And then there were three...

Forgive me readers for I have not blogged for almost a week.
I feel that my blog neglect must be punished so I have been outside and larraped myself repeatedly with a rather whippy stick for several minutes. I feel much better now.
Although I am not sure what the neighbours must think as it hurt like hell and I screamed all the way through like a very unhappy spoilt child, or an England footballer maybe?
The day job must take the largest proportion of blame and has interfered as usual. Not only that but we have been very busy one way or another down here in Patouland.

Meanwhile good news from our friend Liz who has announced the arrival of Columbus's third cria of the year. Little Flora was born last week and makes it three brown girls in a row from The Clumpmeister. They all have his 'look' about them and he is passing on his colour well. We are very pleased with his performance. I nipped over and took a photo of her with her mother Alice, a Mateus girl.

We had the lovely Louise, our vet, out yesterday. We had an insurance health check to do for Polly, the whole herd are now insured under a 'Herd Insurance' option, with Armitage and Polly was the only one we hadn't had checked. Whilst she was here we also wanted Louise to check out a few other ailments. Rosa (Clump daughter number 2) who was a little premature has been limping since birth. Initially it seemed she was limping on all four legs, she was walking very uncomfortably. We gave a her a course of antibiotics to cover any infection and some pain relief and gradually she has recovered to a minor limp on one leg. We couldn't find anything obviously wrong and neither could Louise, general verdict is that it could have been an infection, it could have been loose ligaments, who knows? She seems to be on the mend and is otherwise robust and healthy.

I won't bore you with other details of Louise's visit, suffice to say that the herd is in fine fettle and looking tremendous. All we need now is some nice grass feeding rain!

Short blog this morning as the day job is shouting for me to attend! I am mentally shouting 'No' back but I feel sure that I will be up the apples and pears for a quick shower shortly before trudging my way in. It's rubbish and it's not fair, I feel a tantrum brewing.

The last Patou cria of the year!

Today our lovely medium fawn girl, Fifi, produced the eagerly awaited seventh, and final, Patou cria of the year. (We still have one to come from Sheba who is owned by a friend and up for sale.)

Sue and I were both at work today but Sue had a hunch when she left home that Fifi was up to something.
As a result I was ordered (in a very 'not ordering' sort of way only a beloved wife can get away with) to bunk off work for an hour mid morning to check on her.

I arrived home at 11.30 and Fifi was there next to a very dark little head wobbling about on the end of a dark little neck!

A quick investigation and a flurry of iodine spray revealed a lovely dark chocolate brown boy. Our smallest cria weighing in at 6.70kg. Small, but perfectly formed after having been baked for 346 days. He was soon up and suckling his way along Fifi until he found what he was looking for and I was back off to work wishing the hours away until I could return.

He has yet to be named, the naming committee are out at the local swimming pool at the moment, but I have been out with the hounds and the trusty Canon to get a few photographs.

He is another Lillyfield Jack of Spades cria and boy that big fellah has done well for us this year! Fifi is a Wiracocha's Dream girl and daughter of our oldest girl, Dee.

The little 'un was soon greeted by the big 'un, Rafiki, who was very eager to coax the little chap into some running around.

When he wouldn't join in Rafiki decided to do some modelling work and posed beautifully for me. What a handsome chap.

So there we have it, the Magnificent Seven ride again, this time in the wonderworld that is Patouland!

Elegance revealed!

Saturday morning and Susie Parish and Henry her able assistant arrived in Patouland to defluff the mighty herd. We had never met Susie before but were impressed by her set up and her work. I could hardly contain my excitement as I was keen to see what everyone looked like especially last years cria who would be revealed for the first time.

I love seeing the herd newly shorn, they just look so elegant and beautiful. The short fleece makes them look velvet covered, wonderful.
Susie shears on the back of a trailer which seemed very good for the back and the alpacas did seem calmer. It might be because most of them are still a bit spaced out from giving birth though. Even the 'hair trigger spit fountains' behaved themselves.

Pictured above is Columbus being de-frocked and here he is below, cool and,..... well, ...... cool and, a lot smaller than he was!

Next photo shows Fifi, the last of the mighty Patou due to give birth. She has a lovely round tummy and at 336 days still has a way to go I reckon.

Penny was one I was looking forward to seeing. She was shorn as a cria last year so I was keen to see what was under the huge amount of fleece she was carrying. I have to say she looks lovely.

