final tally

Our 16 ewes have now all lambed so lamb watch is finally over! We have had 24 lambs in total, (17 girls and 7 boys). Everything was going so well until ewe number 13 lambed and showed no interest in her wee boy. After keeping her in the barn for a week with her lamb and holding her to allow the lamb to feed there was still no signs of them bonding so, "Oliver" is now on the bottle 4 times a day. He follows me everywhere even when I feed the alpacas in another field - he is really attached to my black wellies. 14 and 15 lambed no problem and this morning our last, number 16, had twins - a big boy and a tiny girl. The girl is too weak to feed, even from a bottle so we tube fed her colostrum and will feed her until she is strong enough to fed from her mum.

Harris with Oliver

16 with her twins - you can't really tell but the lamb in front is so small, hopefully she will gain her strength to feed for herself.

Although we've been busy with the sheep we have managed to try and start breeding the alpacas. A couple of times I had put our stud (BBKing) in a small paddock with the girls with out much success and then one day when moving some of our early lambers to another field BBking sneaked through an open gate and got amongst the girls and did his thing. Just shows you can lead a horse... Anyway, we will continue to give him opportunities over the coming weeks so hopefully he will have worked his way round the girls otherwise we will start penning him in and playing our "orgling" cd to get them the mood. (Orgle - the noise the male makes while mating -http://www.intrepidalpacas.com/Sounds/orgle.wav)

more twins.....

7 of our 16 ewes have now lambed - all but one has been twins so far! The girls are winning 9 to 4 boys.

It's a hard life

Enjoying the sun

The alpacas are fascinated by the new arrivals

Who's the Daddy?

Congratulations Mr Four Horned Ram from Scalpay Linen - you're a daddy!!

Our first lambs were born today around midday - twins - a boy and a girl! So now Lamb Watch begins in earnest as the rest of the flock look ready to follow suit at any time. By the looks of the bellies...the twins are going to have plenty of company!

And the proud foster parents...Farmer Iain....




...and Croft Wife Anne!



Even BB King dropped by to see the new arrivals and pass on his warmest congratulations to Mum!

Spring at last

It's been a while since our last post and although we've been very busy there has been no real news on the alpaca front.

A few weeks ago we decided to return Karl to the original breeder on the mainland as the 2 boys were constantly fighting. They had been kept in a field out of sight of any females prior to arriving here so I guess their hormones went a bit crazy once there were girls on the scene.

Anne has had some prototype garments knitted.....I'll let her blog on that when she gets a chance.

Now that spring has arrived we will soon be starting to breed the alpacas. We decided to give the girls a winter break… it seems such a long time ago since Rose was born. It will be another year before any new cria arrive but I know the wait will be worth it.

Our hebrideans are due their lambs in the next couple of weeks and as we haven’t scanned them it will be interesting to see how many there will be. We have 16 ewes so I expect we will average 1 per ewe with some not producing and some with twins. Cute photos to follow soon.

I’m afraid the batteries have been flat in my camera for a while, I’ll get them charged and promise some new photos in the next blog. Here are a couple I took back in February (click to enlarge).

We have SNOW!

Well we know most of you have been suffering the snow for a while now - but here at Black Sheep Croft we have been missing out! Apart from the occasional dusting there has been hardly any snow to speak of - not even enough for a snowball.

However, on Saturday the children were delighted to wake up to a snow covered garden! Cue sledging, snowballs and a snowman...

And even a snow-alpaca...!

The alpacas however, don't seem as enthusiastic about the change...

I have had a long weekend off school and have been catching up with all things alpaca. We have recruited an enthusiastic, talented and dedicated local knitter who is going to produce our first proper knitted items from Jasmine's wool!!! We can't wait to see the results!

Also, we have been contacted by The Heb which is a glossy, annual magazine and pictorial as they want to do a small feature about us and the alpacas.

I have eventually got round to felting with some of Jasmine's left over bits. The bag is wonderfully soft and such a lovely mixture of colours...BUT although it looks ok in the picture there isn't actually a proper handle and it didn't felt as well on the inside - so it's back to the drawing board!

