Maine's Bellemont Farm Alpacas

Farm Awards

2008-11-30T10:44:00.000-08:00

When looking at alpacas, they always say there is no perfect alpaca, and I agree. Each has their strengths and in my head, I often give them each an award in my head as to what those strengths are. Here is my rundown:

Puella-finest fleece for an old girl, even at 12.
Andromeda--produces the most beautiful alpacas even though she looks on the rangy side herself
Dolores--most reliable breeder. Never missed a mating or a birth.
Mystique-finest fleece on the farm.
Evie-most beautiful white alpaca. Tied for best hand with Theresa.
Sugar N Spice-tallest alpaca, most personality.
Theresa--most beautiful fawn alpaca. Tied for best hand with Evie.
Ebony-potential contender for finest fleece, too young to tell.
Ivory-darkest alpaca and may beat out her mother for fineness.
Skye-best crimp and hand of males.
Thunder-most desirable color and softness.
Prince William--cutest by far and best crimp and fineness for males right now.
White Gold-most curious and nicest white male--(course his competition in only Husacar!)
HuasAcar-best Suri on the farm. Oops, he is the only Suri so does that count?

Settling in to winter

2008-11-30T10:18:00.000-08:00

Our accomplishment this fall was to put on barn doors. We had improvised the past two years, but after last winter's heavy snows, we made it a priority to be able to close the animals in, mostly to keep the snow out. The trick was to design them so that they would slide out of the way to be able to get the tractor in to scoop poop.

I believe everyone is finally bred. We have some new combinations this year and as usual, that is half the fun. We have traded breedings with three different farms and used our own Don's Bellemont Skye out of the Last Don. It was great to get to know Lana and Dick Nickerson of Foss Mountain Farm. They have a beautiful setting up a steep hill in New Hampshire. They were delighted to host Thunder's Best for a few months as we were delighted to have their Orion here to breed to Sugar N Spice.

Thunder made the rounds to Mt. Brook Farm in exchange for a breeding to Guillermo, who placed second at North American in a white class. He has also entertained a lovely lady from Sea Hill Farm in exchange for a breeding to Captain Nemo, son of the famous PPeruvian Caligula G4572,for Puella. Puella is at a bargain price right now--take advantage of this breeding! I have my own non-alpaca reasons for appreciating this breeing. Captain Nemo was my uncle's nickname for my father--My father would be 104 this year. Hard to believe.

In all, Thunder should have four cria next year.

Since the Domingo/Mystique combo worked so well last time, we went for that one again.

And our beautiful Evander's Evie is bred to Coyo. What a combination that should be.

That wraps up the fall breeding schedule. The hay is in the barn and we have just had to start to feeding it out as the pastures have been open and thanks to plenty of rain, still with plenty of grass.

Potential issue with Ivermectin

2008-09-09T18:47:00.000-07:00

We aren't certain, what we first thought was an infection in Ebony, could be a "hypersensitivity" to Ivermectin. At less than a week old, we gave her Ivermectin along with the rest of the herd, just has we have done with other crias. She crashed a few days later. Since she was exhibiting neurological symptoms, (non responsiveness, trembling) the vet treated her as though she had an infection in the brain. Her prescription was a regimen of IV fluids, antibiotics and B vitamins. "Ebony" revived and thrived after that.

Until this Sunday, three days after her next shot of Ivermectin. Similar neurologic- like symptoms--appearing listless and non-responsive, kushing whenever she could and walking stiffly. I checked my records and figured out the timing of her symptoms was very similar to her first dose of Ivermectin-about three days. We began the same regimen, in case it was an infection, but already by today she is doing MUCH better. The vet said that if she responds quickly to discontinue antibiotics because it most likely is a hypersensitivity.

"Hypersensitivity to Ivermectin" is well documented in certain breeds of dogs--mainly collies. It produces neurological symptoms and can be fatal but more often is not. The vet and a physician confirmed that it was a possibility it was a sensitivity even though she had not seen it before.

If it were an outright allergy--the reaction would have been immediate.

To read more about this in dogs--check out this reference. I couldn't find anything about it in alpacas. Just reminds us of how little we know about these animals and how important it is to share knowledge and support research.

Grandchildren on the farm

2008-08-13T17:46:00.000-07:00

We now have two grandchildren on the farm and both girls: "Ebony and Ivory" though Ivory's co-owner, Laila from Graceland Farm, would like to call her Domonique since she is out of Domingo and Mystique. It would be fitting except that we already have Ebony who is white and now need a black Ivory, which we just got. Oh well. We'll work it out.

