The new addition... an Alpaca!

I know, it's been too long since I last blogged. . . but, I was waiting till we got the new addition to our ranch, an Alpaca!!

We picked him up yesterday. He is kind of wild and is sad to be separated from his momma, but I think he'll do just fine and friendly up quick. . . at least he needs to! We thought he was a "she" when we got him, but later found out "she" was a he. His name was Patty Kay, but that doesn't work for a boy name. So he needs a new name, obviously. Thinking about a few, but the one that is sticking at the moment is "Buddy" (I know, very original).

Anyway, he is so tiny and soft. Part of my family thinks he isn't cute, some think he looks like a bird, others think he is cute (me). What do you think?? He really isn't dirty, as it looks - the white "dust" is actually his color.

Last Monday I noticed that Peppercorn, one of our female llamas, wasn't acting right. Normally when I'd walk up to her, she would get up. This time, she didn't. I put the halter on her and had to force her to get up. Obviously, she was not feeling well. Monday night she was not going well at all, seemed really shaky and weak. I gave her Thiamine and a bunch of other vitamins. Tuesday morning she seemed much better but still "off". She has slowly gotten better, but she has still been doing one thing - hanging her head down about half the time when she is standing up. This can be a sign of pneumonia in llamas. I have been giving her tons of vitamins and things, and she hasn't gotten worse but not much better the past few days. So, last night we decided to start her on Penicillin. Hopefully it will kick in and knock out the pneumonia.

Poor girl. Thankfully, she has kept eating and drinking this whole time. Last night it actually took 2 of us to hold her so I could give her the shots. . . so I guess that's an improvement. I just hope she gets all the way better.

Me and Ms. Peppercorn,

Last Tuesday we went and sheared a gal's gelded male llama for her. He was a real sweaty  and took the whole thing really well, just on a halter. My clippers decided not to work well though, so I did most of it by hand. Thankfully we just gave him a barrel cut. In exchange for shaving her llama though, the lady gave us 4 turkeys, 3 silkie chicks and 1 silkie rooster. I guess the turkeys will be for Thanksgiving, and the rest just for the kids to have fun with ;).

Well, not too much else has gone on. I am going to have to work with "Buddy", the alpaca, every single day to make him friendly and lead train him before mid-October (when the Down Syndrome Association of Tulsa [DSAT] Buddy Walk, where we are planning on taking several animals).

"Cutie Booty", the little Nubian bottle doeling, is growing so well and is just adorable. I really need to get some new pictures of her. She is also being lead trained to go to the DSAT Buddy Walk.

Have a good day everyone!

Suriyah

Batches of Butter (pictures!)

I was asked to take pictures of the steps of butter making, and I thought it would be nice to have a "how to make butter" with pictures. So I finally got around to it this afternoon. The only thing that I did not take pictures of was skimming the cream off of the milk - that will have to wait till next time.

#1 - Pour cream in the food-processor,

only fill it about 1/3 full as it fluffs-up and will overflow otherwise,

blend on high,

This is what it looks like after about 2 minutes - it is whipped cream at this point. Keep blending.

Here I have a colander over a bowl with Plyban cheesecloth on top (regular cheesecloth or butter muslin will work also, just not as easy),

It's "almost butter"!

Butter! From the time it started blending, it took about 8 minutes to get to this.

The liquid is buttermilk,

And the butter, draining,

I had a gallon of cream, so it took several food-processor batches to make it all into butter. Once that was all done, it's time to rinse the butter. Use *cold* faucet water, and rinse till the water is pretty clear.

Salt, butter and plate for working the butter on.
Mixing the salt in and working the butter to get as much liquid out of it as possible,

From a gallon of cream, this is how much buttermilk I got,

And the finished product!

1 3/4 lbs of butter!

I hope you liked that! Next time I make cheese, I hope to take pictures also!

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Well there are many other updates that have been happenning the past few days around the farm. . . but I am very tired and need to go to bed, so that'll have to wait ;).

Goodnight,

Suriyah