Saturday, April 21, 2012



April

Ahhh Spring! So much to do and so little time. Loving it though


Here's a picture of our almost 2 yr old grandson James with Red the Llama. One of our big goofy Neufoundland dogs is in the background.

South West MI. Alpaca Group 

Well last month we attended the South West MI. Alpaca Group  meeting. Great group of Alpaca Owners. Always willing to help their fellow Alpaca Owner. The meetings are very informative. The main topic of this meeting was to go over worming processes & fecal testing. We purchased a microscope last year and have tried to learn to do our own fecal tests. We have found that it is easier to just take samples and send them to the vet when we think there may be a parasite problem. In the past year we have had to do very little-to no worming, thanks to testing (about $15.00 including shipping) we have not spent good money on worming products that are not necessary.
That being said, if you do have Alpacas, spring can be the worst time for parasites. If the Alpaca dung does not look right for several days in a row, you may want to have it tested.


Here's a picture of a 4 day old Lamb that I almost took home from Chickasaw Farm spring Open House & sheep shearing. His mother rejected him and he had to be bottle fed. Sooo cute.
 Reality is I don't know where I would have found the time with everything else going on. Fortunately sometimes common sense actually does overpower my love for animals
We'll be back at the farm shearing their 11 Alpacas next month. Hopefully my will power will hold out.


Shearing: 

We will be starting our sheaing season April 20. We look forward to seeing old friends and the Alpacas of course and  going to new Alpaca farms across MI.
We have been asked to be available to Shear at the MI Breeders Show. We made a few appointment changes and look forward to being there this year.  Info on the show below

  Michigan Alpaca Breeders Show & Fiber Fair

Alpaca Breeders Show
May 5th & 6th, 2012
Springfield Oaks Activity Center
Oakland County 4-H Fairground
12451 Andersonville Rd.
Davisburg MI 48350
www.pebblebrookfarm.com for more info on the show.

It has been 5l years since we have put our Alpacas in the show ring. Paul & I are both getting itchy to start showing Alpacas again. Especially when we look at the results of our last few breeding's. Had we known earlier that we were going to end up at the show shearing, we would have put 2 of our Alpacas in the show. Oh well, maybe the MI fall show.

Our new Mattress Pad made from Alpaca Fiber. 

We just received our Mattress Pad from Zeilinger Wool Mill. We gave them about 25 lbs. of our course Alpaca fiber & seconds from last year. As the Alpacas get older their fiber becomes more course and is not something you want to use for clothing. We have herd great things about all natural wool & fiber mattress pads and have wanted to get one for a few years but they are not cheap to have made. Especially since we wanted one for our king size bed.
All Zeilinger's wool mattress pads are hand-tied with cotton ticking over 100% wool  fibers.
for more info.
We'll let you know how comfy it is next month. We will need comfort at night after shearing hundreds of Alpacas!

Besides shearing and finishing our barn & pasture cleanup from winter, we also have a few field trips planned for April.
I hope to post pictures of the field trips and  more of our Alpacas for sale in the next few weeks.

Unrelated to Alpacas

we are involved with the 7th Annual Newaygo Trout Fest. April 27 & 28th. Great time and we have raffle tickets for sale. Awesome list of prizes & All proceeds this year to go to Love INC. food bank (feeding Newaygo) We here there are about 1000 family"s they are helping out right now.Last year we sold all tickets and gave the proceeds to Newaygo Area Prevention of Child Abuse.You can go to
http://newaygotroutfest.blogspot.com/ for more info



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Check out the rest of the site to see what's happening in the next few months.