Choke

We had quite a scare the Friday night.  Chip, our favorite boy whose picture is at the top right of this page, started choking on his food pellets.  The question was - what do we do?  One book said to massage the neck; another reference said to give him space because trying to "help" him would only make him more stressed and the throat would close up even more.  We couldn't just stand by and watch, so we massaged the neck off and on for about 20 minutes and it seemed to help.  After about 45 minutes, he was back to normal. 

The after effects of choke can be worse than the event itself.  If any of the food gets into the lungs, pneumonia can result.  As a precaution, we took him to the vet Saturday and got antibiotics, which have to be given in a shot every day.  That turned out to be a wrestling match for all 3 of us today.  We finally got the shot in him, but we've got to find a better way to do it. 

To prevent future choke episodes, we bought shallow pans so that each boy will have his own dish and won't have to try and gobble the pellets before someone else noses in.

What I did over Christmas Vacation

I started and finished a couple of projects while I was off over Christmas.  The first was an alpaca cap for my stepson, Gregg, who likes to snowboard.  The fleece came from Regina Dale at the Song and Dance Ranch.  Regina is a fabulous lady who I've learned a lot from.  She is the owner of Howling Wolf Herbs - http://www.howlingwolfherbs.com/ - and a talented fiber artist.

My cube neighbor at work is the proud father of a newborn girl who arrived just before Christmas.  Since I've never made socks or booties before, I looked for (and found) a really simple pattern.  I spun this yarn that came from roving I got in Tucson at Kathy Withers ranch shop.  Kathy taught me to spin.  If you want to check out some gorgeous yarns and creations, visit her website at http://www.uniquedesignsbykathy.com/.

Fleeced

I'm really excited about having some raw fleece, straight off an alpaca, to work with.  I'm on vacation this week and I've started about 3 new fiber projects here at home.  This particular project - starting with the raw fleece - will end up being a dog bed if all goes according to plan.

Chet made me a sorting/drying rack.  It's PVC with plastic netting; which I think is really some kind of fencing.  Dirt and loose vegetable matter fall through as the fleece is layed out.  On the table is 2 washed batches of second cuts from an alpaca.  Second cuts are from the legs and neck of the animal.

I put a blanket underneath to catch the debris, but my plan didn't work out so well when the dogs decided it would be a great place to camp. 

So, everything that fell to the blanket is attached to the underside of the Husky, which means it's all over my house now. Oh well.  With 4 dogs and wet alpaca fleece in the house, I wasn't going to win any good housekeeping awards this week anyway.

New Farm Logo

We officially have a registered name and a logo for our farm business now - C&B Fleece Fur and Feathers.  We'll be selling products from our alpacas (raw fleece, roving, yarn and possibly finished products); spinning dog hair into yarn for customers who want to have a keepsake of their companion; and selling eggs from our free range hens.

Saturday on the Farm

If you scroll down in the blog to older posts and find Aug 19, you'll see the photos of Luke and Leia, our Anatolian puppies, being held by Gregg.  That was just 3 months ago.  Look at them now.  I think Chet actually has to help Gregg hold Leia up.

These guys are not quite 5 months old.  Luke is close to 60 pounds and Leia isn't far behind.  They are going to be very big dogs.  Luke has a big serious bark already, but only barks when something unusual comes into sight. We really haven't heard Leia bark much, she kind of hangs back and lets Luke scare the intruder away.

Gregg and his friend, Jay, are here from Ohio for a few days and Chet's putting them to work doing some fixin' up around the place.

The chickens are thinking about climbing to new heights while the alpacas just enjoy the grass.

And...we think we have a young rooster.  This chicken is starting to get curved tail feathers and a couple of them are shiny and green.  We haven't heard any crowing yet, but it won't surprise me when we do. 

Spinning Husky

This is Nikki.  Nikki is a 10 year old Siberian Husky. 

Nikki hasn't had much formal training.  She's been a natural "teacher" dog for lots of fosters and puppies that have boarded with us.  The thing Nikki is best at, though, is shedding.  She's a natural at that, too.

She's got a beautiful reddish coat and she leaves it behind wherever she goes.

Since I don't have carpeting here in the new house, Husky-fur dust bunnies blow around everywhere.  I guess in the old house, the carpeting caught it all.

I've been itching to spin something directly off of an animal and my alpacas won't be sheared until springtime.  So, I'm spinning dog hair.

This box from one brushing session that lasted about 10 minutes.  That's all she would put up with.  The fur is about 6 inches deep in the box.

Before it can be spun, it has to be hand carded to get the fibers to go all the same way.

These are my brand new hand carders.  I've never worked with carders before and there's been a definite learning curve. They almost look like dog slicker brushes.  Next to the carders are the finished "rolags" of Nikki's fur.  These are what come off the carders after you've run the fur through a few times.

Once I got some rolags ready, I couldn't wait to start spinning.

So, here's what it looks like on the spinning wheel.  It almost comes out looking like twine.  I'm not sure what I'm going to make out of it yet.  Hopefully I'll have a better idea when I get a couple of bobbins of yarn spun up.

