Hum Sweet Hum

12-4pm (4hrs)

Today was a day of carding and washing. Suri alpaca fiber is almost impossible to card compared to wool or huacaya alpaca. Cindy had some milk protein fiber to spin and ply with her alpaca.

I've been thinking and thinking, trying to remember the interesting thing I learned and connection to make and I finally have! So, I arrived at Cindy's house while she was on the phone. While waiting for her to finish her call, a man arrived as well. I let him in and we waited. When Cindy was off the phone, we went out to look at Cindy's tree that we had noticed leaning the week before. The man was a tree expert and told us about how horses had scraped away the bark at the bottom of the tree, making it vulnerable, but that was five to ten years ago and alpacas are too small to do that kind of damage (and have soft feet). After sharing a great deal of knowledge on trees with us, he left. We were just settling in to our washing and other tasks when there again was a knock on the door, and I let a second stranger in to Cindy's house. This was a woman, who evidently had talked to Cindy months ago at the alpaca farm visit day. The woman had come to ask when sheering would be. This would be a normal question from someone interested in alpacas, but this woman was different. Evidently, she had come to Cindy's farm early in the morning on farm visit day to ask a million questions about caring for alpacas because she was on her way to pick some up. Cindy advised her at the time not to get those alpacas and wait and learn and get some from the ABC (Alpaca Breeders Connection) group in Lane who could provide her with quality animals and information. The woman didn't listen and went to pick up the animals she had bought. They were semi-wild and neglected, being sold by some pretty sketchy sounding people, and one that she had paid for was not there when she went to pick it up. Again, a pretty sketchy sounding situation. Anyways, the point being, this woman was expecting to put her wild, neglected, dirty, unshorn alpacas in a trailer with halters on and bring them over to Cindy's farm next week to be sheered. To this, Cindy gave a very clear, 'no, that would not be a good idea, and I never agreed to that.' while kindly telling the woman that she would be happy to give her the name of her sheerer who is local and pretty good. The animals will be less stressed out and more manageable that way, and most importantly, not contaminate, disease, or frighten Cindy's very nice and expensive herd.

So, the important thing I learned and correction to make is that Cindy's boarding animals are kept in a separate pen for a few weeks for quarantine to make sure they aren't sick or anything like that, as well as to give them time to adjust and for Cindy to get to know them and them to get to know the other alpacas... from a safe distance. When breeding, an animal from a different farm is brought over, and the pair to mate are kept in a separate pen away from the other animals. ideally, both animals would then be kept in quarantine for three weeks before being returned to their herds. This doesn't always happen, and at least the limited contact of a few minutes to mate is better than the prolonged contact of a new animal coming in to the heard to stay for days. Risks can't always be eliminated, but at least minimizing them by only exchanging animals briefly and only with well-known farms is a good idea.