It’s a Girl !

You knew the week couldn’t end without another baby story, didn’t ya ?!? This morning Anne Therese started the restless behavior and officially went into labor after lunch. Here is the baby’s head and front feet, making their way out….Usually the head is above the feet..the position would be like that of a diver with their arms outstretched and their head tucked in between. The problem was that the placenta ruptured while inside of mom. Since the crias are in the womb for 11 months all of the urine and waste products are inside of that sack. Usually it doesn’t burst open until the cria has hit the ground or at least starting towards the ground. We could see that the baby was moving around (usually that isn’t evident when they are still inside the sack) but after an hour of mom pushing, she still wasn’t all the way out. What Sister Mo thinks might have happened is that the baby was getting hung up on the placenta that was still inside. Anne Therese was getting tired and would lay down. Finally, with gloves and lubricant on, Sister PB reached inside of mom and got a hold of the baby and pulled in a downward motion. The way the birth canal is in alpacas is angled downward and it has a little arch to it. Whatever Sister PB did worked cause out she came.

A 12# little girl and I’m sure mom was glad that was over. Tonight I had feeding duty for Peanut and took this picture of the new one while I was there. It doesn’t even look like a newborn, does it? She’ll all dressed in her little coat to keep her warm tonight (calling for overnight temps of 37). She was laying outside with mom when I left.


Peanut took 7 ounces of milk tonight, during her 7:00 feeding and then fell asleep on my lap. 
The doctor drew blood from her the other day to see how her IGG (something like immunoglobbin count) is. She scored 300 and it’s supposed to be near 1200, I think. This is how strong her immune system is and her ability to fight off sickness. The vet is coming tomorrow to give her a plasma transfusion. We have an all day workshop tomorrow (Alpaca 101), from 10 - 4 so we’ll get to see the vet give her the transfusion. She really seems to be doing great. She was out in the pasture today, galloping along…dragging her bad leg along.
Today was the last day for the Creighton kids. We had eight students here for the week from Creighton University. They have been on fall break and drove from Omaha, NE to spend time with us and learn about farming and gardening. Here is a picture of them unloading hay in the barn. Good bunch of kids. They are driving home tomorrow….back to Omaha and classes come Monday morning. Some of them are business management, some were pre-med and some are studying to be lawyers. They said that Creighton is known for the pre-med, law and pharmacist programs that they offer. These are tomorrow’s leaders ! They also got to watch the birth of the cria and they have a very special memory to take home with them.

Well off to bed with me….tomorrow I learn all there is to know about alpacas. Yeah….right. I feel like I’ve had a crash course in some of the things that can go wrong with them in the last couple of weeks but having a ball learning all of it.

Little Peanut

Wanted to update you on a new event here on the farm. In the last post I told you that I was on alpaca watch over the weekend with three expectant moms. Well I went and hung out from mid-day Saturday till after supper that night to keep an eye on them. Dominique is due at the end of the month and has a bad knee that the doctor doesn’t want to do anything with until after she’s had her cria. Anne Therese and Peoria are overdue. I finished reading the neonatal book and didn’t see any signs of them going into labor. Stage 1 of labor can be from 1-6 hours, if I recall from my reading. Stage 2 – the actual birth is usually under 2 hours so that is why it’s really important to catch anything wrong really soon because the whole event can be over in 2 hours. The only thing I saw that seemed odd to me was that Dominique was humming like crazy. The sound is like a vibration that they make….not sure if they are exhaling through their sinus cavities or what but I call it humming. They will do it when under stress or it seems to be part of the language they use when talking to their young. The last time I checked her, Saturday night, she was eating hay in the barn.
Sunday morning, while watching my political shows, I get a call from Tracy, the alpaca manager. She works on Sundays so I knew I wouldn’t have to check them on Sunday cause she’d be working. She arrived at work and found that Dom had delivered her cria and it was dry and running around. Add excessive humming to the list of signs to watch for….Sneaky little thing ! Not sure whether the cria had nursed or not, Tracy put the baby under Dom. Dom was a little spooked or something and kicked her baby’s right front leg. When Tracy saw that the cria couldn’t put weight on it, she felt pretty certain that her leg was broken. She called me to go and keep an eye on the other alpacas till she got back from the vet. Poor peanut….she was only 8.6# at birth (a cria should be greater than 12# to be considered normal so she technically is in the “at risk” category). Dom gets really nervous around people so add that to her being a first time mom and it’s double trouble.
Here she is after coming home from the vets. Since Tracy wasn’t sure if she had received any colostrum (the first milk from the mom), the vet gave her plasma. He puts a tube into their stomach and they absorb it into their system. They have to get the colostrum within 18 hours of birth, while the cells are open to absorb it. After 18 hours, it can’t be absorbed this way and the window of opportunity has closed. Doesn’t that cast look clunky ? It’s only 8 ounces in weight but it’s huge on such a little thing.








