We’ve just finished weighing all our female alpacas. We left out the seven in the birth field as they look enormous. I suppose on average the adults are around 75 kilos but we have two heavyweights, a mother and daughter who are 105 and 103 kilos respectively, big girls and something to bear in mind when you are worming on the average weight. We do this about once a month, sometimes more often if the fields happen to be in and we have time to whizz through. It is a good way of keeping an eye on fully fleeced animals as it is difficult to assess their body condition if you don’t get your hands on them and weigh them. Chas has constructed a small race and he gets the alpacas into that, Andrew pushes them into the weigh station and I stand at the side with the fantastic Chas clipboard and control of the gate. All very calm and quick.
I was looking for recipes for sea trout the other day and was surprised to discover that these trout are exactly the same as brown trout. All hatch out in the same place in an inland stream and then some decide to stay in freshwater and others head off for the ocean, grow special gills to deal with the salinity and turn silver. They taste absolutely marvellous too.