alpaca table

Getting lucky

Steve HardinLeave a comment

By the third dayI figured that a little bit of sunscreen on my face was not going to help if I spent all day on the tractor again. I had already managed to sunburn my lips. I took the, still in the box, sunshade that had been purchased for the older Kubota (Clementine) and installed it on the new one (Juicy). It took a couple of hours to get it all pieced together and up on the tractor. This one has a very nice locking mechanism that virtually makes it impossible for the shade to blow off the tractor. It is quite clever. After baling hay for an hour I asked myself why I did not do that two days earlier! Keeping that direct sun off of your face is a huge relief.

The hydraulic takeoffs do work! I only need one to get the dump lid on the baler to work and it worked great once I got the port all cleaned up. It had a lot of dust and dried grass in it. Unfortunately, I did order dust caps but do not order them by the size of the plug. They are ordered by the size of the hose. I did not know that until the wrong ones arrived in the mail. The correct size is now on order.

I spent all of Sunday baling hay until 2330. I really wanted to keep baling but we had scheduled help to come out on Monday at 0800 and help us with shear the alpaca. The haying got a lot easier once the sun went down. The moisture started to come out and the grass was not as slick. It baled super nice, no jams and it just wound up without any difficulties. I made twice as much progress after darkness hit. I started to just pick the big rows to bale as it was so fast. I figured I could get the smaller rows after we sheared the alpaca.

We had four alpaca that I had managed to get pinned on the back hillside. I thought they would cross the back creek. Nope, I ended up taking a header into the creek when the alpaca I was attempting to drag across the creek suddenly jumped and scrambled up the opposite side. Of course that same alpaca ended up jumping back across the creek to be with his buddies. One of the babies kicked Annmarie in the lower leg. It was a solid blow. That same alpaca proceeded to try and give us all the rear kick anytime we walked up behind it. So we grabbed it from the side when we drug it into the shearing area. It has grown significantly, it is probably our biggest alpaca now.

We did eventually get all four alpaca across the creek and I did not end up in it again. We only have six to shear, trim feet and inspect/cut teeth.

The shearing table makes it pretty easy to do everything. Our helper, the Quiet One, had never sheared alpaca before but she had just paid someone to come out to her place and shear her two alpaca. It was decided that she can just bring hers over to our place and we can just shear all of them on the same day. We had all six done within three hours. After three days of riding on the tractor my upper shoulders were killing me but I am getting much faster at shearing the alpaca than I used to when I started. I passed the trimmer off to the wife and Quiet One but ended up going back to it as I wanted to be done. I only cut three of them with the razor. No stitches have ever been necessary.

We dragged a tarp with the last two years worth of discarded hair over to the garden so we can use it as weed barrier. It makes great barrier. I showed the Quiet One how to work the new tractor and she will come out and mow the cheat grass down during the week. It needs it. I have been trying to mow the cheat grass while haying but once I started to bale nothing else gets done until hay is all formed into round bales. Once the bales are made I will leave them in the field for a couple of weeks. This is why I like the round bales so much better. They work for my delayed schedule.

I called in to the house and the wife brought me coffee out to the field! It was one of the best cups of coffee ever. I needed that coffee. Going around and around and watching the baler is monotonous. Even if I did manage to knock out two audio books over the weekend.

I went out and started to bale for another seven hours. I had enough material on the ground for approximately 12 more bales when the big boom was heard. The shear nut gave on the baler and I tried to replace it. I could not get the baler tines to move so I figured I better look closer to see what made that noise. One of the pickup tines exploded and broke some stuff that pinned the pickup shaft solid. I need three hours to tear into it and replace all the parts. It is close enough to finished to call it finished!

I now have to fix the sickle bar mower, the rake and the baler before I can cut some more hay. My plan is to fix the mower, cut hay, then fix the rake, rake and then fix the baler! As long as I get it fixed before I need it I am good to go.

Alpaca shearing takes time

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Every year we think we are going to get better at shearing the alpaca. I am not sure why we think that as we only do it once a year. We have five brand new alpaca this year, three of which have never been sheared as they are only one year old. This really means that we have an even dozen alpaca that need sheared. On average it takes us about an hour to shear one alpaca so the plan was to start early and shear all of the alpaca in a day. We started on a Saturday morning first thing, but by the time we gathered all of the supplies, strung power extension cords out, cleaned up the milk shed area and got the alpaca corralled it was a couple of hours later.

Now it was time for the real fun, catching the alpaca. The general concept is to get close enough to just sink your hand in their fiber and hold on until you can get a hold of the head and control the animal. It is fairly simple but not as easy to implement. After they got around us a couple of times and some yelling occurred we pushed them into the corral then waded in and got one. Now you put the halter on and the animal needs to be walked/drug over to the shearing table. It really depends on how old they are and whether they are halter trained. Our old alpaca are not halter trained. The only training they have is learned inherently, passive aggressive transport. The minute you get a hold of them they lay down on the ground! They cannot be drug across the ground as you are trying to keep them fairly clean. So they have to be lifted up by two people and carried to the shearing table then thrown on. Luckily, Daughter #2 has been working out and can squat 80+ Kg. She needed all of that muscle to help get the alpaca up onto the shearing table. Once up on the table we had to tie down their head then stretch out their feet so they looked like they were on a medieval torture device then the shearing could begin.

We started off easy with an old one, he laid there fairly well, we trimmed his toes as he was getting sheared and the shears worked well. It only took about 45 minutes. We did not need to grind his lower teeth flat and no fighting teeth needed cut off. The next one was a baby who had never been tied to a table or sheared before. Holy smokes, their fiber is totally different than an old alpaca. It has a ton of crimp, it is very thick and very long. It was very hard to shear, I had to keep oiling the blades and adjusting them constantly to get them to cut correctly. I ended up having to change the blades through midway on each young alpaca. We did all three yearlings and four old alpaca in seven hours. I was shot after that, my lower back was killing me from reaching out and shearing.

The yearlings absolutely hated the shearing table and being tied down. They kept panicking and kicking and getting untied. At one point, we had one standing up on the table and had to pull it back down, stretch it out and tie it back down again. It was brutal. Annmarie is going to make some alpaca sized hobbles so when we put them on and pull them from the center they will self tighten and if the alpaca fight they will tighten some more. After doing three yearling we contemplated whether paying to have them sheared is a viable option. Our real problem is there are 12 of them now!

The next day we all determined that more alpaca work should wait until the following weekend and all of us have had some time to recover. I ended up going over to the neighbors and baling 120 bales of grass. He had a patch that went to seed and was dry so I was unable to bale it. It was tall and green at one point, I just could not get to it. I still have one small field at another neighbor’s house but it needs to not be 108 F outside so I can go over at cut and bale it.

A week later we went out and finished the last five alpaca, our two new older alpaca were also a pain in the behind. They were used to being sheared but they were very scared during it. Padre is our biggest alpaca and he is twice the size of some of them. He was not very cooperative and he had to lift him up onto the table, it was at this point that Monica’s ability to deadlift really came in handy! Between the two of us we were able to force him up onto the table with people power (ie manhandle).

It is always amazing to see how small the alpaca really are after they are sheared. We really needed to do it a month earlier but haying kept delaying it.