As promised a picture gallery of hard workin’ alpaca ranchers picking up their beautiful orchard grass hay…..

These guys look like they are working real hard!!!

Gaston College

The Alpaca Fiber  Symposium

SIXTH        Waite Hill Fabrics  

I was very happy to learn of Waite Hill Fabrics.  I have a personal friend who lives nearby and designs beautiful clothing.  She has been looking for a producer of alpaca fabric to use in her clothing.  A year or so ago I  put her into contact with some names that I had received via an alpaca networking group, but she didn’t get very far in her search for fabric.  Now I have a new place I can lead her to.

Waite Hill Fabrics are designers and producers of exclusive US alpaca yarns, fabrics and apparel.  They custom process fiber in their 100% worsted spinning mill with a quick turn around time.  They are not a mini mill.  They are the American alpaca textile commercial industry producer of light weight alpaca fabric and apparel from your fiber or theirs – all done in the USA.

They call themselves the ‘new kid on the block’, but with their production techniques and network of textile companies, they can produce virtually any weight, finish and design of fabric in alpaca and alpaca blends. 

Waite Hill Fabrics is in the process of expanding it’s spinning mill so that they will be able to produce 32,000 square yards of light weight all natural alpaca fabric.  They will be producing American made alpaca long underwear, t-shirts, and light weight knitted women’s tops. 

Linda and Bruce Bennett have been raising alpacas for over 12 years and now have a herd of about 40 alpacas.  During the years they have been loking for ways to improve the alpaca itself and the alpaca industry in general.  Bruce has over 30 years experience in manufacturing with 35 plus years experience in design.  Linda has over 35 years experience running numerous businesses and non profits and over 17 years experience in fiber arts and design.  Linda and Bruce have also developed an all natural alpaca feed supplement that boosts the immune sustem and helps fight external and internal parasites all naturally.

Well jury duty is over.  We deliberated for about 2 1/2 hours on Friday afternoon and came to the right decision.  It was an interesting experience, I met some new friends and I believe we made a very important decision in the life of a little six year old child.

Since I have been back ‘at the ranch’ things have been busy.  Saturday we were busy moving animals around as we integrated some who are boarding into a pasture with some of our girls.  Also, Stonewall was busy on Saturday doing some breedings.  That always makes him happy.  You can almost see him standing with a briefcase in hand waiting at the gate to ‘go to work’ .  He seems to know when there are ‘new’ girls on the ranch and he’s sure they are all for him.  News flash Stonewall – Renoir is going to be busy this fall/winter too!

And on Sunday I spent all day at Tierra Prometida attending a parasitology class from a well known and respected camelid vet and breeder of suri alpacas, Toni Cotton.  The class included hands on fecal testing and microscope work.  It was great and we identified lots of common parasites that we have around this area.  Good stuff.

One very interesting note:  As I drove out of our ranch around 7:15am on Sunday morning I noticed Annie lying on her side far out in the pasture.  Her cria, La Salle, was near her kind of pawing at her and rubbing on her.  I stopped my car, got out , went inside the big gate to check on her when I saw her lift her head and look at me.  I thought that was comfort enough that she looked at me and MOVED!  (Whenever I see an animal lying on their side the first thing that pops in my head is – is it dead?)  Well, I was wrong in that thinking.  As I found out from Chuck later in the day when he got down to feed about two hours later, Annie was still down and her cria was trying to nurse from her while down.  He called to Annie and she didn’t get up.  After some muscle, Chuck got her up and got her to walk a bit, but her front legs were shaking.  Not knowing what was wrong he brought her in to the barn and tried to take her temp.  None of the thermometers were working.  It was 31 degrees outside and the thermometer was registering very low.  Those digital thermometers are great for reading temps fast, but when they don’t work – they REALLY don’t work!

Chuck worked with Annie for a while, he got her to drink and eat some hay and by later than afternoon she was acting normal.  And, this morning she is back to sweet Annie.  I think she had colic.  We have had some abrupt temperature changes lately and also some very diverse temperature ranges within a day.  30ish degrees in the morning with 70ish degrees in the afternoon.  Big changes!

Since this happened I have learned that alpacas can get colic and they are best treated with a little walking around, some warm water with electrolytes and a little hay to get their rumen going.  Chuck did try to give Annie some MSE probiotics, but she just spit it out.  If I had been there it would’ve been a little easier to help Annie, but Chuck did a fine job.

Open Ranch at Hill Country Alpacas

Celebrating National Alpaca Farm Days 

Please join us! 

Saturday, September 27, 2008

10am – 4pm

858 Moffett Road

Medina, TX

See the alpacas, watch spinning & fiber  

demonstrations, yarn and retail alpaca products 

 available  

830-589-7750

This past week I have been in the process of scheduling another truckload of orchard grass hay from Southern Colorado to our alpaca ranchers co-op around Boerne, TX.  After the debacle we had with our last delivery and being forced to go to a new source, I want to make sure that we get this hay here since I know that it is excellent.  See post on May 23, 2008.

