Alpaca Cria No 5

The next one has arrived, born around 11 oclock in the morning yesterday when we were in the middle of halter training. It is a big very dark fawn girl that seems fine. Although she sat up straightaway she was a bit slow in getting up and suckling but made it in the end. A beautiful day to be born as it was warm and sunny. Nick Harrington Smith always said the big ones were a bit slow so maybe he is right. All five of the females have given birth at 11 months – odd – completely different from last year when they were all late. Only one left to birth in February, the March group are one field down waiting to move up to the birth field.

Halter training is difficult. Chas says it is the 70/30 rule. Seventy percent of them are fine but there is always the difficult thirty percent who are as stubborn as mules. They do walk nicely after a few minutes but you don’t have a few minutes when you are about to enter the ring and the judge is standing there waiting for your alpaca…so embarassing.

We feel rather like headless chickens now as we leave for the Futurity on Wednesday. Chas is making millions of signs for the pens and badges for the officials. He bought a top of the range encapsulating machine, his latest gadget, he didn’t tell me as I had said firmly that he was not to spend money what with the credit crunch etc. To no avail, a man has to have his gadgets. All the banners are being flown on Wednesday afternoon and the overhead lighting rig for the show ring has to go in as well before we can set up the animal penning, trade stands, show ring on Thursday. Roll on March 1 when we can all lie down. I can see how fraught everyone is getting after Nick Harrington Smith revealed that he had woken up in the middle of the night worrying about whether we had the right size of double sided tape to stick the show ring grass to the floor.