A First Time For Everything

"Go ahead - Make my day"

So, since my last blog post we finished the fencing (Yeah!!!), we have figured out the game plan for connecting the two sheds together to store the hay so we can separate the boys and girls and have, hopefully, arranged for help to work on it  Memorial Weekend and we have taken care of the Spring work that needed to be done to the gardens so onto the reason for this post.

Since we were planning on taking Cosmo and Zinnia to the NE Alpaca Expo in Syracuse in May we needed to get them trained on halter and lead.  We also figured it wouldn't hurt to train Masquerade.

"What do they want from us now Cosmo?"

Well putting the halters on wasn't too bad as long as we bribed them with grain, but then came walking with the lead.  Do you remember playing tug of war and all the big kids were on the other side of the rope?

Masquerade just froze on us and went into his "I'm invisible" mode.  He thinks if he doesn't move an inch that we can't see him and we will go away.  Cosmo although fighting, was curious and did let us move him oh so little the first day.  Zinnia did not want to be out of sight of her mother and went into the "cush" mode.  Once down in that position, we were not going to move her without a major battle.  I guess we have to say that Day 1 our "kids" won the battle.

Day by day the battles got to be less and less, except for Masquerade.  He finally did give in a little to walking without fighting but we needed to focus our time on Zinnia and Cosmo.  In hindsight; we needed to start halter and lead training a LOT sooner than we did.  We got them to the point where we could show their teeth, touch them all over as well as pick up their tail and stop and hold them in place.  We took them down into the field area where they hadn't been since last fall and through gates that had not been there so that they would trust where we were leading them.  We thought we had done pretty good.

During this it was also shearing time.  We could not shear Zinnia and Cosmo because of the show but Ivy, Sunflower and Masquerade could be done.  Our first experience with the shearer's did not go well.  I am going to chalk it up to partly our inexperience and them having a bad day.  It's a long story that I won't bore you with.

Well then the temperature decided to drop to below freezing during the nights and windy, cloudy and cold during the days.  My poor babies were shivering like crazy so I figured I would borrow some blankets and just put them on them.  They would like that right?  Well ever try to saddle up a wild stallion for the first time?

We won the battle with Masquerade and Zinnia but they sure were not happy for a while at first; Sunflower - well she just was not going to have anything to do with it - so she won that battle.

Ok - so now onto the NE Alpaca Expo in Syracuse.

Cosmo and Zinnia were going up ahead of us because we had no way of transporting them at this time.  Our mentoring farm Ideuma Creek Alpacas picked them up the day before so that they would be ready to take them that morning.

We got up to the Exhibit Center the night before the show.  Zinnia and Cosmo were very excited and confused.  I felt like the worst "mother" in the world.

Everyone told me that the way they were acting was normal for the first time - for me too!

I tried walking Zinnia because she was going to be showing that afternoon - I had time with Cosmo because he wasn't showing until Sunday.  She was really out of sorts and I am sure that she felt my nervousness traveling through the lead.  I put her back into her pen to let her relax and Karl and I went and observed how everyone was handling their animals.  We felt we really should have worked with our animals more.

There are many color classes- with each age and sex catagory from the Grays through to the Indeterminate' s  (that's when a particular color class can't be assigned).  We learned that 6 ribbons are awarded to each class; so if your class only has six in it or less - everyone is going to get a ribbon and should be very proud.  I sure wish that had been our case!  As it was Zinnia was in the medium fawn juvenile female class, one of the largest classes, with 15 other alpacas, Cosmo was in the white juvenile male class, the other of largest classes, with 15 other alpacas.

  Although the judge did come back for a second look on both of them, we unfortunately did not get a ribbon.  She did say after each class that there were so many fine animals in the class but she only had six ribbons to award and had to pick whom she felt represented the finest. We did witness in some cases some previous Color Champions and Reserve Color Champions who did not even ribbon in their class so-----

I am sure that my inexperience and lack of training on the halter and lead also affected the outcome - it was only my first time as well.  We will work to improve this and who knows - maybe next time.

We congratulate all those farms that did ribbon and hope to be standing among them in future shows!

Where Does The Time Go?

I can't believe that it has been over a month since my last blog. 

Clarence has gone back home to Ideuma Creek Alpacas; Masquerade remains quite shy but is adjusting to his space with Cosmo.  He will still occasionally get too excited when he is eating but not as often.

  

The weather for the past month has been unbelievable so we have been able to get a lot of outdoor stuff done that we normally would not be able to do until April.  

We installed the Stallskins into the shelter where we are currently keeping "our kids".  These are great!

We found that having just the Item 4 on the ground caused a LOT of dirt dust all over the place; especially on our alpacas whenever they would roll in it.  We put the Stallskins mat down and it has GREATLY diminished the dirt dust problem.  We plan to install it in the second shelter as well.

We picked up a lot of rocks in the field that heaved up out of the ground over the winter. (Of course another rock garden was created!)

If the weather holds out we plan to start working on the remainder of the fencing that needs to be installed and then join the two shelters together using the space in between for hay storage and then complete the inside of the second shelter so we can move the boys over.  

I still can't believe that we only just started all this work a year ago and look how far we have come already.  We go to our first show with Zinnia and Cosmo in May but that's a post for another day.

Masquerade Has Arrived!

We were over to visit Masquerade at Ideuma Creek Alpacas during the week and Denise asked if we were ready to take him to his new home.  I told her "ABSOLUTELY"; she then asked if it would be alright for  him to come over with a "buddy".  She was a little concerned that since he was still upset about being weaned from his mother that perhaps the transition would go a little smoother if his "buddy Clarence" came along and stayed with us for a few weeks.  Saturday morning John brought the two boys over.

"Don't worry - I'll keep you safe"

He said it had been quite the ride over with Masquerade "crying the last 1/2 of the trip".  Once let out of the van they quickly began to check things out.  Clarence his buddy "aka the bodyguard" seemed to take charge right away.  Masquerade stayed in the background being quite shy.

We moved Zinnia back in with Sunflower and Ivy, her mother.  Zinnia was too busy trying to get close to her mother again that she didn't really pay much attention.  Ivy, while trying to show Zinnia that things were definitely different now, kept an eye on the two new boys.  Sunflower, whenever they would get too close to the fence that was now separating the boys from the girls, would spit at them reinforcing who was boss here.  Cosmo of course, wanted to "wrestle".

"So you're the new kid huh"

Masquerade was still too excited to really eat anything once it came time for evening grain.  Clarence, his buddy, had no problem.  Sunday morning we went down to grain them, Clarence was getting closer and closer with sniffing us and Masquerade seemed a little calmer.  We fed everyone their grain - they have their own dishes.  Well Masquerade was so excited to have his own that he ate it so fast he was choking it up.  It took him quite a while to calm himself down and I was a little worried that he would not like the grain after this.  Well, when we went down in the evening he again ate his grain, albeit much slower.  He even went so far as to sniff at my hand.  I think everything is going to be just fine!!!

Our Future Herdsire Cosmo

I gotta tell you - Cosmo just gets better and better everyday!

He seems to be changing overnight.  He is going on 7 months old, he is being weaned from his mother, Sunflower, and dealing with that extremely well.

Every morning when we go out to take care of "our kids" he comes up to the gate as we are approaching and literally greets us.  His disposition is wonderful - although Zinnia would not agree with that.

I have been noticing that his fiber is getting beautiful ringlets within it.  It is so dense, soft and uniform.  I can't wait to show him!