Rain, Rain GO AWAY!

It started raining here in the DFW area in mid-September.   I think we've had about 5 days of sunshine since then.  The ground is saturated and there haven't been enough sunny days to even come close to drying out.  My chickens stopped laying eggs when it started raining.  The girls are from Arizona and the worst rain they've seen before had been one or two big monsoon days in 2008.  They've been hiding out in the hen house but not producing any eggs.  That wouldn't be a big deal except I finally have a few regular egg-buying customers.

So, we decide to buy some more hens - 14 to be exact.  We make a 45 minute drive to south of Ft Worth on a rainy, dark and gloomy Sunday night to get these "good layers".  Well, they must be homesick, cause they haven't been laying any eggs here.  Now we have 25 hens, eating 50 pounds of chicken feed every couple weeks and I have no eggs to sell.

The new girls are a variety of breeds and some mixes.  This one is very pretty with her gold markings.  If you look, you can see a lot of feathers in the background as some of the hens are molting now - probably due to the days getting shorter and colder and lack of sunlight for the past month.  When chickens molt, their reproductive system shuts down and they produce no eggs.

The AZ girls were very stressed when the TX girls moved in.  They were like 2 rival gangs.  The AZ girls all huddled together as the newcomers took over their turf.  There was a quite a bit of fighting and posturing to determine the new pecking order.  The TX girls were pretty sassy about taking over the chicken yard.

I guess patience is going to be the key while we get through this transition time.  I've read that the molting can take up to 3 months.  Hopefully we'll have some sunshine back by then, too!

October, getting settled in TX

I can't believe it's October already.  The days are definitely getting cooler here.   It's supposed to rain for the rest of the week and I'm not looking forward to that very much, although I understand we need it. I am missing the desert.

Chet's been working so hard around here.  We're dividing the pasture areas so we can keep the camelids separated as necessary and Chet has been fencing almost continually for the past month. 

Because of all the rain, the grass is in constant need of cutting.   This photo is of the front yard.  Chet bought a used tractor when he got here that only works for short periods of time before it overheats.  He hasn't taught me how to drive it yet, but all the ladies in the neighborhood do their lawns on the riding mowers, so I'll have to learn soon.

As we're making some good progress getting all the boxes unpacked, I'm finding some time to work on spinning and knitting, which I've really missed.

I don't know whether the colors will come through on the blog site, but this is a very pretty batch of roving from Unique Designs by Kathy in Tucson AZ - http://www.uniquedesignsbykathy.com/ . 

Kathy is an awesome fiber artist and a very patient teacher.  I was able to have a few spinning sessions with her this summer before I moved and really learned a lot.

From this roving, I'm spinning a single ply yarn and making a lacy shawl.  I'm almost finished with it, but don't want to post photos until it's all done.

I'm very excited that I was invited to a spinning group this weekend.  I'm sure I will learn a lot from these ladies who also have alpacas.

I got my TX driver's license yesterday.  I guess it's official - I'm a Texan (or as much as a Yankee-by-way-of-Arizona can be).

Already doing their job

Luke and Leia are 12 weeks old now. They are typical puppies in many ways - exploring new things with their mouths, wrestling with each other, arguing over the food bowls - but different from other puppies I've dealt with. Luke, especially, is very independent. He's always happy to see me, but after he greets me and gets a little attention, he's very happy to go about his business of being a guard dog in training. Leia enjoys people a little more, but she doesn't make a fuss when I leave the barn. They seem to be very content with the barn as their home base and sharing a yard with the alpacas. I have to keep Luke separated from the chickens unless I'm there to supervise. He tends to get excited after being with them for a while and will chase them. This is definitely something we have to work on before he gets much older.

Over the weekend, they had their first chance to be livestock guardian dogs. A full size Doberman and a buddy came back to the barn/pasture area. The puppies barked their little heads off and chased the Dobe and the other dog away.

Gelding

Because Cosmo has been so aggressive to Choco and Chip and even to the llama, we decided to have him gelded and reduce the testosterone level on the farm. We got Choco done at the same time as we don't plan to breed him.

We had the choice to have it done here Friday in the barn or take them to the clinic. Good thing we took them in. 24 hours after surgery, Cosmo was still bleeding. His red blood cell count was down to half of what it should have been and he was becoming very weak. We were afraid we would lose him. Dr. Royse at the Argyle Vet Clinic was great, monitoring him all night and doing everything he could to try and stem the bleeding. Finally mid-day on Saturday, he got it under control, but kept him until Monday to be sure he'd be OK. Choco's surgery went fine, but he stayed at the clinic to keep Cosmo a bit calmer. Alpacas don't like to be without other alpacas.

He's home now and just a little worse for the experience - thinner and his beautiful white fluffy fleece is now coated with blood. The good news is that he hasn't picked a fight with anyone since he's been home. I hope that's a result of the gelding and not just that he's still too weak. He was feeling good enough to smile for the camera.