Chasing The Dream

Boy! A lot has been happening since I wrote last.

Our Alpaca have settled in nicely and outside of Majorette spitting at me occasionally we are getting along just fine. I have been breeding animals of one kind or another for over forty years and have never came across animals like these camalids. They are at the same time gentle and calm or aggressive and fierce depending on the situation. Fencing is geared more to keeping others out than the alpacas in. They do not bother the fence or gates but are content to stay behind the flimsiest of restraints. If they perceive a threat from another animal (dog, fox, raccoon or barn cat) they line up facing the threat and stamp their feet, if provoked further they attack. I no longer have a problem with raccoon in my barn.

We plan to take Mikala to the “Alpaca Ontario” show in Orangeville Ont. On April 7 – 9. This has made it a requirement that we halter train her and clean her up. “Honest! I didn’t know there was burdock in the paddock” the husband whined to his glaring wife. After several days we had most of the burs and straw picked out of some of the finest fleece I have ever seen. -----Then came the humidity.---- The floors in the alpaca’s part of our barn became wet. No I do not mean damp, I mean water on the floor wet. To counter this I put three bales of straw in pens that normally require only one bale. This solved most of our problem. I say most of the problem because Mikala started rolling in the one stall pushing the straw away until she was down to bare floor. This bare area got wet again and as Mikala rolled on this spot the dampness and dirt transferred to her fleece. Now this white animal was not only damp but also her color had changed to a dingy gray, almost black in places, and now had straw worked into the fleece we had just picked all of the burs out of.

I was talking to another breeder who has a similar problem with one of her show prospects. We think that we should see if we could get the show committee to open a new class. Along with black, white, tan, etc. we could have a class called mud. I’ll bet that every owner of a white animal would be for it.

I will be adding information and stories to this page as events transpire and I learn about these unique animals. To this end I will be taking photos at the show and adding them, along with a right up, to the website shortly after the show weekend.

And so it goes chasing the dream.

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