We are bottle feeding Peanut (that is my nickname for her) because Dom won’t let her get in there to nurse. I fed our calves as a kid and you usually stick your fingers in a newborn calves mouth, to get them sucking on them, and then you slide their mouths off onto a teat pail for calves (this is once you’ve taken them away from their moms). You can’t do that with alpacas so you put your one hand under their chin and try to open their mouth where it hinges (at the corner of their mouth). We are feeding her whole cow’s milk although you can feed goat’s milk too. You put just a drop of molasses or corn syrup or maple syrup in it to make it appealing but it’s still a little tricky to get them started. Once you get the nipple of the bottle in their mouths and they start sucking, they can drink down 4 ounces in a hurry. At this stage they need to have 5-7 feedings a day and consume at least 18-20% of their body weight. Today she had 22 ounces over 6 feedings so that’s great. She’ll put on some weight quickly if she keeps that up.
I just came from giving her the 7:00 feeding. I spent last night in the barn, keeping an eye on Peanut and the other two that are due. Tracy has a heated dog bed pad that she puts the newborns on to keep their body temps up on the cold nights. At midnight, Peanut was off her pad and almost across the pen. We have mom and baby in a small pen so they can stay together and bond and hopefully Dom will calm down and let Peanut nurse when we’re not around (if Peanut can get up to her).  Peanut jumped up after I gave her 4 ounces tonight and walked around the pen, dragging her front leg under her. She got up to Dom and fell flat on her face underneath Dom. I slowly reached in and picked up Peanut so Dom wouldn’t kick her or step on her by accident and put Peanut back on her pad. I’d like to think that she’ll stay on the pad all night but I think that is wishful thinking.
Peanut has a soft cast on that the vet will check in about a week. It is so long and awkward that it will take another day or two before she gets enough strength to be able to get it under her to walk. I can see an improvement in her walking today and she is starting to get the little skip in her step that the little ones get when they want to run. I give her till the end of the week and she’ll be unstoppable. She sure is a fighter for such a little thing.
Didn’t want a whole week to go by before I could tell you about Peanut….two more crias to go !

Chicken and Alpaca Watch

As usual the week has flown by. This was our last week for the summer CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) folks. They picked up the last bag of goodies on Wednesday. We have one week of no CSA and then the Fall/Winter one starts up the following week.
At the beginning of the week I had the awesome experience of watching a cria being born. This little guy’s mom went into labor Monday morning, while we were working on finishing the high tunnel. Mo let me leave to go watch the birth but wouldn’t you know it, I didn’t have my camera with me to take pictures or take a video. It was pretty quick overall. You could see his nose and front feet sticking out of the birth canal and mom walked around like that as the labor progressed. Then she laid down for a little bit and seemed to be really focused. Then she stood up and walked around and started to push and little by little he started to come out. I thought that once the front shoulders would come out that he’d drop the rest of the way but that’s not the way it happened. Probably a good thing cause it might hurt them to fall that far to the ground. He was hanging with just his back feet to come out when he finally slipped the rest of the way out and gently fell on the ground. Tracy was nearby (she’d slowly crept up on mom) and she got to him and pulled the placenta coating off of him and held him up by his back legs to try and clear some fluid out of his lungs. It was chilly and damp on Monday so Tracy dried him off really good with towels and then took mom and cria into the barn. This is another first time mom but she did a great job with him. He’s a gorgeous peach color and boy is he spunky and strong. Such a cutie !
Update on the other new ones…Remember this one. See how her left leg is bowed in. The tendons are coming along but because she was a preemie, it will take some time for them to fully strengthen.

