Winning the battle

I haven't posted for several weeks, I am not quite sure why. Have I been miserable? No more than usual. Grumpy? I'm always grumpy. Suffering from some weird and painful disease which only affects the tips of my fingers thus making typing impossible? No. Lack of interest in alpacas and spreading the good word from Patouland? No, of course not, I will, and do, talk for hours about the Mighty herd and alpacas in general. In fact at work wherever I go with a colleague they are always waiting to see when and how I will turn the conversation from burglary or violence around to discussing the merits of owning alpacas. I bore everyone I meet with talk about alpacas and fecal samples and fleece results and breeding decisions and unless they change the subject to something more interesting I just carry on. It's funny watching their faces. Completely transfixed initially (mainly through politeness I think) followed by a slow dawning that the conversation has now entered a depth that is proving difficult to understand, then the eyes start to shift rapidly looking for a way out before finally bolting for the nearest door (not easy with me clamped to them like a koala bear up a gum tree!). Oh what fun we have.

So, anyway, enough wittering on about why I haven't blogged, for here I am blogging again. So much to talk about but I will restrict this posting to two subjects. Tsar, our little Qjori boy and his progress from deaths door and a cracking weekend last week.

Firstly, to last weekend. Sue and I were very fortunate to be invited to a meeting of great alpaca minds. Matt and Cathy Lloyd had included us in a gathering of such power and import in the alpaca world that we knew our heads were going to be spinning with excited delirium. Heavy snow the week before had meant a one week postponement.

 Alpacas and some snow in Patouland.

Not only had we the pleasure of the company of the Chiefs of the truly Mighty EPC but we had the presence of the Mighty Inca tribe who had left the massed black ranks in Dorset and ventured North East to Baydon. Not only that but we had the cream of the North attending too. The Mighty Fowberry and the Mighty Beck Brow ventured south (chased by the snow) to form an awesome alpaca gathering.

The hospitality was excellent and the company was terrific. On Saturday the menfolk went off armed to the teeth to frighten some pheasants. I like to think that as we are all essentially animal lovers that subconsciously many birds were spared. Sadly the reality is that we were all trying to kill as many as possible. Perhaps at this point I should speak only for my own efforts. There was definitely something wrong with my gun.
However, there was a decent amount of birds to carry home and at the end of the day, walking around in beautiful countryside with the sun beaming down with a group of good people surrounded by alpacas was a pretty good way to spend the day.

The evening was equally splendid with a magnificent curry provided by Cathy and plenty of wine (just!) to ensure that my memory of leaving is slightly blurry. Matt and Cathy, if you read this drivel, thank you very much! I have no photos of the weekend, too drunk to think about it is my excuse.

Anyway to my second subject, Tsar (pictured below right with his chum Todd).

To recap, after a lightly shaky start involving being bottle fed for a while Tsar was doing fine until he was about 5 months old when he was stripped of all condition by a parasite. I don't think he was far away from deaths door. A fecal sample showed a nasty little worm called Nematodirus which once identified was knocked on the head with Panacur and Zolvix. He started putting weight back on and we thought that was that. He had been brought into the shed and was given plenty of TLC. He had also had blood tests which revealed that everything appeared normal.

Two weeks ago he was rocked with violent diarrhoea and he dropped to just over 15 kilos (6 months old remember). Having consulted with old twinkletoes we went into overdrive and treated him with Kaogel and  Pro-rumen three times a day and a course of powerful anti-biotics (baytril). We also added Effadryl to his water and slowly but surely he started to recover. Sue stayed at home last Saturday until he had his three doses and then joined the throng at Baydon. Upon returning last Sunday Tsar weighed in at 18 kilos and yesterday he was a mighty improved 18.80kg.

A further fecal sample was submitted for more in depth testing at the VLA and I have just got off the phone with  the vet who reports the presence of a nasty little squit inducing protozoa called Giardia.

We will treat him for that which is a 5 day dose of oral Panacur. However this morning I was very excited to find two little pellets hanging from his bottom! We know that we are not out of the woods yet but we can see the sunshine on the other side of the trees and I am wielding a mighty tree felling axe!

Perplexing weaners

So another year in the life of Patou Alpacas has passed, another year planning for ultimate world domination is behind us and where do we stand? Have we moved on? Is there noticeable progression?

Well, yes there is. We produced the best cria that we have seen last summer and although the best of the best has had us flapping like good 'uns I think we are on the upward curve.

