Just General Danny

What an exciting weekend its been! We had a baby colt born Sunday morning - it's doing fine and is beautiful.

Speaking of beautiful babies I can't believe how well Danny is growing. Now that he is getting older (3 months old this week!) his days are becoming more stable. He is only getting 2 bottles a day now (sometimes three if he acts like he needs it), his hay and grain consumption are going up. He's got his routine of when he's allowed out of his stall to visit the other animals.

One of the dangers that we are now encountering is that he has no fear. We need to keep him in his stall when we are driving the tractors around because we're afraid he will get too close and hurt himself. He is just trying to be with us and follow us around, but he has no fear of moving vehicles. That was probably something that his natural mother would have taught him. But of course, he sees us getting in and out and starting them up and nothing happens. So he has learned to believe that vehicles are safe. We'll have to pay attention to this as he gets older - my concern is that he won't get out of the way when we are trying to drive up the driveway. Of course, during the spring and summer when we have animals running around they sometimes forget to get out of the way as well, so maybe he'll fit right in!

Quick correction

Just a quick note. In the blog before - it should be Oyama Lake Alpaca Farm, not ranch. My booboo! Still a great place though!

Everything's Coming Up Danny!

This must be the quiet before the storm. Everything is relatively peaceful right now - in fact, it's Dan-dy!

Danny and his roommate (no name yet!) are doing really well. Plenty to do and see in the arena right now where they are staying.

We are trying to get Danny used to being brushed and handled. With any animals, if they get used to being handled at a young age, it makes them much simpler to handle them as they get older.

You wouldn't know it from the picture, but he has been getting lightly brushed. And then of course, he immediately starts playing in the shavings and then he has these little pieces of it stuck in his fibre. I think he's doing it for the attention, because then we spend time with him brushing out the little pieces.

Last weekend I was visiting in Vernon and stopped in at the Oyama Lake Alpaca Ranch. Darlene (and her husband Jim) were great hosts. Darlene is a real artist with alpaca fibre and has amazing clothing and other items at her ranch store. I really appreciated the opportunity to talk to another alpaca person. Darlene very patiently answered all my questions and I really appreciated the time. Hopefully, as Danny gets older and I try the nuggets of wisdom I picked up from her, I'll be able to share.

One of the things I really wanted to know was just about raising babies and were we on the right track for the long term. After talking with her I feel pretty good about what we are doing and how Danny is doing.

Spring has not Sprung

I thought that Spring was here. I was wrong. It has been snowing again. It snowed last week - dumped at least another 6 inches and yesterday and today it is snowing again. I like the snow, really I do. But come on! I have plans for spring, we have ranch guests that will be arriving. I would really like to get to some landscaping and yard clean up, which I can't do when it's under 2 feet of snow. Okay, that's my rant for today.

The other problem with all this snow is that we are, of course, expecting babies. And the snow just makes it hard to move animals around. We haven't been able to let Danny go outside yet. So playtime with the others llamas and alpacas is just going to have to wait until there is grass on the ground.

Rosey is waiting us out in her maternity pen. We now have 3 mares in the arena and one lamb decided to have twins outside this morning. So we brought her in and she is now in the maternity pen beside Danny and his roommate (no name yet!) The ewe is a Hampshire (white body, black head and legs) and she had two boys - one all black and one spotted. I can hardly wait until they are ready to start visiting and go next door to see who the neighbour is. I'll have to start lurking with the camera so that I can gets pictures of them meeting Danny!

Finally, a picture of Danny eating Hay!

It took a while but I was finally able to take a half-decent photos of Danny and his roommate. The angle is a little funny - makes them look smaller than they are, but I was focusing on their faces in the hay.

Danny is doing really well. Eating and growing. I'm thinking of putting up a post to measure his growth against. We used to do it for children, but I think it would be a good way to determine how much he's growing. Instead of standing around watching him and saying "Well, he looks bigger to me today." I think we can probably be a little more exact than that.

Having that lamb with him is working out very well. They really watch where the other is. The only problem is I can't keep calling her Danny's roommate. I'm figuring we should probably name her. So it is a Girl, she has no real markings, is basically just white, her mom was a Hampshire and her dad is a Dorpor - how she ended up pure white I have no idea because both those sheep have colour. She has a stubborn temperament but is watchful/careful and learns quickly when she wants to (particularly around where the food is). Anyway, any ideas on names would be great.

Some of Danny's Relatives

Well, I'm hoping that Spring is arriving. What is that old saying for March "in like a lion and out like a lamb". I'm certainly hoping that holds true. Danny is doing really well, and he now has Llama company in the arena. We have finished lambing for the year (well, almost - just 3 left) and we have some really nice coloured lambs this year, so we are very happy. So now it is the turn for some of our Llamas to have babies. Baby Llamas are called Cria's. Anyway, the first one into the arena is Rosey. She is one of our favourites - that's her picture on the left. So she is in the arena now and we are eagerly awaiting the arrival of her cria. She is a repeat mother so she knows what she's doing. After her we've got another 2-3 that we are watching to see how it goes. Between now and June we're expecting 8 babies. We're not sure exactly when Rosey is due - they are pregnant for 50 weeks (11.5 months) so it should be sometime this spring. Rosey also has the longest ears we've ever seen on a Llama.

The picture on the right is from our herd of geldings - two big llamas and the little guy is an alpaca. They all live quite happily together.

So Spring is arriving, the babies are arriving and soon I'm hoping that we will have lots of company for Danny running around.

Danny is doing really well with his new roommate. He is rooming with one of this years lambs and she is showing him how to eat grain and hay like a pro. It's funny to watch them cavorting around.

Danny Runs Everywhere!

We can really tell that Danny is feeling and doing much better. Whatever was bothering him has most definitely cleared up. He is eating everything and running everywhere. Snow is just starting to melt here. But watching him run around the indoor arena today made me very hopeful that soon he will be able to go outside and visit with some of his relatives. One of our smaller fields has our ewes and lambs and llama/alpaca geldings and he will probably go and visit in there for awhile. I'ld like to see what he could do running around outside.

We'll probably wait until until Spring is officially here in another couple months, but his behaviour the past few days have made me very hopeful!

You can really tell in this picture the way his colour is delineated. We don't normally shear our babies until after their first birthday, so he won't be sheared until Spring 2009, but I am already looking at his fiber and thinking of things we could make out of that great fibre and grey colour. We have a number of white llamas/alpacas, a multitude of browns and fawn/rose coloured and even a few dark brown/black colours, but he is our first grey. So Danny is exciting for us on a number of fronts.

Next week we are going to start doing some serious halter training with him. That will make it safer for him and easier for us to move him around the ranch. That way we can safely lead him outside to play. If it goes well I'll take more photos!