The weather forecast wasn’t the best for the weekend but we were fully booked on Saturday. This is typical of Josh because he has most of Saturday off to play football 😑 At least he collected Ashton and dropped him off to help. I even managed to get him to put the lick bucket out for the sheep.
It’s like a giant boiled sweet in a bucket. They go over and lick away at it. It’s high energy for the last stages of pregnancy. The lick is red so the ewes that use it the most end up looking like they are wearing lipstick. The area around the bucket incurs heavy traffic as they all crowd around it. It gets really muddy. It’s a great place to spread powdered lime. This gets in between their toes and helps to prevent foot rot. I even got Josh to put the lime out before he left. It was very windy and even though he had the sense to stand up wind, he still got covered in white powder. He looked like the Night King from Game of Thrones by the end of it.
With that done, I sacrificed Ashton immediately to the Piranhas, as the pets are now known. Ever eager, he was happy to help (family members often get called upon) and off he went with the bucket. Disappointingly, they did not knock him off his feet. We like a good fall in our family and can often be found cackling at some unfortunate on Facebook, YouTube etc. But a real life fall is even better (more to come on that later 😉)
I then sent Ashton up to help Neil with the drone while I waited for our visitors. It was 2 adults and a child. They loved the Pirhanas, I mean pets. The silvernoses are a delight to be fair, as long as they’ve been fed. Next onto feeding the main flock. Neil rushed off as he had found another ewe in the brambles by using the drone. I took in the view with the visitors and then went to see the alpacas.
We saw the weanlings first. To be fair, they never disappoint. Cheeky Garth Vader always comes over, usually accompanied by Popcorn or the Little Prince, as I like to call him. He knows he is the cutest. The thing with the weanlings is that they are child sized. There aren’t to many either so we can usually get any nervous children to come close enough. As interested as the humans are in them, it does seem that these little ones like to meet people too!
As with each walk or visit booked, this is an individual experience. We get to know the visitors a little bit by chatting and can then normally tailor the experience a bit. For example, on Saturday the father was very interested to know what was in the food the alpacas have so we discussed it at length and even showed him one of the feed bags. While discussing the ongoing vitamin ADE shortage, we found out that there has been an upsurge in cases of rickets so hospitals are having to give vitamin D injections. It’s been attributed to Covid and people having to stay in doors. I wondered if it is part of the reason we cannot get the injection for our alpacas. When we are visited by gardeners we can talk about the poo and we have had visitors interested in dry stone walling so Neil can talk (at great length) about that 😁
Ashton was my strong man yesterday and he pulled the feed trolley around giving my arms a bit of a break. After the visit I took him home for food. I was treated to a lovely big cup of tea and a ham and cheese toastie. We didn’t have long until the walk was due. So after a bit of a warm and a refuel off we went again.
Once again the silvernoses proved a great hit. They were petted and had their photos taken. As this was a walk we went straight down to the alpacas where the fun and games started…
Leo came into the catch pen easily as that’s where he’s fed. We got the harness on and I took him outside. Leo can be a little frisky so I kept a firm hold and introduced him to the two walkers. He was oohhhed and aaahhhed over. He was petted and we discussed the depth and quality of his fleece. Neil and Ashton were making a right mess of catching Tex. He refused to come down the field. They were running about with a bucket. He was not having any if it. They needed help. I thought it best not to go in because I wanted to keep my eye on Leo. I had to ask one of the walkers to go in and help. So then there were 3 of them trying to get Tex in.
Leo was doing his usual dancing about but the walker in charge of him was great at keeping him in check. I got the bucket off Neil. I fed the boys more than anyone else. I threw some feed in each bucket. Their heads popped up “Oooh, she’s feeding us” I only had a little bit of food so I kept picking it up and throwing it in. I had Atlas’s interest but Tex knew he was a marked man. He was suspicious. He came slightly closer, the 3 men closed in on him, he spotted them and went off across the field at great speed. Ashton was the closest, and youngest so off he went after Tex. Then I wished I had been filming…
I don’t really know what he did. There was a mixture of long gangly arms and legs. It was a kind of front flip-type cartwheel! At one point he looked as though hecwas doing a forward roll and then landed spreadeagled on the floor. He still had his glasses on so that was a plus. As is also typical of us with family, no one checked if he was OK. It was more a case of get back up and get on with catching Tex. He got up laughing and carried on. I will admit to laughing. I’m smirking now as I type. He’s lucky Jordan and Sar weren’t there. He would never hear the last of it. And they would probably still be cackling…
We finally got Tex and went for a windswept walk. There were the usual selfies at the top of the nursery. The boys are great posers. When we got back we continued chatting. The walkers helped us feed the boys and the sheep in jail. We walked back up and got to the paddock just as light drizzle started. We’d been lucky with the weather.
The weather was atrocious Saturday/Sunday night but Sunday dawned brightly and off I went to Garth Hall to meet Chloe. Chloe is attending agricultural college at Pencoed. She contacted lots of farms about work experience. The reception she got from them wasn’t the best. It seems farms would prefer men to women. I wasn’t aware of this when she contacted me. I was happy to have a bit of help and I like the idea of helping someone get experience.
Chloe assures me she enjoyed herself. She asked lots of questions, I gave her lots of tips and she helped me a lot. This was just an introduction so we could meet each other. Chloe is going to assist and get plenty of experience during actual lambing. Josh arrived about half way through and we talked and joked. I think she will fit in. I look forward to working with her. She is even interested in dry stone walling. I’ve warned her if she gets into a walling conversation with Neil, she can give me a sign and I will rescue her 😉😁
We are hurtling towards lambing now. Josh and I both have our lambing kits and they are coming together. We just need some gloves, a milker and I need to find the castration rings. Other than that we think we are ready. It’s that time when we are looking forward to lambing. The tiredness from last year has been forgotten. I usually manage to survive on crisps and milk. This year we have double the amount of ewes at Garth Hall AND all the alpacas too. It’s the best prepared we’ve ever been though. Not long now. Countdown to lambing 2022 begins now…
Helen x
