Been A while

We have been to many shows over the past few weeks, all seem to be a minimum of 3 days.

We had three vet students here for two weeks, and a hectic time.

This is a friend who took an alpaca into the show ring at the Royal Melbourne Show. English Rose has arrived in Belgium, at Yvonne Steinlet, from ALPACALANDGOED.
I have seen pictures from her farm, and she has a beautiful farm, (right), her farm looks like parkland. Both Yvonne and I have just found out that Primera has had a white Female girl, we are both pleased, and glad that it is a girl. This means that Primera can now start her testing, and hopefully both Primera and cria will be in Belgium very soon. Yvonne is looking forward to seeing them both. I hear Lady Titicata is doing well in Uk, and will be mated to CZAR who is on ANZAC alpaca stud in the UK. Dominic Lane owns ANZAC alpaca stud, and loves it in England. His farm has oodles of feed, and is not that far from London.We have been busy with Quarntines, one for New Zealand, and still the Canadian Quarantine is doing well. As the weather is warming up for us, we are starting to hand trim the alpacas for Canada. We have had a very cold winter, and so it has not been disreable to shear the alpacas earlier. But i hear they will be going to snow, and most likely temperatures of -20 degrees, which we never experience here. We have been advised to leave leags, underbelly, head and tail fleece on, as this will help them keep wamr, and are the most exposed places when they are kushing in the snow. We need to bring their fleece back a bit, as these alpacas mainly coming from NSW, have over 12 months fleece on them. In NSW, they will have most of their alpacas shorn by now, in fact they shear more likely before the end of August, where in Melbourne, we will shear more like November, and still we will have days we have to watch the alpacas do not get too cold, with the sudden cold change, brought on by heavy rains. We need to trim the fleece down to approx 2 inches long, this way, we have enough fleece on them to help them keep warm when they arrive in Vancouver, before their 3 day long journey to Winnipeg Beach, Manitoba. But they will have also less fleece for when they go into the shipping crates, and they will be more comfortable. I hear that there is much excitement for the alpacas to arrive in Canada. The picture above is of Elyse trimming one of the alpacas, and you can see how much fleece we have trimmed off. This fleece that we are trimming is too short now for processing. This is a picture of the fleece of one of the alpacas. I trimmed one of the larger alpacas, which took 4 hours, and now i have blisters over my fingers from th scissors, so i have to rest them while the blisters hear before i can trim again. ELyse also has some blisters on her hands, she has now trimmed 6 alpacas, a few more to go. We have also completed screening for the uk, of 9 alpacas. this procedure was over a two day period. This week proves a hectic week also. I am still completing the paperwork for both shipments, working around plane flights etc. There is a lot of planning when organising shipments, and it has to be just right. I take pride in our exports.

Before i go, I wish Yvonne and her husband, from ALPACALANDGOED Alpaca Stud in Belgium, lots of luck with her alpacas, now 4 female alpacas, and look forard to a long and happy business relationship.