The alpaca weather forecast...

A wet and windy day in Cumbria. The alpacas have been racing in and out of the barn all morning. As soon as they predict a heavy downpour it's a stampede to the barn doors. Great for knowing when to get the washing in off the line, and reassuring to know that the mums take the youngsters inside out of the wet. It does mean not having to worry about cria coats too much once the little ones are up and running.

Saturday was a better day weather wise, and allowed us to spend lots of time in the paddock befriending the cria (okay, not an essential task but an enjoyable one all the same). Finian is a total poppet and comes up to be tickled quite readily. Most of the cria are quite happy to be handled with the exception of Parisien. She spits away all the time when being checked over. In fact she spat (action no green stuff obviously) whilst being weighed at one day of age. I have never had a cria so young try to spit before, I had to look round to check that it couldn't have been anyone else! Her mum, Katkin used to let the green stuff fly when we handled her first cria, thankfully she now trust us and we don't have any trouble from her. In fact we don't have any over protective mums luckily.

Explorer makes us laugh all the time as he lets himself be caught, even in the paddock, but then mutters away like a grumpy old man for about 10 minutes afterwards. During cria checks yesterday we noticed that Noah had a tiny umbilical hernia (only a couple of centimeters really) so he now has lovely bright green Vetwrap holding the top off a tennis ball (good tip Rosemary...fits well) in place. He is so chilled he wasn't the least bit bothered and just let us catch him to check it wasn't too tight. It always amazes us that you worry about stressing them out, then you let them go and they don't even bother to walk away from you!

Matings and spit offs yesterday; Camilla sat so she will be going back to visit Top Account of Fowberry next weekend, along with Galaxy. I went out and bought a new cattle trailer last week but unfortunately it won't be here in time for the trip, so it will mean borrowing Robyn's horse trailer again. A new trailer probably is a bit of an extravagance, but it is so much easier to load with gates (really Paul!)

Noah sporting his cumberbund ... Finian and Parisien using their mums as a wind break.