Herd health day interrupted for the right reasons
With our kids’ Thursday afternoon ski program scheduled to start up this week, what could have been a rather scattered day filled with multiple commutes in two different directions, instead got fairly straightforward when Mother Nature intervened and gave us our first snow day of 2012. There I was, shortly after 6AM, refreshing the school cancellation page on my phone like a kid that had a term paper due and hadn’t even written the introduction. Phew. All of which meant that we could finally start on herd health today with a reasonably full crew, even if it did mean dealing with wet, snow covered alpacas. Turns out those cool work gloves I bought myself last summer specifically for toe nail trimming days aren’t really all that water proof. No matter though.
We had buzzed through the Main Barn first thing this morning and were on pace to easily finish all of the adult males in the Stud Barn before lunch when we got a call from the guys up at the Arena.
“There’s a new baby up here in the warm room!”
Oh, Cadenza you sweet girl: finally! Needless to say we (Jen, Kim, and I) literally dropped everything were were doing — in my case that was Ring of Fire’s left front foot — and jumped into our cars to zoom up and see what Cadenza had given us for a late Christmas present. We don’t obviously go breeding just any old female in early February after all, even we aren’t (usually) that mental. There is a reason Cadenza has banners from both the 2010 and 2011 AOBA National Fleece Shows. It’s not ’cause she sucks.
The fates of course having a somewhat twisted sense of humor felt it only appropriate to end this latest birthing cycle the way it began last Spring: with a white boy. The difference being that if he grows into what he could be the fact that this one is a male will not be just ok but even preferable. This little guy is after all an Elite Legend son and this was a match we had been waiting to see for quite some time. So far, so good: he’s white, he’s dense, and he’s built like a brick you-know-what. Time, as always, will reveal all. Cadenza for her part will be staying open until after shearing in May at the very least. Though she delivered her baby today completely unassisted, it’s safe to say that we’ve all had enough of mid-winter birthing for the time being.
Having gotten the new little boy dry, coated, and nursing off of his mama (Cadenza as a bonus is an excellent mother too) we were able to head back down to the Stud Barn after lunch. With chores done and a full compliment of victims helpers present (two pairs of holders/trimmers while Kim worked the clipboard and did all of the shot giving), we were able to finish the boys’ barn in minutes and then steam roll our way through the south side of the Arena by 4:15. That leaves us tomorrow with just the north side of that barn left to do, probably no more than 2.5 hours work. For a toe nail month in January it really can’t get much better than that. Though I’ve been on my best behavior since we got home from our trip last Sunday (read: Ian overindulged over the Holidays and is going through self-enforced detox), the completion of herd health combined with Cadenza’s new little guy may just call for some celebratory libations tomorrow evening. As though I really needed an excuse.
