OUR SMALL HERD

Our original four boys came from Ardo Alpacas in Aberdeenshire. We are not alpaca breeders and have our boys purely as pets. Our experience is that you don't need to be a breeder and that a 'batchelor herd' can give much pleasure to the owner. We have 5 acres including our big garden and grazing for the boys, 15 miles north of Inverness, Scotland. I spin, knit, felt and crochet with the fleece from the boys.

Clicking!!

Just a reminder that clicking on (most) of the photos will show them greatly enlarged.

Sunday, 22 May 2011

Duncan and the Highland boys.

Today we travelled a few miles across Glen Convinth to visit friend Deborah who has two 8 years old boys.  Paddy (L) and Bo look totally at home amidst the wonderful Highland scenery with distant views of the River Beauly and the various peaks of Strath Glass.  This week has seen plenty of rain, gales and light snow down to 2000 feet with 60mph gales forecast for tomorrow!  The boys share their home with some chickens and plenty of deer on the other side of the boundary fence.  
Bo (front) and Paddy get to meet a chilly visitor!
Back home, this is Faro en route to new grass in a paddock.  He does not have great depth of fleece, but he is a lovely colour.  Faro is a really friendly chap, always alert and usually up for a stroke or cuddle from his favourite humans.
Several blogs this week have been mentioning the size of alpaca rear ends - so we thought we'd  add another couple of bums.  On the left is Fyta and on the right, doing a pretty good impression of a polar bear, is Fergus.  They all look pretty big at present but after shearing in a few weeks time, they will shrink considerably.
And finally...... when we were at Deborah's she told us of the problems she was having with her two Buff Orpington cockerels.  'Dora', pictured above, was so named because at birth she was thought to be female - however 'she' blossomed into a fully fledged male giving no end of aggro to the other male.  As we love Orps and have owned both hens and male Orps in the past, Deborah's offer to us to take 'Dora' home with us, and out of harms way, was too good an offer to reject.  So Dora is now 'Duncan' - and that will probably become 'Dunk' as all Duncans get called in this area, and the photo above is of him in his new home having just spotted our three hens on the other side of the fence.  Shortly afterwards he was able to introduce himself to the ladies in no uncertain manner!

2 comments:

  1. Lovely photo of the Highland Boys. It would be interesting to see photos of alpacas across the United Kingdom at the moment. Different scenery..some very wet...and some very dry!

    We have the Eden Valley as our back drop...and some very very soggy alpacas, and more rain forecast all week!

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  2. I was going to suggest that calling the noble Duncan 'Dunk' or 'Dunkie' or 'Dunkers' might dent his male ego, but since it survived being called Dora all this time my point would not be well made.. I'd be tempted to call him 'Big D' or 'Stud Muffin' with that sort of behaviour. Bev

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