Ivory's birth was a little bit stressful for poor Laila. Mystique wasn't progressing in her labor. I was on my way to Ellsworth to pick up my daughter so I was no help. The feet were poking out but, couldn't see the nose right off. Bravely, Laila gloved and lubed up to find the nose and then Mike Reardon, from Full Moon Alpacas, was nice enough to heed the call and go in to stretch things just a bit and the baby popped right out just the way they say they should. Thank you too, to Cindy Mingle as always to provide counsel via phone and Morelia Candida, who came armed with pitocin in case the placenta didn't arrive on time. It did and all is well.

"Ivory" "Domonique" is out of Mystique who is out of Puella. Ebony is out of Skye who is also out of Puella. She produces fine fleeced alpacas of good bone. Let's see if that passes on to the next generation as well. So far, so good.

Gestation was 369 days! Who would believe it.

Early morning scene, Maine's Bellemont Farm Alpacas.

2008-07-17T20:03:00.001-07:00

If you double-click on the image and look closely, you can just see a cria catching the early morning light and the NOISY guinea hen sitting on the fence. This is some of the best of having alpacas--the moments when things just feel right.

The guinea was quite quiet until this Spring and now I know what people mean about them being potentially annoying. He makes his terrible noise for hours almost every morning starting around 5:30.

This picture gives you a good view of our "barn." Our real barn burned in a fire four summers ago (August 4th to be exact). We were not able to rebuild both the house and the barn so we had foundation dug for our barn of the future and the alpacas have a good cool place to get out of the weather and bugs. It works for now but we both fantasize about having a traditional New England barn again some day, though not quite so big as the last time (about 40' x 70', 2 1/2 stories).

We have had a strange spring/summer with girls open we were sure were bred, and girls going loooong gestation periods. Dolores had her baby after 359 days and Mystique was at 335 days July 6 so she is up to 346 days so far--not extremely long but since she is a maiden, we would like to be here but it is close to impossible to be here all day every day.

Ebony is doing well after a bit of a rough start. It seems her immune system wasn't as strong as it should be after initial nursing even though she appeared to nurse well after birth and was gaining for the first week. Now she is growing like a weed. We named her Ebony at the request of my daughter's friend from college. Apparently, they were Ebony and Ivory on campus, so despite the fact that Ebony the cria is actually very white, she had the name "Bellemont's Ebony." She is Skye's first cria!

We have another first as well, Thunder's first cria is a rose gray male out of White Birch Alpacas Mamasan. He is stunning--all one color. No spots. Can't wait to get a picture of him.

I found the neatest website that I would like to share with everyone. Someone has set up a calculator to predict when your female will be most receptive according to the delivery date of her last cria.

http://personal.smartt.com/%7Ebrianp/breeding.html

It worked perfectly for Andromeda who was open all winter, spit off one day this Spring and when I brought the male in for her most receptive day, she was down before he even got to her!

Guinea hen finds new friend

2008-04-05T11:58:00.001-07:00

I last wrote about our guinea hens. It has been a tough winter and of the three, only one has survived. What is remarkable is that the surviving guinea hen decided to adopt our appaloosa pony as his friend. He spends all him time either in his stall or ON HIS BACK! I never would have imagined it. Double-click on the photo to see "Thumper" and his unnamed friend.

Pen Sale

2008-02-16T07:35:00.000-08:00

We are signed up for our first pen sale at Royal River Alpaca Farm. They have a beautiful setting in North Yarmouth, not far from Portland, off Route 1 North.

We decided to put Mystique in the sale. She is a nice dark color and bred to Dalia's Domingo who produced champion El Camino Real . We co-own both Mystique and Domingo with Laila of Graceland Farm alpacas.

This year we are sending Prince William to the North American Alpaca show with Long Plains Alpacas. His sire is Sugar Ray, and Evander son who has been producing some beautiful crias. Life is busy here and Marcia, who lists our animals for Long Plains, was nice enough to offer to take him. We may try to get there but am not sure we can get away at that time. We need to start halter training the little Prince. He has such incredibly long bundles of crimpy, soft dark brown fleece. I can't wait to shear him!

Winter finds the alpacas hiding out when it snows and howls but are otherwise content to come out and eat hay and cush in the mountains of snow we have had here. At least it keeps the paddocks looking clean as it is hard to clean up with all the snow and ice. So as long as we get a fresh coating of snow every few days, things look good. Can't imagine what Spring will bring!

