Llama, Llama, Goat

 

Last week, I invited Bruce the Shearer Man over to help my llamas and angora goat feel cooler this summer. And of course, I kept the fleeces and will probably be selling them soon, as I still have fleeces and rolags of carded fleece that I’ve yet to spin into yarn. Here are some photos from that experience, with before and after photos, too.

Cataleya, my female llama. Before Photos.

Cataleya wearing her spit mask (trust me, it was needed!lol!)

Half a llama partially sheared.

My friend Kendra drove over to take photos and experience shearing day. We had to do the shearing down by my house as we don’t have any electric in our barn ever since an underground critter chewed our wiring.

I typically don’t shear a llama tail, but not only were their tails tangled, knotted, and dreadlock-like, but Cataleya also had a piece of wire twisted within her tail.

We couldn’t help but laugh at how funny her tail looked naked.

And voila! All done!

Cataleya’s After Photos! 

 

Isn’t she pretty?

And next up is Catlinite, my gelding llama. I had to walk each llama and goat down the hill from the barn to the house to be sheared, then walk them back up, and bring down another one…and so on, and so on. lol!

And Catlinite’s Before Photo! He used to be a show llama, and he still knows how to pose.

My twin sons, Jem and Jax were a huge help that day moving panels and keeping them secure when the llamas tried to thrash around.

Bruce the Shearer Man and all of us within spitting distance were very thankful that the llamas wore spitting masks.

 

Catlinite’s After Photo! He was making faces because he didn’t like the nasty taste of spit in his mouth.

Next it was my Angora goat Luna’s turn to be sheared.

Here’s her Before Photo:

 

My son Jem, caught this funny photo of Luna expressing her displeasure at being sheared.

But soon she relaxed and began to enjoy the attention.

And it wasn’t long before her thick, heavy dreadlocks finally fell to the ground.

And soon she was all done!

And she was so much cooler and happier!

Luna’s After Photo! Isn’t she pretty?

When I walked her back up to the barn, her goatie friends, Mud Pie and Latte didn’t even recognize her!

I gathered up the fleeces and carried them into the garage.

 

Boy Howdy! They were heavy and hot! It made me happy knowing they weren’t on my animals anymore, so they would enjoy feeling cooler this summer.

I ended up only saving the llama fleeces, as Luna’s fleece had become too matted and dirty. I usually shear her twice a year, in the Spring and early Fall. But last Fall it snowed the day before I was going to shear Luna, so I just put it off for fear of her getting too cold. The two llama fleeces are in very good condition, super soft, and not too dirty either.

Everybody Loves Luna

 

You may recall my recent post: "Get a Room, You Two!" where Luna, my 7 yr old Angora Goat doe was getting a lot of affection from my Nigerian Goat wether, Mud Pie.

Apparently, around here, everyone loves sweet, little old Luna.

 

 

 

 

Jumping for Joy

Unseasonably warm…that’s us. Dry, Sunny, Beautiful Blue Skies in The Land of Enchantment.

Usually by this time of year, we’ve already had several snowfalls with accumulation. And we’ve usually had hassles with ice and fierce, winds with gusts into the 50 mph range. Not this year.

We’ve only had one little snow flurry with just a slight dusting that vanished with the morning sun. And most amazing of all is the temperature! At night we have dipped down into the teens, but during the day we enjoy temps up into the upper 40’s, 50’s and even 60’s (F). If we weren’t just a few weeks from Christmas I’d be thrilled, but I’m worried that we won’t have a White Christmas this year, something we can usually depend on every holiday season.

Yesterday I hand-sheared Luna, my Angora goat. It’s not perfect, but she’s comfortable, and I think she’s beautiful.

Right after her shearing, she was jumping and playing with her goatie friends, Latte and Mud Pie, as if she was a little kid. Luna is such a sweet gal

She’s about 5-6 years old now, and I rescued her from abysmal living conditions 3 years ago. She was kept in a muddy pen no bigger than the size of a small bathroom, about 5’ x 7’. The old man kept her in there at night and then tied my poor girl to young green horses during the day, supposedly to train them to have patience, or something. Anyone ever hear of that before?

Anyway, my Luna was expected to exist by nibbling the sparse weeds while out in the yard tied to a horse. The old man supplemented her diet with handfuls of moldy, brown alfalfa….when he thought of it.

When I saw her pitiful, picture on CraigsList, I could not resist her pull and I had to contact the man and make an appt to stop by and possibly bring her home.

When I saw her in her filthy pen, matted, muddy, and still with the green paint on her back from when he had purchased her as part of a Lot in a local Livestock Auction, every sensible part of me wanted to go back home, minus one angora goat. The old man said she was between two and three years old, and he’d owned her for almost a year. That was one year of her life, too long, in my opinion, and my sweet goatie gal will always have a home here with me until she takes her last breath.

But I digress.

Luna needs to be sheared twice a year, but I usually add in an extra trim or two, mostly because she tends to get a nasty, poopy, urine-stained butt and back legs when her locks get too long. But I also was concerned she might overheat with our warmer temps this winter. On Sunday, I went up to the barn wearing a light jacket, but it didn’t take long for me to start peeling it off and rolling up my sleeves because it was so warm.

I wonder if Apache, with her thick fuzzy winter coat is wishing she could shed a little bit, too.