Finally, I have been chained to the computer developing our new website, complete with shopping cart, however in keeping up with the current trend...it is a secret and you'll have to wait for the grand unveiling!

The boys are in town

After a 600 mile round trip and 2 ferries at the weekend I arrived back with our stud, BBKing, and his pal Karl. Alpacas don’t like to be on their own so we thought it only fair to bring Karl along for the journey and to be his field buddy. They are best pals and have worked together in the past on fox duty for other sheep farmers.

BBKing admiring the girls!

BBking (left) and Karl

To a Mouse...

Belated Happy New Year!

Sorry I’ve not posted for a while, we’ve been very busy over the holidays with visitors and then getting back to the usual routine with school, nursery etc.

We’ve been very fortunate with the weather compared to the rest of the UK although our kids don’t think so. This [pic above] is the worst we had of any snow and it was gone within a day. Stornoway and other parts of Lewis did get it quite a bit more but I think since we are a few hundred yards from the shore then the sea air has an effect.

Anne did get a chance to experiment with felting, not sure if we will put this into production just yet! Neddle Felted Guinea Pig and Needle Felted Mouse (using merino wool and glass eyes)

Felted Rose Necklace (wet felted and needle felted with sewn on seed beads)


I’ve been working hard on the fencing so that this weekend I can pop over and pick up BB King, our stud from Campsie Camelids.

Another new addition

Not an alpaca this time but a 4 horn Hebridean ram. We took a trip down to see Scalpay Linen at the weekend who have very kindly let us borrow him. A big thank you to Shiela and J.F. He certainly is persistent although I haven't witnessed him actually getting very near any of our girls yet.

Since this is an alpaca blog here are some alpaca pics we took during the sunny spell before the storm closed in on Sunday.

Jasmine with a sticky face from the lick


New girl, Nichole, has been pestering Jasmine all morning, guess she is showing who is the new top dog!

Family Reunion

Last week, despite the weather, we managed to get across the Minch and back in one piece. I'm usually very ill if the crossing is rough however I had taken a couple of SeaLegs and was fine. Although the winds were touching 40mph, the crossing wasn't actually too bad (a few big hits but not too much rolling about) so I'm not sure how effective the pills were but I'll be sure to keep them handy for next time. We all (kids included) had a lovely break at a hotel in Ballachulish and had time for swimming and a visit to the sea life centre near Oban. Anyway, the main purpose of our trip was to pick up 2 new breeding alpacas, Nichole and her cria Nadia - both light brown and lovely additions to our herd. Anne is over the moon and has spent hours out photographing them!

Nichole is also mum to Nicholette who has her own cria Rose. It's great to see Nadia and Rose who are Aunty and Niece instantly getting along and playing together.

New girls, Nichole and Nadia in foreground

Nichole and Nadia

Rose, Nichole and Nadia Nadia and Nichole

Nadia

Nadia

Alpaca Alarm

A few days ago we had a missing dog in the village and despite a coordinated search party the light quickly faded and we had to give up. The following morning as I was about to take our dog out I heard the alpacas doing their alarm call (http://www.gentlespiritllamas.com/html/alpsounds/alarmcall.htm) , something I have rarely heard since they came here. (They had never seen a sheep before and, in the first few weeks, anytime a sheep came close to the fence they would do their alarm). Anyway, I quickly nipped outside to see where they were looking and right enough there was the missing collie rounding up some sheep in the field across the road. To everyone’s relief the collie was well and hadn’t strayed too far, she was eventually captured later that day.

With Rose being the only cria produced we have been in discussion with our breeder who has very kindly offered us a discount on 2 more females – Nichole (Nicholette’s mum) and her cria from this year, Nadia, who is sister to Nicholette and aunty to Rose. This will be great for Rose since she is constantly pestering the others to play and although Jasmine tries she can’t keep up. Nadia is a little older than Rose but I’m sure they will keep each other amused - can't wait to see them running around the fields togethter.

Progress on the fencing has increased by 300% - 3 strainers now in place!

My parents were up visiting at halloween so we had our bonfire early. Here are a couple of photos.

I’ll post some pictures of the new alpacas when we pick them up in a couple of weeks.