If you want to see the alpacas, or learn more about Maine's Bellemont Farm Alpacas, click here.

Guinea Hens

2007-12-28T09:24:00.000-08:00

Many people who own livestock of one kind, manage to collect other species. Last summer, after thinking about chickens for a long time, we acquired three guinea hens.

We had no prior experience with birds of any kind.

They came home and my husband, Chuck, created a small shelter for them in the barn to try to contain them. We had heard if they get fed in one area for awhile that they will return to it and not fly or wander away. They promptly left that shelter and wandered around the barn and barnyard. Several times, my husband found them straying so he herded them back toward the barn.

Now, we don't worry about them anymore and they stick pretty close. Life with them is pretty uneventful. The noise everyone had said could be a problem, isn't a problem for us. They do squawk from time-to-time but it isn't bothersome and our neighbors aren't close enough to complain. Maybe it's because we have just three.

The one annoying thing they do is roost on the edge of the water trough and poop into the trough! They do the same with the alpaca feeding trough.

Their strangest behavior is in a snow storm. The first true wintry storm we had with howling winds, swirling now and bitter cold, they flew all the way up to the top of Chuck's shop and perched on the ridgepole. They stayed that way, all hunkered down, throughout the storm. They had never perched there before!

We didn't notice where they were during the next storm, but after it was all over, we noticed one on the very edge of the barn roof. We could barely tell it was one of the guineas--it just looked liked a blob of feathers and we assumed it was a dead bird.

When Chuck went to pick it up to put it in the compost pile, it was literally frozen on. When he pried it off, it started to move and was actually alive. He set it down in the hay and a day later it was up and walking around again.

It's like they are cats with nine lives!

If you want to see the alpacas, or learn more about Maine's Bellemont Farm alpacas, click here.

New England Coastal Classic

2007-10-15T18:40:00.000-07:00

This is our fifth year attending the New England Coastal Classic and our second year as exhibitors. Showing is not my first love but the time spent there and the visibility is helpful. I find the environment a good one for meeting people and making a few connections. Each time I am impressed with the beautiful animals. Each time, I have made connections that have been helpful, especially with pursuing breedings.

The show results were once again reinforcing that I am on the right track. Evander's Evie took sixth place out of 10 in an all-white class; the most competitive classes at the show. The judge said her confirmation was perfect but her fleece just not as fine or as dense as those placed above her. I knew her fleece was not that fine from her histogram but her placement and "staying in the ring" meant that her confirmation and fleece character still carried some weight. Density is difficult to measure by hand--there are so many animals that are of medium density. But I tell you, I have felt DENSITY twice, once on Koko's Kokopelli, from Journey's End Alpacas, and again on Cherry Bomb from Foss Mountain Farm. When you touch those fleeces, they barely give, it is as though they are truly packed on the animal.

It is what we are striving for in all our animals, that and fineness and correct conformation, crimp style and on and on. It is a never ending quest.

Thunder took first in a very small class of Grey 2 and older males. I knew it would be his last time "out" so to speak and I wanted to get another opinion on him now that he had grown up. There were only three in the class which was dissapointing since I always want a truer measure of comparison but here are judge Amanda Van der Bosch's comments:

"Nicely balanced, Finest fleece in group. Good Handle. Balanced, complete package. Nice young male."

Amanda is such a treat to show in front of. She is gracious and gives extensive clear explanations.

In the championship class, she pulled up a Cas Cad Nac male that I was able to get a peak at his fleece--almost the crimp style of white and I assume a great deal of fineness as well. I understood why he was placed above Thunder.

On the way home, my 16-yr-old son called to give us a farm update: "New baby, about an hour old, placenta passed and a girl!" This is the last one for this year and we are delighted with her. Her fleece is a bright almost coppery color--surprising out of two white parents, Andromeda and the above mentioned Koko. I hope that she lives up to his amazing fineness and density. Time will tell.

A good end to a busy three days and our third alpaca-packed weekend in a row.

Next weekend-- a trip to Hartford to visit our daughter at Parent's Weekend.

Want to read past posts or see the animals? Click here: Maine's Bellemont Farm Alpacas.

Fryeburg Fair

2007-10-15T18:00:00.000-07:00

Columbus Day Weekend takes us for our third year to Fryeburg Fair. We take two animals on Sat and Sun to the Llama and Alpaca barn for an educational exhibit. We can also show fleeces in the fiber building and can sell a little bit of product in the barn. I did sell just a little.