I think they named this little guy Dusk. He’s a rascal and full of spunk. He ran into the fence yesterday when he was running full tilt in the pasture. He’s ok…just a goof ball.
I’ve been given the Llama and Alpaca Neonatal Care book to read this weekend and I’m on alpaca watch. We have two that are overdue and one that is due by the end of the month so I need to know what behavior to watch for. Their anatomy is much more complex than I would have thought but it helps to understand the things that can go wrong with a pregnancy by reading the book. The big thing is to recognize (and possibly correct) something before it becomes a big problem.
Speaking of a big problem….we have a fox that is after our chickens. Hence me being on chicken watch. I might have mentioned this in the last post but last weekend, a fox got a bunch of our chickens. We are down to eight right now, from originally having 25 (some of those died this summer but we lost about 12 last weekend). Bree and I were asked to go out and check them at 6:30 and 7:30. Their door is set to close at 7:30 and we’re trying to figure out if some got caught outside when the door went down and the fox got them or what. Thursday night I watched some videos, on You Tube to figure out how foxes get into chicken coops.
 Not only can they get through a small opening but they climb fences like a person climbs a ladder….up and over in no time flat. After watching and reading about fox attacks on chickens, I was worried if we’ll be able to stop this fox before he wipes out our flock (or what’s left of it).
So, I went out at 6:30 last night and checked on them and all was fine. I had put laundry in when I got off work so I went back to the dorm to fold my clothes and figured I’d come back out to check them one last time and put them to bed. Got the clothes folded and walked back to the pasture. I called my sister on the way to the pasture to thank her for the awesome care package she sent me. She made me a beautiful shawl to keep me warm and lots of other goodies. I got to the pasture at 6:55 and stood just outside the gate that goes into the pasture, near the chicken coop.  The chickens were to the left of me under the apple trees. It was dusk and I was playing Candy Crush on my phone at around 7:10 when the chickens let out a hell of a commotion and came running towards and past me (remember I’m outside the gate). I instantly thought of the fox and looked to the left of me at the fence to see if the fox was coming over or under the fence in the direction we thought the fox is coming from. Out of my right eye, I see a blur of red and turn to see a fox coming straight for the chickens in front of me but it was coming from the direction of the orchard.

(The fox came from the bottom of this picture and I’m standing down at the end of the white tape fence, outside the gate). I screamed a bunch of profanities, (cause I’d be damned if that fox was gonna kill the chickens on my watch, let alone me standing right there) and started to shove the gate to get through to help the chickens. I forgot there are these latches you have to pull up on but I scream again and wave my arms in the air, hoping to scare the fox, who’s right on the chickens’ heels. I grabbed the chain that wraps around the gate and flung the gate open and just then the fox turns on a dime and runs back towards the top of the orchard. Heart pounding I do a head count and make sure that he hadn’t gotten any of the chickens. The fox ran towards the barns at the upper end (not in the direction we thought the fox was coming from all this time) and then I lost sight of him. I kept scanning the area and look straight up towards our gardens and here he sits, watching me to see if I’m going to stay or leave the chickens alone. Man, I was really ticked off now. The chickens were scared out of their little minds and huddled together in the corner of the pasture for about 15 minutes. I stood watch over them until 7:30 when they all got inside their coop, safe for the night. I got back to my dorm and e-mailed Sister Mo and asked her if they should stay in the coop all weekend, cause I was worried that as soon as they got let out this morning that fox would have breakfast. (Most people think that foxes only hunt at night but it’s not true….go to backyardchickens.com and you’ll read about plenty of attacks that occur in the daytime. If they are hungry and are feeding kits (baby foxes), they will hunt anytime. At 11:00. p.m I heard from Robyn that the timer needed to be unplugged so they would stay inside this weekend until they can figure out what to do. So at 11, I’m thinking about the long, dark walk out to the pasture and I don’t have a flashlight. I remember seeing a lantern in the bathroom so I go get that and it’s pretty bright so off I go to unhook the door timer. I called Linda, back in PA to talk to me while I made the trek out there. I wasn’t scared to go out there but just worried that the fox might be around and try to sneak into the coop when I opened the door. I got it done and made my way back home and to my bed.
Sorry this is such a long post….lots going on and I find myself too exhausted during the week to post anything so you get a novel to read each weekend to catch you up.
The high tunnel is done….We put the sides up on Monday and they finished up the ends yesterday. Both the ends and sides can be rolled up during warm weather. These “Z” strips, that snap into channels are what holds the plastic into place on the sides. There is a double channel and the ends of the roof section is fastened in the top channel and the sides snap into the lower channel. David has a machine that he pulls behind the tractor that creates the raised beds. The plants you see on the far left are broccoli and then we have beets, turnips, carrots, lettuce and spinach planted. Wire panels across the ends will keep the deer out. I read a neat trick the other day for keeping deer out of your garden. Deer can’t judge depth so if you string up two offset lines of string or something like the tape from an old VCR cartridge, they won’t enter the space. The VCR tape vibrates in the wind and keeps them away. So save all the weird blood stuff and scents that you scatter around. Just mess with their depth perception and you’re all set.
 
OK, I think that is all the excitement I have to share for one week. Hope your week is productive and safe. We have 25 college kids coming next week to spend their fall break with us. Should make for an interesting week….

National Alpaca Open House

Last Sunday was the Open House event to learn about alpacas and what we do with the fiber. The day was celebrated all across the country at alpaca farms. Perhaps you saw an ad for a farm near you that was hosting the open house.
We had sisters set up at different stations working on fiber. Here one of the sisters is using a tabletop loom to make a scarf. It was really easy to use (I think even I could do it). She had the scarf done by the end of the Open House (it ran from 1 – 4). Lots of little kids enjoyed learning how to do it.

