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Alpaca Chatter
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Nothing to do with alpacas
As regular readers may remember a back in October we had a doggy addition to the Prados family, young Gandhi a brown labrador pup. As Gandhi and I were walking yesterday in our favorite woods I couldn't help but think of the difference here to the UK. Here, we are in mid winter and the woods have lots of campers. This does spoil our walk but that was not the reason. I don't remember winter camping in the UK. I know what you are going to say "it's warmer in Australia" but that really is not the case at the moment. The day time temperature is between 10-12 degrees C and the night time temperature has been sitting around the zero mark maybe 3 degrees on a warm night. We have had rain so the ground is wet but this doesn't stop our tent campers some of them we have seen for the last 3 days.
Last night we had a well deserved night out, we went to see Bill Bailey what a good show it was. The theatre was packed (seats sold out very quickly) and it was interesting to hear just how many English accents there were at the theatre. He managed 5 encores and came back again as we were all trying to leave the theatre. So everybody just stood where they were and watched, sang and clapped.
Sarah
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Why we have been so quiet
I thought I would just bring you up to speed on the lack of postings from Prados.
We have had a busy time since late March.
Just prior to us leaving for the Royal Sydney Show we had a cria born, he was a poorly chap to start off with and in the end Perry didn't go to Sydney he stayed home to look after him. Easter Sunday saw the arrival of our last cria (at that time) until November. This little girl was extremely poorly and took a great deal of our time, in fact she still does but she is such a sweetie. She had hydrocephalus, some rather distorted limbs and ulcerated eyes. Needless to say she had no suck either. She has improved a lot her eyes are better, her hydrocephalus has sorted itself out, and with the help of some Vitamin D3 her legs are starting to straighten. She now feeds from her mum but is rather small for her size. Tiggy Winkle as we named her or Tiggy for short now is able to out run us in the paddock. We still keep her well wrapped up in cria coats as it is rather cold here now.
Perry and I have also attended alpaca meetings in Melbourne, helped with alpaca week and just recently an alpaca health day. So along with the monthly alpaca meetings we haven't had much time.
I mentioned about Tiggy being the last cria until November. Our son James changed that with a recent purchase of a pregnant female she is due on the 26th July. Last year you may remember we had a surprise delivery in July in a hail storm, the due date for that young man was November but something went wrong there! I have my fingers crossed that the weather is better for this crias arrival. I really don't like having winter cria we don't have the appropriate shedding for dealing with them.
James and I have also taken a show team to Alpaca Fest in Werribee Victoria. We enjoyed our weekend and came back with 4, 1st ribbons, 2, 2nd ribbons, a Best Brown Huacaya female and a Best Brown Suri Female. Not bad for a team of 7 animals. Needless to say Puck and Gypsy behaved beautifully.
July should see us with a quieter time, so maybe we can get back to posting!
Sarah
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National Alpaca week
Our second National Alpaca week has been and gone. It’s fair to say that we learned a lot from the inaugural event last year and this time it was leaner, meaner and far more effective.
The week started with a ‘Meet the Alpacas’ day in the Adelaide Hills. Rather than spending our regional advertising budget on newspaper and magazine adverts, this time we went for large banners on main roads and getting ourselves on the radio and into interviews in the press. It paid off and the day went well, we were never run off our feet but there was constant flow of interested visitors from start to finish. We sold some pets, a small starter herd to a new breeder and some craft work. Most importantly, as a public relations exercise, it was a great success.
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It's that time of year again
Saturday saw the start of the show season. As we have 2 girls still to give birth Perry offered to stay home and James and I took off to the Mt Pleasant Show. We had a very enjoyable day. We took a very small show team, 3 animals and had entered 1 fleece. We were pleased to report back that Goldie won Champion Senior Female, Halifax came 3rd in Senior White Male, but
Beatrice let the side down, all I can say is that the standard of animal in the intermediate black class was high as Beatrice has had 2nd place ribbons on outings previously. We had a 4th placing with Goldies fleece it was in a class of 20 and the 3 fleeces placed in front and the 5th placed fleece were all white. Goldie is a Medium Fawn.
So why the small team, well Easter Weekend we are off to the Sydney Royal Show. We have never been there before so it should be interesting. We have been told it is an 18hr drive and due to work commitments Perry is hoping to fly over to join us! He has told us how sorry he is and it wasn't his fault, he wouldn't have set a job completion for the day we start a long drive! But it makes you wonder. So we have split our show team to reduce the number of shows they do. That won't make Puck very happy as he is a bit of a show off and thinks he is the bees knees.
We are taking 4 to the Sydney Show Gypsy, Puck, Beatrice and Helena. Gypsy and Puck are used to long journeys as they have been to Victorian shows several times but this will be the first long trip that Helena and Beatrice will have done.
Sarah
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Mine’s a Guinness
Just a very quick post. Life’s a bit on the busy side at moment. Let’s see, since I last wrote… I’ve started a new day job this week with ICT Strategy at Premier and Cabinet. I’ve been appointed to the board as a director of the Australian Alpaca Association. It’s the first show of the season this weekend (and the Royal Sydney in 2 weeks’ time). And it’s impossible to take two steps in the paddocks without falling over another baby alpaca. But, the Irish blood in me (from Co Waterford), couldn’t let the day go past without posting something silly. 
Have a good St Paddy’s day!
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