We got to the bottom of why Tsar Tsar Superstar was ailing. I think we were only a day or two from losing him actually. Nematodirus. That is the name of the worm that had got him. That is the worm that stripped his condition from healthy to nothing in two weeks. Tsar had been wormed but Nematodirus is resistant to Ivermectins and as we had given the herd an Ivermectin based wormer for some reason he was affected. All of the other cria seem fine.

Tsar Tsar Superstar before Nematodirus hit him.

Once Nematodirus had been discovered he was given two drench wormers, Panacur and then the new kid on the block Zolvix. Zolvix is a new wormer which kills worms that are resistant to other wormers.

It was then a case of following wise Australian advice and being cruel to be kind. We took Tsars mother away (she had lost interest in him) and put him in the shed with two weaners who were already on hard food, Tabitha and Talisker. We removed all of the hay and just left them with hard feed and water. Slowly but surely Tsar has been gaining weight.

Last weekend in fact we decided to wean all of the cria. All of them were weighed and the 30 kilos plus group of five, Tarquin, Taz, Truffle, Travis and Talisker were released into the paddock nearest to the house containing the shed. The other five, Tsar, Thor, Troy, Tabitha and Todd, who are all under 25 kilos have gone into the shed and are surrounded by food. I am resisting the urge to weigh them daily and will weigh them after a week. The over 30 kilo group have access to the other half of the shed where they too have a supply of hard food plus hay.

The under 30 kilo group wishing they were outside with the others - soon my babies, soon.

(From left to right, Thor, Todd (pieface), Tabitha, Tsar (headless) and Troy)

I am a hundred percent certain that the weather is to blame for the slow growth of these cria and the worm infestation that Tsar had. The land is too wet and as a result I think we are overstocked. As we are so waterlogged we have been looking for more land and have managed to rent a further 3 acres in a nearby village. 3 acres on a nice chalky slope which means that the ground is relatively dry.

Twelve pregnant females were taken over last weekend and they have settled in nicely. It is a bit of a pain driving over there twice a day but it is worth it, it has taken the pressure of the land here.

 

The new Patou outpost in Fonthill Bishop.

 The girls are still a bit wary of their new surroundings but dinner is served as usual.

With a bit of luck this ridiculous weather will sort itself out and we will soon be facing a hosepipe ban.

New pants - just in time!

I have new pants, not as in American 'pants', no I have new underpants. They were needed, they weren't a Christmas present they were needed before that, it couldn't wait. This is probably too much information for you readers but I am sure you can cope with it, I mean everything else we do is laid bare for all to see so a little underpant talk should be a doddle for you.

The reason I required new undercrackers was twofold. Firstly I am the sort of person who doesn't get new pants very often. My shreddies become like good friends to me, each pair is acknowledged for the important  duty that it carries out, each pair is individally cherished and recognised as being slighty different to the other pairs. They are all important to me. So much so that  I tend to hang on to them for a little too long. Some of them are more hole than not hole, some are very thin, some are older than our oldest alpaca (and she's nearly 15), some just give up and fall off.

So just before Christmas I visited Mr Marks and Spencers online shop and new trollies were despatched to Patou HQ.

Dee, our oldest alpaca and Truffle earlier in the year when it was dry!

They have been well used since their arrival mainly due to the weather. Patouland is nestled at the head of a beautiful valley on the magnificent Fonthill Estate. The Fonthill Estate bottles it's own water and provides all residents (including us) with free mains tap water. That may give you an idea as to how much water there is in these parts. The water that they produce is pumped from deep underground I presume but to get there it obviously has to fall out of the sky first. This year, as us outdoorsy types are aware, has been rather wet, there has been rather a lot of water falling out of the sky. A lot of it came during the summer meaning that when the winter rains arrived there was nowhere for it to go. Puddles became ponds, Springs have sprung up everywhere here and I am permanently sinking when I am outside. Gone are the days when I could skip across sodden ground with the nimbleness and surefootedness of a light skippy thing. Now, one large wellie is placed on the ground and the second one is gradually ripped with a noisy squelch from the thick sucking mud as wellie number one is slowly disappearing into a muddy abyss, and so on.

I also picked a good year to decide to forage for all of our firewood from the surrounding woodland. I know I should have started in the summer (would it have made any difference?) and filled up the log shed but I didn't. As a a result I trudge up the slippery slopes to the woods with a saw and my wheelbarrow to select fallen wood that isn't too wet. When I find a nice thick branch that has fallen from a big tree, be it Oak, Ash or Elm, and see that it has been caught in the branches and is therefore just hanging there with only it's toe touching the ground my excitement is almost uncontrollable. I dream of dry seasoned wood, seriously I do!

