March 14,2009

March 14, 2009: The fence has been progressing very quickly thanks in part to the weather cooperating! We are getting it finished in the nick of time! Our transporter, Mike Cates tells me that our animals will be loading from Oregon on the 17th..I guess he's picking up others before he gets them. He has many stops along the way. I guess despite this crazy economy the alpaca business is still a good place to be. I tell my husband that I will be able to see my investment when I look out of our window!


Yesterday we picked up hay from Alpaca Ventures in Sidman. What better place to get just the right hay than from another alpaca farm? She has 12% protein hay and says her alpacas love it. Her farm hand Wayne told us how they had planted an African grass called Teff because it was recommended to them and the animals didn't like it so they now use it for bedding because it is soft and doesn't get stuck in the fleece.. My niece Skye had been in Ethiopia with Habitat for Humanity International several years ago and she old us about the bread they ate..coincidentally made of Teff...I thought it sounded familiar!

We did decide though that even though we will be using a relatively small amount of hay that it would be more time effective to have it delivered! It took us 2 trips and 4 hours (partly because we were so busy gabbing in the car that we forgot where we were going on the second trip and had to turn around and go back!). It was time well spent together!

Our fence should be finished on Monday. Dan and his crew Mark and Bruce just have to hang the gates, build a buck board and hook up the electric fence. I think we picked the right fence builders! Dan took my very rough outline of fenced in area and made it look very elegant and natural. He suggested that we add a small holding pen off to the side of the barn to facilitate animal movement and herding. I guess it helps that he has livestock himself.

This weekend we are doing small things like removing leaves, moving some last minute bushes that are toxic to alpacas ( rhododendron and laurel) and picking up rocks from the pasture.

Unfortunately with all of the building, our little pasture has been pretty much decimated. I'm sure that the forage will come back though and we have ordered more of the special pasture mix to spread as soon as we can.