The natural course of things
Some relatively big happenings here on the farm yesterday.
For one, our female Boheme who, along with her little girl Musette (that’s her at left eyeballing me in the pasture), has been back in the general population since late last week, was bred for the first time since her daughter came to us via cesarean birth almost 7 weeks ago. Not wanting to put any extra pressure on her abdominal wall by running up and down the hillside at the Arena while she was healing from the surgery, she and her kid had joined a small motley group of females with various ailments living in the warm room there (with access to it’s attached outdoor corral) for better part of 6 weeks. Safe to say that both mom and baby were thrilled to get out and really be able to stretch their legs though for the first time last Friday. Musette transitioned easily to having her bottle — which is her primary food source — hung elsewhere inside the much bigger pen space she and her dam now share with 13 other mom/cria pairs as opposed to the rather cozy confines of sickbay. As for Boheme herself: having harassed the Herdsires whenever they came up to breed someone else for the better part of a month now, she seemed slightly surprised when I brought Ring of Fire into her feed group yesterday and actually called her number instead. Fingers crossed of course that this works. That was the first of the 2 c-section females that we will be rebreeding this year (Seraphim is on deck for August when some guy from Idaho is due back) so we are in unexplored territory for us, though in theory it should all work out.
Yesterday, believe it or not, also marked the final weaning of 2012 with Cadenza’s little EL guy, Defiance (who was born in January), joining Precipitous as well as his big brother Elixir in a wee group down at the Main Barn. He’ll eventually integrate into the larger population of weaner boys at that barn as well but taking him from his mom and throwing to the proverbial wolves all in one motion seemed a bit cruel. Needless to say we’re pretty high on the little dude. Know many alpacas, male or female, that have won a Championship or Reserve Championship 3 years in a row at the National Fleece Show? His mom is one of the few, this last time as a class D white female. Time will tell of course about her kids (her older son Concerto, who is 2, started working for us this year) but the markers are all there.
Old friend Dave Serino of Aspenwood Alpacas is stopping in for the night tonight bringing a couple of girls by for breeding as he does so. There will no doubt be much merrymaking and yarn telling throughout the evening. Needless to say the bottle of Grey Goose (also dubbed “the Mother’s Ruin”…by none other than my mom of course) is in the freezer. We haven’t seen Dave since he flew out to help us at the Futurity in April so it’ll be fun to catch up for sure. One thing I’m quite sure we won’t be doing tonight though is making a fire in the outdoor fireplace, we’re more likely to be found cowering in the AC. Hope everyone (and your alpacas) are surviving the heat wherever you are. Keep the waterers/buckets/tubs filled and the fans running on high…
Follow me on Twitter @CCNFalpacas
