A hair's breadth

I got a microscope for Christmas so that I can do regular coproscopies to keep an eye on any internal parasite problems my alpacas and llamas might be developing. Today I've used it to compare alpaca and llama hair. The top photo shows a llama hair at 50x magnification. It's one of Bernard's hairs.


In comparison, here are hairs from Seamus, an alpaca, at the same magnification. As you can see, they are much finer. I wouldn't have thought there would be so much difference. Fascinating!

Aisling of Les Fragnes

Windermere Lady Coulemelle gave birth to beautiful little Aisling on 20 November 2009. Isn't she amazing!

Seamus's new friend

Here is Seamus with a new friend, one of our visitors this summer.
The boys are having a busy time, with lots of treks at the moment. And Amélie is settling in very well. She's much braver than she used to be and has been accepted as one of the herd by our girls.

Meet Amélie

Here is Amélie the alpaca. She joined us from Alapgas de la Tille in Cote d'Or. She is settling in very well, and enjoys spending time in her 'boudoir', as you can see in this photo.

Half cut alpacas

It turned very hot this week so it was time to clip the alpacas thick wool. They weren't overly impressed so it took several sessions to get it completely finished. Here is Seamus halfway through:
And here's a finished Brendan - a little scary, but not too bad. I'm sure I'll get better at it!

Lulin, the boss

Little Lulin, our llama cria who is two months old, is the boss of our two alpacas. She's the ringleader. They'll often follow her round the field and put up with trying to eat their neckerchieves.

Nuzzle and Scratch

Seamus and Brendan bear an uncanny resemblance to Nuzzle and Scratch, stars of Cbeebies! We love this programme, even though there are a few technical inaccuracies ie in their song they say that they 'have hooves instead of handies'! (Alpacas have toes with nails.) Go to www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/nuzzleandscratch/ to find out all about them.
The photo above is from the BBC website.