I am astounded at the price!  When we first started buying this hay it was $5.50 per bale, not including the trucking charge.  In 2006 the trucking charge was $2.00 per mile.  I thought that was expensive – end cost being about $8.80 per bale.  Fast forward to summer 2008 and a bale of the same hay is $7.50 and trucking charges are $2.75 per mile  -  end cost being about $11.60 per bale.  WOW.

Take our little hay co-op as a microcosm of our society and this illustrates how the price of oil affects all of us.  It is nice, though, to see the price of gasoline coming down these past few weeks.  Seems like it began when President Bush lifted the executive ban on offshore drilling.  Congress, why don’t you lift your ban, too!   Oh wait, Pelosi and company had to go on vacation, that’s right.  Hey, don’t worry about staying there to work for those that you represent, selling your book is much more important. 

But, I heard just this morning on Fox News that another reason the price of oil may be going down now is because China is no longer stockpiling for the 2008 Olympics.  The thought was that they didn’t want to be embarassed by running out of fuel as they host the world in Beijing.  So, now that the Olympics has begun and all the guests have arrived, there is no need for China to stockpile oil anymore.    

Back to hay…  On August 23 our group of 10 alpaca ranchers will once again be meeting in Boerne to off load all of our hay.  Can’t wait til it gets here and I’m so happy we will be set for about 9 -10 months.

Dr. Norm Evans, a highly regarded camelid veterinarian recommends the following analysis for hay – and believes that orchard grass hay is an excellent choice for alpacas.

Protein          11-14%
Potassium     58-63%  or a value of 2.0 or less
RFV               95-105
TDN              55-62
Calcium/phosphorus ratio at 2:1

Yesterday in our church we prayed for rain.  There are hay fields, goats, cattle, sheep, horses, crops and alpacas in our area so rain is certainly necessary for our community.  Last night we got almost one inch of RAIN!!!  We are so thankful and I hope we will continue to have this rain throughout the spring.

In an earlier blog I had talked about watering…looks like I won’t have to do that for a while.  I will keep updating with pictures and hope that soon I will be able to post a picture of beautiful grass pastures for the alpacas.

An added benefit to good rains here in Medina is that the Medina River is especially beautiful after a nice rain.

Just look at those gorgeous old cypress trees that line the river!  Great place to tube…

Yep, it’s that time.  As I look at our pastures one thing I’m sure of.  It’s time to water!  So now the watering begins…..

And, soon I will begin to think about casting seeds…probably Max Q Fescue!  The alpacas do well on that.

After getting our most recent load of hay and paying what we did for it, I am hoping that we can get these pasture to start growing grass…and Lord, we sure could use some rain.

The fun thing about watering in the pastures is watching the alpacas run over to the sprinkler as I turn it on and immediately start wetting their legs and bellies.  They will actually vie for a good position in front of the stream and usually the pasture queen or alpha male gets the best place.  If they only knew that in just a few minutes the sprinkler would be available to them without competition because everyone else has gone over and started rolling.  They are so funny!!

I think I will post a before and after picture of my pastures to see if my watering and sowing of seeds worked. 

I am convinced that it will do us well to get a nice pasture growing because the price of hay is just getting higher and higher. 

I have been arranging deliveries of orchard grass hay for a group of alpaca ranchers in my area for the last two years.   We started out getting one truck load of about 730 bales for 10 ranches and are now up to 24 ranches needing two full truck loads.   In our group, we are very specific about the hay that we use.  We like for our hay to be mostly orchard grass with a crude protein count of between 10 to 14%.  We like for the TDN (total digestible nutrient) to be between 55 – 62%.  It is important to not be misled into believing that a 14% protein count with TDN at 45% would be ok for alpacas.  The TDN influences the forage intake and hay that tests like that was probably too mature when it was harvested and may contain more stems than leaves and will likely be wasted.   It is also important that the calcium:phosphorus be balanced at 2:1 or less.   Second cut hay is also preferred. 

Here’s my rumination about hay for alpacas….it’s expensive!  I have seen the price of hay go from $4.00 per 50-60 pound square bale to $6.50 – $7.00 per bale…and that is for coastal bermuda in our area.  Well, our alpacas are spoiled to orchard grass hay and now won’t even touch the coastal.  So, we go out of our area to find orchard grass hay and all of our alpacas thrive on it.  Of course, next we had to get the hay to our area and guess what that means….shipping costs.  It’s about 1100 miles from the supplier to our area of Texas and the latest shipping charges were $2.26 per mile -now, calculate that!  It’s expensive, but I must say, it’s worth it to have healthy alpacas.