The next photo shows the equally, if not more lovely, Amelie, a beautiful colour. Penny and Millie are now spitting off to the magnificent Lillyfield Jack of Spades of Inca. Looking forward to next year already!

Finally, probably the most eagerly awaited and surprising 'unveiling' of them all. Little Minstrel, daughter of Priscilla (she of the white chinny chin chin) and big Jack, has looked brown all year although we could see that next to the skin she was black. Well, she certainly is black (apart from her chinny chin chin of course!)

With shearing out of the way, mating and remating is now underway!

Frollicking cria, a cure for all!

Sorry I haven't blogged for a while, I have been a real grumpy git over the past few days after some blogging shenanigans. Roaming around grunting, it hasn't been pleasant.

Anyway, today I am all better after a wonderful display last night from the Patou Formation Racing around randomly Team.

We have been weighing Rosa and Roger, our two premmie cria daily to make sure their rate of gaining weight has increased. They are now both putting on over 200g a day so we are much happier now. At the weigh in last night the rest of the cria decided to put on a display for us. It was wonderful and I managed a few snaps. Sorry about the lack of focus in some shots but they were moving at speed. Perhaps I should buy a trusty Nikon?

Shall we just stand here and watch? Lets have some fun!

Ruby, airborne!

Rafiki in full racing greyhound mode.

Ruby, Reeay and Runa pick up the pace.

Rafiki joins the girls as the pace hots up.

Finally, having been weighed little Roger the dodger (front right) joins in the fun. I just couldn't get a shot with all six in, try as I might.

So enough of all that, today, we are finally shearing! A little late due to bad weather but we are game on for 10 am today. I can't wait, I love my girls when they are fleeceless, so graceful, so fragile looking, just lovely, lovely, lovely!

A Challenge accepted.

Sue and I were sitting watching some drivel on the television late last evening when I received a series of bizarre e-mails on my Blackberry. The e-mails in question had been sent by a certain Gary Sanders from Popham Alpacas down in deepest grockle hunting Cornwall.

One can only assume that a fair amount of moonshine had been consumed down in Cornwall, perhaps a celebration of something medieval, a burning at the stake maybe? Anyway suffice it to say that these e-mails were all amusing in varying degrees.

The gist of them was that Gary was issuing a challenge directly to the core of the Mighty Patou herd. Not only that but he was rude, insulting and somewhat arrogant. Either that, or as I mentioned earlier, he was simply drunk.

I urge you all to read the challenge that was thrown down, it really is rather funny. http://www.pophamalpacas.co.uk/blog/ is the link that will take you down to Popham where they have a lovely little website and cute as a button blog going on.

Obviously being the head of the Mighty Patou Tribe I conferred with the leaders of the herd prior to making my decision. It was a short discussion involving the matriachs of the herd and three in particular, Priscilla, her daughter Bobby and Bobby's daughter, Poppy. The three older hair-trigger spit merchants. It didn't take long before anger rose within them and the spit flew. They claimed that they had never been so insulted and assured me that they were a powerful family and without troubling the rest of the herd, they could cover the challenge from within the family.

A word of warning to poor old Gary here, Priscilla and her family are a bit like the herd mafia. They are the enforcers here, they don't take any shit from anyone. They are the mighty core within the mighty herd. They are the lifeblood of the herd, they are very, very powerful. They scare me a little bit.

So back to this challenge, Gary is suggesting that he has brown cria to rival those within the mighty Patou herd. He says that at the SWAG show next year we should come together, head to head in the junior brown classes. He bizarrely thinks that he can win! The even stranger thing is that he is making this challenge before his show team has been born. I think there must be a fair amount of tin in the water down there.

Still, no problem, we will wheel out the big guns in repsonse to this silly challenge and I am prepared to reveal the opposition today, for they HAVE been born and are thriving within the protective midst of the Patou herd.

Patou Ruby May is now 5 weeks old and is a powerhouse. Her mother, Bobby, is the daughter of Wessex Mateus, he in turn is a son of the legendary Purrumbete Highlander. Did you know that Gary? Did you know that Ruby May was the great grand daughter of the magnificent Highlander? No? No I thought not. Not only that but Ruby May's father is a certain Lillfield Jack of Spades. Mmmmmm, having second thoughts now are we big boy?

