Alpaca Farm Duties

There is a lot to do on an alpaca farm, we have over 400 alpacas on our farm, and winter is close by.

At the moment we are weaning babies off their mums, this happens when they are roughly 5 months old.

Some of the mums really put into the crias, and the crias are blooming, grown well, heaps of fleece, and very rounded.

These crias have drained a lot of goodness off the dams, as the dams have out all their energies into providing a great milk source for their offspring.

We need to seive through the herd, and identify these dams, so they can be put into a paddock with less competition, so they can put the weight on, so they are less affected if we get super cold weather.

With over 100 babies born so far, this job does take a few days to do, as the dams are weighed, innoculated with 5 in 1, wormed, etc.

Crias also identified, and body scored, also wormed, and given 5 in 1.

It is a very stressful time for these crias and dams, and the dams do not like to have their babies taken from them.

Babies cry for a few days, but it is easier to wean in large groups, as they do comfort each other.

We also assess the fleece qualities, and work out which ones we will show this year.

It is very hard, because there is so many we want to show.

But we have a van to transport them to the shows, and you only have a limit to how many you can take, and have time to halter train.

Babies are now all weaned, and dams are in a rested paddock, so they can put on weight very quickly. the end of another day, doing farm duties

Raelene still have many hours left tonight completing the book work.