I sometimes see her standing underneath the shade trees in her paddock trying to stay cool.

For now, we’re jumping for joy not having to deal with snow or ice, or turning on our furnace, or using the fireplace. And being able to play outside wearing a t-shirt is great!

 

But we are really hoping for some snow on Christmas Day.

Do you think Santa Claus can stuff a bunch of snow in his big red sack for us?

It’s Gone

 

After a week of going up to the main paddock almost daily with gloves, trimmer, step stool (to sit on and take the ache out of my back and knees), and my water bottle in hand, I’ve finally got control of all the sage by aggressively cutting, trimming, and pulling…..and a whole lot of sweat and sore muscles.

It’s finally gone.

You can see the *Before* photo with This Link.

Here are the *After* photos:

(You can still see the stumps of the sage left behind, which I’ll get help pulling them out with the tractor soon) Oh…and it rained not long after I took these photos. Not much, though. It sure is dry and dusty around here. We only got enough rain this summer for about 3 weeks of grass growth. It’s all dried up and brown already.

A couple of you asked if Bella might have gotten sage sickness too, because of the way she acted so out of character and bucked my twinling Jax. It’s possible. Bella really liked the back paddock and spent much time in there. After we sent her back to the horse rescue, I did a walk-thru of that paddock and noticed that two sage bushes had been destroyed, as if she had attacked them.

(Here’s a pic of that back paddock. Bella destroyed the sage bushes, so it’s sage free)

And she had also eaten the bark of the juniper and pinon trees, too. Apache doesn’t even do that. But considering that Bella was staying here to help her lose some weight and was only getting one flake of hay three times a day, and no grain, due to her insulin resistance, it’s a real possibility that the change in diet, eating less food, caused her to be hungry enough to binge on large amounts of sage.

Which is kind of sad if that happened, because I really liked Bella and felt she fit in well here, even though she had health and boundary respect issues. Apache really seemed to like Bella, too.

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This is a view from the back of the main paddock looking towards our house. Notice all the sage is gone now. Only the yuccas and trees are left. You can see the large grey log, just left of center, that Jen and I are sitting on in my blog header.

 

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Apache seems quite confused about the loss of all of her yummy sage shrubs.

(Do you have any idea the amount of courage it takes me to get anywhere near the backside of my mare? I about had a panic attack after this photo was taken, because I was sort of wedged into the corner of this paddock, between two fences and her body, only about 3 feet from her butt.  She had come to me for some scratching and petting when she got jealous seeing me petting Annie, my neighbor friend’s mare.

And when I was done petting her, Apache turned away to walk up the hill. I didn’t relax until she was over 10 feet away from me. whew! After getting kicked in the face, the back side of any horse is not ever where I want to be.)

Apache did stay very close to Jenna and I the entire time we cleared away the sage and weeds. I caught her eating the sage and some other weeds while I was pulling them out. I think she was mostly doing that because she wanted me to stop pulling sage and pay attention to her instead.

 

During all the clearing of the sage, I also discovered a couple of other suspect weeds that I’m removing, too.

Does anyone know what this weed is? It’s those green mounds down to the left and right of Jen’s feet. She took a break from hauling weeds to love on Val’s Arabian mare, Annie.

Close up. Notice the little berry-like fruit. They remind me of mini unripe tomatoes.

After doing some research on the Guide to Poisonous Plants Search Feature, I’m guessing Horse Nettle, which can be toxic to horses if eaten in large amounts. ugh! It’s growing all along the fenceline and I watched Apache grab a bite of it just the other day.

I also found this plant.

I think it’s a Chinese Lantern or Ground Cherry, a member of the Physalis family, which can be poisonous to horses if ingested in large amounts, causing colic, bloat and diarrhea. What a mess!

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I had some help clearing the weeds. My daughter Jen loaded up piles of sage and weeds and hauled them up to the hill to the goat paddock and compost pile.

And the goats and llamas sauntered down to help munch on the little bits of sage and weeds that I missed.

Apache really likes the goats and tries to groom them and nibble on their tails.

Unfortunately, the goats aren’t as open-minded about Apache’s attention and usually run-off. Except Latte, my mini-mancha doe. She seems to be a little more tolerant of Apache’s affection and curiosity.

Apache really likes Dobbie, too. She’s always trying to nuzzle and lick my little dog.

Apache tolerates the llamas, but sometimes tries to herd them around, which usually ends up with Apache getting spat upon. 

But the llamas really like Dobbie and try to nuzzle her, which leads to Dobbie running away and hiding behind me.

(That’s Catlinite, my gelding guard llama sniffing, Dobbie. And my sweet Angora doe, Luna is walking down on the left)

This is Cataleya, Catlinite’s half-sister. She’s my good llama who enjoys going for walks and getting out and exploring. I taught her how to carry her own pack. Catlinite, on the other hand, is a worry wart and doesn’t enjoy stepping off his own home turf.

 

And Dobbie likes to pretend she’s a herding dog when she’s around the goats. They don’t seem to care for that behavior very much, and are always sure to let her know. Dobbie still has fun anyway.

(In this video, you get to see Dobbie “herding” the goats, me getting pestered by a goat, and Apache feeling left out and coming over to join the craziness)