To cover the challenge from the junior male side we are wheeling out Patou Resilient. At only a week old and born slightly premature, Resilient is the smallest member of the mighty Patou herd. Small he may be but Mighty he surely will be!

You see Resilient is the first son of the awesome Patou Poppy. Poppy took a first place at the Bath and West two years ago, when there were over 450 animals being shown. She went on to take rosettes at the Futurity and the SWAG show as an intermediate. She is the daughter of Bobby (see above) and the legend that is ATA Cambridge Centurion, a behemoth in the black alpaca world. Not only that but little Resilient is also the son of the mighty Lilyfield Jack of Spades of Inca.


You see, we may just be a small herd in the south of Wiltshire (actually, numbers wise the Popham herd has four times as many alpacas as the the Patou herd) but we have a great big heart. We don't fanny around with our matings, a lot of thought goes into them. We are serious about what we do.

Enough said. Challenge accepted. There's going to be an ass whupping!

Bloody weather!!!!!

Today in the sunny south of England we were supposed to be shearing.
Unfortunately the weather gods who smiled on us on Saturday were NOT SMILING TODAY YOU SILLY BLOODY WEATHER GODS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was up at 6am and the herd was saturated, soaked, drenched, dripping, they were wet guys, very wet. The weather forecast predicted more rain so a phone call was made and shearing has been postponed until Saturday.

Cue rotund bald man throwing tanrums at the drop of a hat for an hour or so.
Then, cue rotund bald man apologising for aforementioned tantrum throwing.

Still life goes on and as we had lost a chicken at the weekend (Snowflake our light Sussex hen decided to keel over), Sue and I went off to buy a couple of replacements to keep Lulu (Norfolk Grey) company.

Currently shut up in the Eglu acclimatising are a lovely Speckled Sussex and a beautiful Scicilian Buttercup. No, I'd never heard of them either. Angus has named then Dottie and Doodle (not sure which is which) and they will be released to roam in a couple of days.

It was cria weigh day today and a few pictures were taken. Couldn't get all six in the same shot, four was the maximum.

First of all though a very close-up of Rafiki who marched up to Sue and stuck his nose on the end of the lens. He is utterly fearless and wanders up for a chat as if he has being doing it for years.

From left to right Roger, Reeya, Rosa and the lump that is Ruby May!

Rafiki following Rosa about, he's heavier than her and she's 5 days older.

Mind you he is the biggest cria we have had weighing in at 10.6kg. A whopper indeed.

From left to right, Ruby May, Rafiki, the utterly gorgeous Runa and Reeya.

So there we have it. Saturday, midday, shearing or I swear there will be more tantrums!

And more apologising.

What a marvellous weekend!

What an absolute corker of a weekend we have had here in Patouland.
I had been looking forward to it for ages. We had some of my oldest friends and some of my best friends round for a bit of a barbecue and a camp out in the garden. My only regret with events like these is that I could spend all evening in the company of any one of those attending. I feel, as well as hungover, a bit sad that they have all gone. I miss them all already.
Anyway what a night we had. The weather gods beamed from above and we got down to business in the garden.

At about 7pm the eagle eyed Lady Mayoress of Inca, Tracey, pointed out that Bannock was behaving a little strangely. Sure enough on closer inspection it seemed that she was in labour. I am sure she waited for my birthday to give birth, either that or she was waiting for an audience! Bannock was struggling a wee bit, she was 362 days pregnant and it was obvious that the cria was going to be a bit of a whopper. With a little assistance from the Chief of the mighty Inca Clan, Bannock squeezed out (it was an eye watering birth guys) a big brown Jack of Spades boy. A bit of a surprise as we were expecting a black girl, obviously!
Not only big but very strong, Rafiki, as he has been named, was soon up and running and feeding well. As you can see from the picture below he is a very handsome young chap too, we are very pleased with him. Lovely head on him.

Just to catch up on a few more names, our little Jack of Spades boy out of Poppy has been named by my father. He will be registered as Patou Resilient. Yes, as you may have guessed Dad is ex-military. He will be known in the paddock as Roger. Next to him in the picture below is Patou Rosa, a lovely little Columbus girl from Priscilla.

Finally, when the sun went down and the temperature dropped the alpaca hats once again came out. As you can see most of us, especially those of us with shiney heads are sporting Patou's finest knitwear, all knitted by my mum. Marvellous.

If you'll excuse me I must go and have a lie down, shearing tomorrow so I need to recharge the batteries.