The Hollyhock Blog

Can you believe our little boy crias are over 3 weeks old?  Yesterday we sheared off their baby fiber.  (and today is it really hot and humid, so I’m sure they are happy!)  Besides being cooler for the remainder of the summer, those cria fiber tips collect a whole lot of ‘stuff’.   So I will have 2 very nice clean fleeces for sale next spring.  (Interested?  You can reserve one now!)   Just the big alpacas, we strap them down to the shearing table. 

On the table

Since they are so small, Darryl can hold him down while I hand shear.  I just shear off the blanket area, the hips  and the base of the neck.   This will be the prime blanket when we shear next spring.

Shearing in progress

I try to blend the cut areas into the longer fiber on the neck and legs.  It usually requires a couple of touch ups over the next few days.

Embrace's boy

Annie's boy

I save the super soft fiber and use it for kid’s projects during Farm Tour.  Mark your calendar – Sept 25 & 26 - it will be here before you know it!

Jose' waiting for this his turn

Bands go around each back leg

And the front feet

The shearing begins

Toe nails get trimmed

The ropes keep them retrained while the shearing takes place.   They tend not to struggle once they feel they can’t move.

Half done, ready to shear the other side

Hand trim the leg fiber

All done. Everyone checks out the new look.

Yummy fiber gets a quick skirting

And when the shearing is done, we admire the year’s effort from the alpacas of Hollyhock Farm!

Vagabond's fleece. Ready to bag for sale.

Camille's prime fiber

My 3 show fleeces

 Individually – from left to right, they are:

Sonny's fleece

Rolly's fleece

Carley's fleece

Annie's fleece, cleaned and ready to be processed

Last week did not produce anything for charity for me to blog about.  It was a crazy, busy week.  But today I have these. 

More mittens

Another 2 pair of little mittens.  Nothing new, not very exciting,  rather ho-hum for you to see at this point!   But I think they will be welcomed by a little person with cold fingers when winter comes around next year. 

We are in full preparation for shearing – trying to keep the alpacas’ area as clean as possible.  And after that is Shepherd’s Harvest.  I’ll have fleeces to get ready for the show, fleeces to get ready for sale and things to get ready for sale in the retail booth.

Over the winter we had been trying to get Chestina to lose some weight.   But something went wrong and she didn’t stop losing.  After we checked her over and found nothing, we had blood tests done that revealed she had fatty liver disease.  While being over-weight is a factor, it seems there needs to be a stressor to set it off.  It might have been cutting back her feed, the extra cold winter, or even a dispute with another alpaca.  There is no way to know.  But after we started her on a pile of medications, she took a turn for the worse and stopped eating.  After that she only lasted a couple day.  She passed away early Sunday morning.  It was a tough day for us. 

On a much happier and exciting note, Spotsie, Embrace and Annie all seem to be getting very round bellies, as well as Honie who is boarded here.  It looks like we’ll have a herd of crias this summer.   Shearing day is only 11 days away.  After that, we’ll be able to see baby movement much easier.

I spent last weekend, from Fri-Mon, at my sister’s home in Wisc.   We played with the bunnies, played a little badminton, played some video games, experienced a huge hail storm, had a bon-fire and made s’mores.  It was a nice time, but I couldn’t connect to their wireless network – which left me feeling out of the loop. 

The little alpacas’ diarrhea did not get better with just pepto bismol, so when I got home from my sister’s, I called our vet and he gave me a recipe for a pink cocktail.  I blended up some antibiotic tablets and more pepto.   After  a few days of that, the diarrhea had stopped.   Since they never had a fever, we ruled out a serious infection.  Our guess at this point is they picked up a mild strain of coccidia.   There is a bad strain called e-mac  that is serious to even adult alpacas, but most strains only affect the crias for a short time.   Both boys are now doing very well, gaining weight, running and playing.   They even got sheared yesterday. 

Little Guy #2

For the first time, I could see that the ‘spot’ on his side is actually a sprinkling of lots of small spots. 

Little Guy #2

I sheared their blanket area, left more fiber on legs and neck.   I hand sheared them.  Hopefully, it will grow out even enough  for them to be in the show next spring. 

My boys!

They are best buddies!  Usually not far apart!