The treacherous slope when it was dry and not a health hazard (it's steeper than it looks!)

Anyway the second reason my new undercrackers have become invaluable is because of the descent I have to make from the woodland with a wheelbarrow full of freshly chopped logs. To get home with my logs I need to tackle a steep treacherous slope. Walking down a steep slope with a heavy wheelbarrow is hard enough but when that slope is covered in what feels underfoot like watery snot the danger level is escalated to a very high level. As a consequence I have fallen over more times than I would care to remember over the last two months or so. Falling over when stone cold sober is unfamiliar territory for me but I must do it, despite preparing myself and trying very hard not to do it, at least twice a week. A man of my stature landing on wet ground means wet underpants every time, hence my need for reinforcements in the underwear draw.

Next blog - alpaca stuff, honest!

An early Christmas present.

I am so sorry that I haven't blogged for a while, we have been flat out here with one thing and another and I seem to be spending a lot of time at the day job. Almost to the point where I have checked my duty roster just to make sure they are not 'overworking me'.
Not only that but we have been very busy on the alpaca front not helped by the weather. It is official I hate mud.

Anyway several week ago I mentioned that we were doing something that could have ramifications on the future of our herd and I wasn't joking. We were given the opportunity to have the whole herd bTB tested using the new (and not licensed for use in the UK yet) Enferplex blood test.

This was the test used by the Inca Tribe to test the massed ranks of the Inca herd after the 'Swedish affair' that Tim wrote about in Alpaca World.

We had no suspicion that there was TB in the herd, in fact the herd is in fine fettle, looking great, well it is when it's not wet and muddy!

It would be a private test and for that we needed permission from DEFRA to carry it out. It would also be fairly costly and if any alpacas had tested positive there would be no compensation forthcoming.

So why have the test done? Well, we thought long and hard about it, we live in Wiltshire which is now in the 12 month testing zone, so it is about in these parts. We decided that we would rather know one way or the other. As I said we didn't suspect it, our vets didn't suspect it so it was a calculated risk, we anticipated the herd to test clear and with that positive mindset we set the ball rolling.

First of all the lovely Louise came round and took blood from the entire herd. The blood was then couriered to the lab in Ireland where the test was carried out. Whilst this was going on we waited, and waited. We tried not to think about it, we didn't talk about it, but we looked at each other every now and then and we could both see what we were thinking. What if? Who had we possibly sentenced to death?
It didn't bear thinking about. We didn't sleep well. I became rather short tempered and adrift (I may have been short tempered anyway).

Finally after two weeks of nail biting the test results came through and the Mighty Patou herd had indeed tested clear, everyone. Nothing to it really!

Now we can get on with Christmas! Incidentally I received the results on Tuesday evening of this week. I was working an evening shift. I have been working evenings ever since and am working evenings today. Tomorrow, I may have a celebratory snifter!

A concerning time.

We have slightly concerned faces down here in Patouland. One of or number is not well. One of our number is decidedly not well at all. And when one of us is not well, none of us are well. It's a team thing. It's tribal.

It is one of this years cria, it is Tsar Tsar Superstar, the pick of the bunch. It bloody well would be him, wouldn't it?

Just over two weeks ago I rounded up the entire herd in it's various groups and treated everyone against Liver Fluke using Fasinex, a drench. With my relatively new all singing multi-drencher it was a doddle and was carried out without so much as a splutter. Actually there was one, Sirrocco. She made a bit of a spluttering fuss about it but I am sure that it was more to do with her demeanour than my drenching technique. Anyway whilst I drenched away I also carried out my routine checks which we like to do every fortnight. Jaws, teeth, eyes, feet and of course condition. I was pleased, all was well. I was particularly pleased that Tsar Tsar Superstar was in good condition. You may remember that he was a slow starter and had been bottle fed for a while until he got the hang of suckling so to feel him in good nick was satisfying.

So, when I next got hands on him twelve days later (last Thursday) I was absolutely stunned to find him as thin as a rake and I mean thin, very thin. Worryingly thin. Parasites were immediately suspected and he was wormed (Panomec) and treated against Coccidiosis (Baycox). He was also moved into the weaning paddock with his mother Millie and observations and action began. He was grazing like mad but Millie didn't seem to have much milk. We started bottle feeding him but he fought against it. On Sunday we moved them into the warm dry shed with the ultimate companion, or oldest girl, Dee (she has done it so often she is a real professional at it). I surrounded them with fresh hay and hard feed and we carried on with the bottle feeding.