The highlight of Saturday is always the Grand Parade. A long-standing tradition at Fryeburg when all the animals and all the floats drive around the race track. We always stop in front of the grandstand packed with 1000's of people and they tell a little bit about the animals.

Even without the publicity of the parade, the barn is full from morning to night. Everyone wants to know "do they spit?" What do you do with them? Do people eat them? And my favorite this year from a little boy seeing them chew their cud "Do they blow bubbles with their bubble gum?"

I try to have something out that demonstrates how wonderful this fiber is-- a sweater, a bag of fleece or my favorite this year, an alpaca wall hanging that everyone could touch. I probably could have sold a 100 of them if I'd had them. It was a great hit.

It is long and tiring but we enjoy seeing our friends from Mt. Brook and meeting other farms who exhibit each year.

I recommend you try to get a stall at your local fair. Most fairs are glad to have something new to show people and there are many people who got their start in alpacas after seeing them at an agricultural fair.

Want to read past posts or see the animals? Click here: Maine's Bellemont Farm Alpacas.

National Alpaca Open Farm Day, 2007

2007-10-01T03:27:00.000-07:00

We participated in National Alpaca Open Farm Day. I wanted to test the "national advertising" and see how relevant it was to our market. We had approximately 50 people come in about 10-12 groups. Only two groups of people had seen it on TV. However, the local (and I mean local) paper had received a press release put out by AOBA and they contacted us to do an article. Most of the rest of the folks came because of the article. A few came by because they saw the signs.

I have read about other farms having over 200 people and I am always concerned about that happening but so far, our third Open Farm Day, it hasn't. I have been purposely low-key in my advertising each time to avoid being overwhelmed. This way, we get to spend time with each group that comes to the farm and answer their questions.

One woman stayed for a few hours with her kids and when no one else was there, I was able to let her in the pen and have her touch the animals, talk about each one and she fell in love with one in particular.

She has since visited at least one other farm and came to the Coastal Classic.

Saturday was a steady stream of people and Sunday was a bit slower but still folks came. The weather was windy but otherwise picture perfect and I thoroughly enjoyed the day. This was the first year I had yarn for sale. I had some of my own yarn for sale that I had had processed by NEWAIM Fiber Mill. Nancy Williams makes an absolutely splendid product, soft, soft soft.

I also had product from Fiber Pieces. This is a new collection process initiated by some folks in Yarmouth. They collect fiber up front and you pay $20/lb of fiber to have it process. Then when it is processed, you can get back fiber or cash. The minimum was 10 lbs of fiber I opted for 1/2 and 1/2 which gave me 22 skeins of yarn and cash. The yarns they make are blends and make beautiful heathered colors.

I sold both yarn and fleece and connected with folks in a fun way.

Things I want to do better next time:

Signage. I am determined to work out something so that our sign posting is easy and highly visible. The signs we have made today do not stand out enough and even with directions people had a hard time finding us.
A guest book to determine what people's real interest in- fleece, yarn, a Sunday drive, or owning alpacas.
Someone spinning. I had someone spinning last year and it was a great conversation starter. I'd love to have more than one spinner here.
Pricing: Pre-price the yarn to make it easier. It is hard because it in the rush of the moment it is easy to under or over price. I did both! I tracked down one customer whom I overcharged but she said she didn't mind because she loved the yarn so much and wanted the balance in the "farm yarn."
More panels for penning animals in a simpler way. We just don't have enough panels and we end up moving them from places we need them in order to pen the animals on the lawn on Open Farm Day. Having a few on the lawn makes it easier for them to see them, as well as having the girls in the pasture. The combination works well. There is something so compelling about seeing the group in the green, green, grass. One of my favorite vistas.

Want to read past posts or see the animals? Click here: Maine's Bellemont Farm Alpacas.

Breeding a maiden

2007-09-15T16:16:00.001-07:00

Our girl Dahlia out of Dolores and Coyo Destini has been hanging around the boys gate a lot. At 15 months, full size, we figure she is probably ready to breed. So we bring Skye in. She is not interested in him. He is not interested in her. We separate them from the rest of the herd and still nothing. She is looking to get out; he is eating hay.

We decided to see if it was just the chemistry between the two of them and brought in Thunder. He got excited immediately, started orgling and trying to mount. This upset Skye tremendously and he kept trying to get Thunder away from "his girl."

