Last weekend saw the first National Alpaca Farm Day for us all.  I have to say I agreed to take part with some degree of trepidation, and I spent as much time worrying about whether anyone would turn up as I did about being overrun. We decided that we would offer mini walks , just… Read more »

As I write this I am preparing for a large Camelid Dynamics course to be run on my farm, with a trainer coming from the USA and learning is at the forefront of my mind. It is exciting to feel we can get back to face to face learning. Useful as Zoom has been, for me… Read more »

  It has been a lovely Summer down at the farm, with our small group of cria. I dare say we have had a relatively easy year. However, our biggest success hasn’t been related to one of our own cria, it has been helping a special little alpaca called Prince! Prince’s mum wasn’t producing much,… Read more »

A few days in the life of an alpaca farmer……… As we neared the end of our birthing season and after ten days of 30°C degree heat, when thankfully we had no births and the mums-to- be seemed to be holding on, the weather broke. Temperatures were much more pleasant and with a few girls… Read more »

The last few weeks have been wall to wall sunshine…a very welcome treat and something that we don’t frequently experience in Northern Ireland! That being said, it has caused a shift in the day-to-day happenings on the farm. With midday temperatures soaring, we’ve been splitting the daily chores between the very early morning and late… Read more »

Hi everyone, I hope that all is well with you and your alpacas and that those of you who breed are getting some beautiful healthy cria on the ground. We are expecting nine cria this year with, as I write, two having been delivered and seven left to go. We have had two lovely fawn… Read more »

Birthing is slowing down now after the boom in May and June – we have 57 cria on the ground already with only 10 left to birth. Gestation times were overall a bit longer than expected this year perhaps due to the winter weather? We also broke our own record with one female going 386… Read more »

Embers, the cria with a kink One Sunday tea time I went to feed my mums and cria and noticed that Embers, a 5 week old cria, had a very obvious kink in her neck. When the vet took x- rays it was clear that this was a significant subluxation. It was not causing any… Read more »

Crikey I can’t believe how quickly this year is passing, Summer seemed so far away last time I wrote my blog.  Most of us are in the midst of the busiest time of year, birthing and doing matings for next year’s cria and I’m sure we have had our fair share of ups and downs.… Read more »

What next when the phone rings? You never know quite what the next phone call will bring to the BAS office.  This is both a joy and a terror, depending on how things go.  A recent example illustrates how some events develop in unexpected ways…… I took a call from the Latin TV production office… Read more »