Sneaky behaviour!

I have to admit to being a little sneaky this morning. We have been treating the herd for an outbreak of mites. This has entailed the usual course of injections, Frontline and a spray of maggot oil mixed with Eprinex (you can imagine how we smell). However the pregnant females are obviously getting a little fed up with the regime; Last night Blanche led a mutiny which resulted in them all managing to escape before I got the barn gate closed. Up at 6.30am this morning I checked out of the window and saw that everyone was in the barn with Beattie on door duty. Luckily Beattie is very chilled and doesn't usually try to escape. Wellies on with the pyjamas I managed to creep out round the back and get the gate bolted before Blanche had got into position. Job done and back in for breakfast before 8am!

I won't go on about mites as we all know what a pain they are but I have to say that we have learned an expensive and time consuming lesson. Treat all visiting or newly purchased alpacas as having mites. Despite quarantining all animals, faecal sampling etc, we obviously missed mites on a heavily fleeced alpaca and now we have had to treat the whole herd.

The young females appear to be enjoying being a separate group and get along well. Hoity Toity is now eating with the others albeit from her own tub. I put down a red tub for her this morning and she refused to eat until I swapped it to her usual green one. Boy does she live up to her name. The two girls that we weren't sure about their pregnancies both sat yesterday. Unfortunately, although Hollywood was very interested and making all the right noises he didn't quite manage the task on this occasion. We will try again today.

Camilla is 364 days!

           The young girls: Minnie, Nina and Hoity Toity