More New Births

Hi Guys, We have finally had rain over the last couple of days, which we are grateful for as we need are grass to start growing, it's changed colour so this rain should hopefully bring on the new growth.

Well that's enough about the grass. We have had our first lambs born from our Ryeland Sheep yesterday, we were going to blog last night but the pictures that we had taken didn't really turn out very well so Lisa has taken some more today.

They are just starting to go fluffy around the bottom of their legs and around their eyes, they will soon be just bundles of fluff.

Lily couldn't resist having a little cuddle with one of the lambs, she really enjoys seeing new life appearing on the farm.

Now there must be something in the water around here as these two lambs are little boys, just like our first two cria this year, they were also little boys. We must be due some girls soon....please.

we have also for a while had a chicken that had been sitting on some eggs, well today she allowed us to see what she has been cooking.

She has four chicks in total, but she was only allowing two to pose for the camera. We will get some more pictures as they start to venture out and about.

Well that's all for tonight, I need to search for the sun cream for tomorrow predicted sunny spell.

What's Happened To My Paragraphs????

When I wrote the last blog it had paragraphs in it but someone seems to have stolen them.......

More Hours In The Week Required.....

Hi Folks, Well it's been sometime since our last blog, lets just say that champagne certainly had a kick to it!! Joking aside since our news with getting our planning permission its been none stop. We had visitors constantly for the following three days wishing to congratulate us on our news, people from the village are so pleased for us that we succeeded and that our determination is starting to pay off. So after the visitors stopped coming it was time to move things up a gear and start to promote our business and show we are serious about what we are doing. It's been all go visiting potential customers, making calls, emailing people and working on the website, which is still under construction with lots of hidden pages which are almost ready to be revealed. Along side of the office work, we have been busy with plenty of husbandry jobs with the alpacas, rotating alpacas around the paddocks, muck spreading one of the paddocks and repair works to fences that the horses have damaged but that's another story, so don't get me started on that one!! One of the jobs that we have been desperate to spend more time on, was halter training our stud boy "Wellground Relentless" Relentless is due to start working this year and although we had already started training him, it was time to see how much he had remembered. Well he was a little unsure to start off with but after about 5 minutes he settled down and walked like a real pro, strutting his stuff to the girls. "Relentless" will be available for stud services, subject to bio-security checks. I know this sounds harsh but we are doing everything we can to reduce any risk of infections on our farm, so like minded breeders will I'm sure agree this is a must for any considerate breeder offering stud services. Prices for "Relentless" will be available soon, this is one of the pages that is hidden on the website at the moment. Now anything that we can do Lily seems to think she can do better..... well as you can see from the picture below, Lily decided that it was time for "Bertie" our Ryeland Ram to be halter trained...... it's a good job that "Bertie" is like a dog and is more than happy to be with you all the time. Lily was last seen disappearing around the paddocks with "Bertie" it was a bit of who was actually leading who...... We have a little break from alpaca births at the moment but that doesn't mean we get any rest as we are up throughout the night checking our sheep which are due to lamb any day now. Our alpaca birth start again in May so just as the sheep are finishing the alpacas will be starting again.

That's all for now, but I must try and find more time to keep the blog up to date.

The Waiting Is Over.....

Hi All,

Well today has been the best day in our lives for a long time.....from making the decision to take up alpaca farming back in 2005 doing all our research and visiting different alpaca breeders gaining valuable husbandry skills to eventually purchasing our own alpacas.

Today we got the news we have been waiting for......we won our appeal and have been granted temporary planning permission for our agricultural dwelling to enable us to run our alpaca farm sufficiently.

It has been a very stressful time in our lives getting to this point but it has all been worth while, we can now concentrate on running our alpaca farm without having to worry about what was going to be around the corner.

We have been waiting for our dream to finally start to take shape properly and today we have taken that first step in doing just that.

Thank you to Jeff & Sheila from "Easterwood Alpacas" who started us off with our real first hands on experience of alpacas through to Roger & Pauline at "Pipley Court Alpacas" and not forgetting and how could we forget Rob & Les from "Wellground Alpacas" Rob and Les have listened to us at our lowest points throughout this journey and have always encouraged and supported us as best as they could, thank you guys you have been our rocks.

So for those of you that are out there just starting out on your journey's, keep fighting don't let anyone bring you down, keep your dreams in the front of your minds and push push push to make them come true, we have and we are now starting out with our passion, for alpaca farming.

It can be done and we wish everyone success when starting out. For those of you that read our blog and have supported us with comments, thanks to you guys too, we hope to try and meet as many of you as we can throughout our journey and wish you also great success.

That's all for now, the champagne cork has just popped.

Another Arrival.....

Hi Guys,

Well a week has passed by already since our first cria of 2011 was born and yesterday morning again at around 06.30 saw our second cria be born. "Wellground Killawasi's Keepsake" has worked his magic again, another boy though which is a shame, but nevertheless a healthy cria is important to us.

Here he is below enjoying the sunshine throughout the day, with our first cria introducing himself to the new kid on the block.


It has been such a fantastic couple of days with the weather, feeling the sun on your back helps lift your spirits and makes you realise that spring is just around the corner. Seeing the new cria in the paddock brings back memories of last years cria's and the joy that came with it.

We have some very busy times ahead of us this year with various adventures we have on the go, some interesting projects that will hopefully get people talking and show a different diversified side of alpaca breeding, all very cryptic but very interesting, more on this later.

Just a couple more pictures of the new cria's enjoying the sunshine. It's the turn of our Ryeland Sheep next to give birth to our lambs, so a little break from cria being born then it's back to the alpacas, although knowing alpacas they will more than likely surprise us with some early birth just to try and catch us out.

Well that's all for now, back soon.