Tsar Tsar Superstar and his mother Millie

When we checked them at lunch time something was obviously not right. Tsar was on his side and was obviously suffering from severe abdominal pain. It was a no brainer, we needed a vet straight away. We tend to only need vets on Sundays and Bank Holidays.

Forty-five minutes later and little Tsar was being poked and prodded in every direction. He politely dropped a large solid turd for the vet to take away and provided three tubes of blood for further investigations. He was given Buscopan (anti-spasmodic) and given a thorough examination. He had heart arrhythmia (missing the odd beat), which I have since found out from the Lord of the Inca tribe can be due to being very thin. We hope so rather than some congenital defect. 

My theory is that it was either worms or coccidia. Which hopefully have now been dealt with. I think that when he moved to the weaning paddock, which is still full of lush green grass (not much in it I know) he gorged himself a bit and gave himself a touch of colic. If I am right, and I hope I am, it is just a case of feeding him up. 

Today he seems a bit livelier, he is no longer in pain and is eating hay and hard feed as well as suckling and taking milk from us. All very positive signs. We await the results of the blood tests.

The Dutch Connection

My emotions have been all over the place this week. I have just about covered the whole range from ecstatically happy to down in the dumps miserable as sin.

We have made some decisions this week that could have serious ramifications for the Mighty Patou herd in the next couple of weeks. I don't like to tease but I am holding off for the moment on what those decisions are, suffice it to say that when  I can I will publicise the results of those decisions. It may just be a short sentence or it may be reams of idiotic drivel depending on the result but you will be the first to know. I promise.

The past few days have also been quite exciting tinged with sadness. On Sunday I received an e-mail from an alpaca breeder in Holland. We have been exchanging e-mails and information since then, despite the language barrier (how accurate is Google translator?) and yesterday a deal was finally done.

Patou Sultan (affectionately known as Sultana here) who we put up for sale a couple of weeks ago as a young potential herdsire is going to go and live with some lovely females in Holland. Hopefully next year, when he hits 2 years old he will be 'entertaining' some of them!

Now this is a big moment for us, Sultan is the product of several years of coloured breeding here in Patouland and has a great coloured pedigree. His mother, Patou Penny, is one of our very best brown females and his sire, Lillyfield Jack of Spades needs no introduction anywhere in Europe.

He will be the first future herdsire that we have sold and although we are excited that he will be going abroad to make his mark we are a little bit sad to see him go, he is a lovely boy.

Patou Sultan in March 2012

Now, having never exported an alpaca abroad I was in a little bit of a flap. How would I get one alpaca across the sea to Holland? As with any alpaca query that I have I contacted His Royal Highness The King of Darkness the Honorable Timothy of Inca. As luck would have it, a group, with space for one more, is leaving the UK, bound for Holland on the 6th of December. Sultan was whipped down to Incaland quick smart and is now under the command of the Inca Empire. Once again old twinkletoes has come to our assistance.

Patou Sultan(a), November 2012, aged 16 months. Right must go I am getting a bit unnecessary.

Futures decided

One of the bonuses of having so many male cria last summer was that people fall in love with the boys and we very rarely have to advertise to find our boys new homes. People who want alpacas and don't want to start a breeding herd obviously go for the boys and they do make great outdoor pets, or indoor, it's your choice!

We have never had a problem finding good homes for the boys who don't quite make the grade as herdsire potential and this year seems to be no different. Four boys now have new homes to look forward to and excited prospective new alpaca owners are counting down the days.

Three boys will be going to live in Odstock, just outside Salisbury. Mrs S passes the field that they will be in on her way to work so she will get a nice view of them regularly and will be able to pop in if any problems arise. That's always nice, we do like to keep in touch with members of the mighty herd. The boys are all Qjori boys who for whatever reason haven't quite made it and once weaned and halter trained will be heading off to give years of pleasure to their new owners.

Here is Travis, not a very good photo I'm afraid but the weather is very dreary today so it's the best that I could find.

Travis will be moving with Taz, who did decide to pose nicely a couple of weeks ago. 

Taz and Travis will be accompanied by Talisker, who is a very handsome boy and a real poser, all of the time.

The other boy who will be heading to pastures new is The Mighty Quin. Quin was 'reserved' at a very early age and will be joining previous members of the herd in Hanging Langford where I know he will be spoilt rotten. In fact I may be so bold as to say that he has 'Mummy's boy' written all over him!

All four boys are doing very well and although we will be sad to see them go we know they will be looked after very well.