It was another wet start to the day although Accuweather told me it would be dry in Coedely for the next 120 minutes. Wrong! It was a very heavy drizzle and the mist was so low I couldn’t see the opposite side of the valley. Ah well I had to keep going. I let the chickens out and they were happy to be out in the rain. I need to be more like them and happy to be in the rain! Then I looked insids and there were 2 eggs. That cheered me up. Two hens are now laying. 👏
The water in the run was flowing down into the drain behind the barn so that was good but there was a fair amount of standing water in the middle bay. Rascal delicately picks his way through the mud to be fed which makes me chuckle. I had to check on Munchie and her companion. The were in the wall garden, eating. She was up and not on her own so lambing was not imminent. Off to the alpacas next.
I couldn’t even see the top of the tump because of the mist. I was able to see the sheep at the ring feeder. There was a head in every gap, it was packed out. I wished it wasn’t raining too hard for me to take a video. This is always the worst part to walk along as it blows right in your face. Never mind I was soon down to the shelter of the alpaca area. The boys saw me and came straight to their buckets. The weanlings saw me as I passed them and they watched me carefully.
I had to carry a green sack full of hay, an empty green sack, a small bucket with ram food and a large bucket for the alpaca food. I, often loaded down with bags. It’s so much worse in mud though. The mud can be both slick enough to cause me to slip and boggy enough to get my feet stuck. I huffed and puffed and got to the boys pen area. I out everything down and fed them furst. There wasa cacophony of different noises. Apparently they were all starving, whither weren’t. With them all eating, although not from a bucket each as they should have been, I had the peace to go on and put they hay out for them. After that I had to empty thewater from the troughs in the weanlings field. I’ll spare you the details of emptying the troughs. It wasn’t any easier today, in fact there was more water in them today. The good news was that Buttercup was there, waiting for food aseagerky as the rest of them which was good to see. As I carried the 2 empty sacks and the two buckets, I wondered how I would negotiate the girls field. Wthall the mud and standing water, I just wanted to minimise my trips but the more I thought about it, the more I realised that I would need two trips. I’d never feed the girls otherwise. So after feeding them and the rams, I took the buckets back and got the green sacks. I counted the girls as I passed them and then took two sacks worth of hay from their ring feeder. It is such heavy work dealing with hay but it hadstopped raining momentarily so at least I could take my hood off. Then I took everything back out, through the weanlings field and put it all safely in the livestock trailer. I trudged back up. There were three hens in the wellfield and 5 on the lawn when I got back. It’s the cockerels that tend to stay in when it’s raining. They like to stay dry I think.
The weathe4 was nit what I’d like for Valentine’s Day. I hope the people that have adopted alpacas appreciate the Valentines that I sent from their alpacas.
Helen x