Dahlia was not running away and looked more and more like she was ready to go down. So we took Thunder out and sure enough, Skye was finally worked up enough that he began orgling, mounted her, she went down and they bred nicely for 15 minutes. Skye is a gentle guy and without encouragement he is very respectful of the female but manly enough when threatened by another male to respect his territory.

While all this was going on, little Prince William who is just a week older than three months, decides that he wants some action too. While we had Skye on a lead among all the girls, we noticed that Evie was acting very attentive. She put her head between Skye's front legs. Clearly she was interested. Where she is only 13 months, we figured she wasn't ready but it looks like we were wrong. Next thing we knew, William was mounting Evie, she went down and he made lots of efforts to breed-including orgling. He wasn't quite in position and it was clear that nothing was really happening but it certainly looks like Miss Evie is more than ready and William will likely be an early maturing male. We have often left the males with the females for a few more months but we will have to be sure to wean him quite early!

Want to read past posts or see the animals? Click here: Maine's Bellemont Farm Alpacas.

Fleece! Glorious Fleece!

2007-09-08T08:24:00.000-07:00

This is the year for expanding what we do with fleece. In the past, have sold some raw at Common Ground Fair, at Open Farm Day and to a local yarn shop, The Irish Ewe for $45.00 per pound to handspinners. They love alpaca.

I had a friend of mine spin some that I had hand carded--which is lots of fun and just as in the story of Tom Sawyer and the fence, if you are sitting with friends doing it, everyone wants a turn and lots get done.

This year, I sent two fleeces from Mystique and Echo to Nancy Williams of NEWAIM Fiber Mill. She blended the two into a dark brown and sent back 17 gloriously soft skeins. I love to touch them! This cost a total of $86.00 or about $5.00 per skein or about $0.20 per yard or 2 oz. I can't describe how utterly luxurious this feels. So if you want beautiful yarn from your own animals, I recommend Nancy highly--it took about three months but she had said six so it felt like it was relatively fast.

I also sent fiber to Claudia Raessler of Fiber Pieces. She is working out a collection system to have fiber commercially processed and returned as finished yarns. The yarns are generally merino blends and some dyed and they are beautiful as well. With names like Sebago Blue and Spruce they evoke the best of Maine and that is just what they are.

Claudia's process for collection and processing works by paying up front for a minimum of 10 lbs of fiber to be processed. This cost $200. In exchange, you can get back yarn, cash or a combination. I chose the combination, 22 skeins (varying but approximately 200 yards or 5 oz) and $180 in cash. Essentially, the yarn is free and everything I sell is profit. I can't wait to get a display set up for National Alpaca Open Farm Days September 29 and 30. Hope to see you there or at a farm near you.

Our friends Amy and Jim Grant of Good Kharma Farm are now the proud owners of a new commercial-sized mill. Back when Jim owned Blackbear Graphics, we traded some of our Shaker View Furniture chairs with them. We didn't order as much logo wear to work off our chairs, after National Alpaca Open Farm Day, we will be sending them the balance of our 2007 clip. I can't wait to see it come back!

Want to read past posts or see the animals? Click here: Maine's Bellemont Farm Alpacas

Breeding Decisions

2007-09-08T07:53:00.000-07:00

We have several breeding decisions to make in the next few weeks. It is great this year to have a few more options, which comes as the herd matures and we know more people in the business. Mt. Brook Farm has bred to our lovely Don's Bellemont Skye and we also bred Dolores to him. That will give us two babies on the ground next Spring. We think we will breed Dahlia to him as well. She has incredible brightness, good density and a wonderful hand--but she is not as fine as we would like. Skye should make a nice match with his also bright, fine fleece with a very nice hand.

Puella just has a handsome boy out of Sugar Ray. We are going to try her with Dalia's Domingo, our herdsire we co-own with Graceland Farm Alpacas.

Because we now have a breeding trade with Mt. Brook, we want to use their Guillermo for Andromeda. We are very excited to see what her pairing with Yopanqui's Kokopelli produces. Guillermo is out of Mt. Brook's champion Lima who is a Snowmass Legacy Lustroso son. Lima has shown that he can consistently stamp his fine and dense fleece on his cria so we are hoping that Guillermo can do the same. He is white, and Andromeda is white so that should give us white... but who knows?

There is a long wait but it is fun to make these decisions to see what comes.

Want to read past posts or see the animals? Click here: Maine's Bellemont Farm Alpacas.