Here Sister Ruth is doing a wall hanging with fiber. She has a picture sitting off to the right of her foam and she is combining two alpaca faces to create the picture of two different alpacas on her felted backing. By using a felting needle, with short jabbing motions, the fiber is pressed onto the backing and bound together. She is really artistic and has a wonderful eye for drawing and has made a lot of different items that are for sale in the center. She is the one who taught me how to dry felt the ornaments.

Ann is spinning fiber into yarn. She asked this little boy if he wanted to learn how to do it and he said “maybe when I get bigger”. She says that it takes quite a bit of coordination to get the hang of keeping the wheel going at the right speed and using your hands to pull the yarn as you go. On Tuesday nights the spinners meet in the center and I’m going to go this coming Tuesday to see if I can learn. I hope they have someone there who is really patient to teach me. I think it’s one of those things that if you can rub your belly and pat your head, you’ll be able to do it. I’ll let you know how I make out.

Sister Jean was running a big loom. It’s portable but much more complicated looking than the table top one. It reminded me of a pipe organ with all the different foot pedals. Each pedal raises a different set of arms so you can create intricate patterns. She was also working on a scarf but she can make much bigger items on this loom. In the back room, at the center, they have a giant loom that is probably 5-6 x the size of this one. Candace, who is the manager of the garden office, runs that one so perhaps when she returns from maternity leave I’ll get to see that one in action.
It rained the evening before our open house and the day started off really cool and damp so Sister Mo decided to have the activities inside the center. It didn’t seem to affect the crowd size though. We had a really good turnout with a steady flow of people all day. Some folks drove from several hours away to come and see the alpacas and fiber items. I worked the tomato stand and sold quarts of our wonderful tomatoes. We sold a little over 14 quarts which helped us get rid of some. They are still going pretty strong. We picked over 300# yesterday and there are still quite a few green ones. They are getting smaller in size and the slugs are starting to get ahead of us for doing damage but we’re holding our own. Yesterday we delivered two totes to both dining halls (these dining rooms serve the sisters). They made eggplant parmesan in the dining halls the other day, with our eggplant, and it was wonderful.
Tomorrow is one of the big fund raisers that the White Violet Center does each year. It’s the Harvest Dinner and much of the food comes from our gardens. I know the soup is Pumpkin Bisque (with our pumpkins) but once I hear the whole menu, I’ll update the blog with it. We’ve been sending over herbs and different items to the chef who is preparing the meal. He works at Indiana State University, here in Terre Haute, and I will be working with him tomorrow once he arrives here to start work on the meal. Today, Sister Mo, me and Bree (another intern) will decorate the tables in the dining room so they will be ready.
Not much else going on here. We are getting a little bit of rain. It poured yesterday for a little bit and again overnight. We sure need it….has been really dry the whole time I’ve been here. Temps this week were in the 80’s most of the time and it was really humid. This morning I awoke and couldn’t even see out my window cause it’s all fogged up with moisture. I had to go out to set some seedlings outside the greenhouse and it is really muggy out. It’s freezing in my room so I usually have a sweatshirt or hoodie on and if I don’t check my phone to see what the temp is outside, I usually am overdressed when I go out. I had Linda send me my heating pad so I can sit on it when it gets really cold in my room. Warms me all over….That’s the hard thing with retrofitting a building with AC that never had it before. It’s so hard for them to regulate the temps from one floor to the next. The first floor temps are very comfortable and most of the second floor (where the intern rooms are) tend to be ok but it’s our west wing area that you could hang meat in….dang it’s cold.
We started harvesting turnips this week. This coming Wednesday will be the last pick-up of food for the summer CSA folks. We’ll have a week off (from packing bags and picking for the CSA – not to lounge around and eat bon bons all week – no such luck) and then the fall/winter CSA program starts. We’ve been busy starting lettuce, beets, carrots, turnips, broccoli and other veggies for the winter group. All of these seeds get planted in the high tunnels so they will stay protected from the snow and harsh temperatures. The plastic on the roof and sides allows the sun to heat the interior of the space so the plants can grow. The plastic on the sides is mounted on a roller so you can raise or lower the sides. As the temperatures drop, we’ll raise the sides so the tunnel will be completely enclosed to keep the heat in. Right now they are part way open so they are not so hot to work inside of.
Well that’s all from the farm. Be sure to support your local farmers….Buy fresh, Buy local !

LiveJournal Tags: White Violet Center for Eco Justice,CSA,Harvest Dinner,high tunnel