  It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day for a cria to be born out in the pasture.

We now have three boys on the ground (please, let’s have some girls now!). And they are so much fun to watch as they run and wrestle.

Now this is more like it!  This black male was born yesterday and was up and nursing within an hour or so. No worries! Today he’s running around the pastures. That’s his mother, Rosita, behind him. Over 20 crias to come this year!

Today I skirted a fleece from a male that arrived at our farm on Saturday.  Starry’s Rastban is his name and he’s a light fawn herdsire owned by Starry Mountain Alpacas and boarded at our farm.  And he’s for sale!  Anyways, his fleece is fabulous – dense and fine with crimp that has high amplitude and high frequency.  I love skirting the nicer fleeces!  I think I’ll plan to show this one. Unless he sells before the fall shows – then his new owner can show it!