King William Alpacas News

Shearing!

2012-04-23T00:00:00-04:00

We finished shearing all our animals and now of course its turning a little cold. Its supposed to get down into the mid 30's the next two nights so we will close up the barn for them. I have found that by closing the doors the temp. in the barn will increase by almost 20 degrees with all the animals inside.

We still have a couple of other farms to shear for and then we will be done for the year. Next step, skirting fleece!

Almost Spring

2012-02-29T00:00:00-05:00

It’s not quite spring yet but the signs are all there. The seed catalogs are looking a bit tired from all the attention and the daffodils are up and ready to bloom.

Our market garden has been disked up and the compost pile is almost ready to go into it. The seeds we ordered this winter have all come in and the garden planting is all planned out.

The weather guessers are calling for it to be 78 tomorrow. I guess the alpacas will not be happy with the sudden change. We are all wondering what happened to Winter this year. Its very tempting to start shearing in March but I have to remember what happened last time we did that. It snowed Easter! There is nothing sadder than to see a bunch of naked alpacas shivering in your field. (some goodwill shirts solved the problem) We will start shearing mid April again so we have time to go through the equipment one more time.

Too early to plant, too early to shear, a tough time of year.

Winter is Here!

2011-11-17T00:00:00-05:00

Ready or not its that time of year again. Living on a farm we have already done most of our work to get ready for Winter.

We have put up lots of canned and frozen produce from our garden. We also tried dehydrating tomatoes and packing them in olive oil this year for the first time. Linda canned a awful lot of stuff but it gives you a warm feeling just opening the pantery and looking at it all.

All our crias for the year are now on the ground. We dont like having Winter babies here. We will have six alpacas this year to see their first snow. Its always amazing to watch them play in the snow. Then of course they figure their food is covered up and the fun is over!

We checked the heaters for the waterers. The alpacas like a warm drink in the winter. The tractor has fresh oil and the block heater works. Most important we have plenty of hay to last until Spring flush.

We had a lot of trees knocked down from the hurricane that still need to be cut up for firewood or burned. The works a lot easier now that its not so hot.

There will be eleven alpacas going to their new home soon, incuding one that was born just two days ago. They wont be going to far so we can always help the new owners with this difficult time of year. Altouugh I think its harder on us than the alpacas.

We still have a few fleeces to skirt. It would be best to do it soon while I can still feel my fingers, so I best get back to work.

New Shipping Rates!

2011-11-15T00:00:00-05:00

New rates for shipping will be in effect until Jan.1st. Most shipping will average $5.00 and none over $10.00!

Rates for Canada are higher.

Fall Has Arrived!

2011-10-01T00:00:00-04:00

The tradition continues and just gets bigger and better every year. This will be our 5th year at this great hometown event and once again we will be on main street in front of the Post Office.

We will have lots of alpaca products for sale as well as our farm honey and handmade soaps and creams.

If you havent seen us in a while, come and get your alpaca fix, Saturday, October 1st. We will of course have a couple of our wonderful animals along with us. They are a hit with folks of all ages.

Summer Is Here!

2011-06-29T00:00:00-04:00

Yes its the season we love to hate. Here in Virginia its already in the upper 90's in early July.

We have had some rain this year compared to last when our pastures were down to bare earth by now and the temps. were 102-105. It looks like the local grain farmers will have a good year this year to help overcome the terrible year last. Our bee hives are doing well and we look foward to lots of honey from them to sell.

We plan to try some new markets this year for our produce. I think prices will be good for us this year. More folks seem to want to buy local.

Shearing

2011-05-31T00:00:00-04:00

Another shearing season is finally done. We did a few crias Saturday for a client and it is just in time for the comming heat. They are calling for 98 degrees the comming week.

Get those alpacas naked folks!

Fish For Your Alpacas!

2011-04-15T00:00:00-04:00

We sprayed fish and kelp emulsion fertilizer last week on the 8th and now have very green grass (04/15) in our pastures.

This fertilizer seems to speed up pasture recovery time, adds micro nutrients to the pasture, and is organic for those who want to go that way. It does help add calcium to the pasture which is often low. The smell does last a couple of days but is not too bad. The alpacas dont seem to mind the smell but horses are often put off by it. Your dog will love to roll in it.

So far the cost is less than petroleum based fertilizer which of course has no micronutrients and is tied hard to the price of oil.

Make your alpacas happy, buy them some fish!

Skirt A Fleece In Under 15 Minutes

2011-04-10T00:00:00-04:00

Check out our gallery section on our web site or on our Facebook site for a way to make this annual chore much easier. This is a great way to get your fleece ready to send out for yarns or other finised products but dont try it on a fleece intended for show, its too rough on the fiber structure.

Carolina Alpaca Celabration

2011-01-12T00:00:00-05:00

We are busy getting this years crop of young alpacas ready for the show season. Of course some are easier to train than others. I am sure they will all be ready in time for the show. I have attached some pictures of the girls when they were younger. Come to the show and see how much they have grown. We again have some really beautiful animals to show this year.

The show will be for two days, Feb. 19

Alpaca Ornaments

2010-11-09T00:00:00-05:00

Just a few last minute things to take care of for the up comming Virginia Christmas Market. We have been busy making a few alpaca ornaments to decorate the booth with. I think they came out looking pretty good!

We started by making a template which was then traced onto the plywood. We made a book of plywood 10 pieces deep and taped the sides together to keep the pieces from moving. We then used a bandsaw to cut out this book and so ended up with 10 alpaca blanks. We got a acrylic paint set from Ben Franklin for $5.00. The acrylic is nice because it covers in one coat, cleans up with water, and dries fast. We then added a few stickers and called it done.

This would be a great kids project. Just make sure to use lots of plastic and newspaper to contain the mess.

Of course some of you very artistic folks out there would probably want to paint them to look like your own alpacas.

We Welcome The Fall

2010-11-01T00:00:00-04:00

We are finally into the fall season. We have had some rain of late and our pastures are very lush and the alpacas are happy with the nip in the air. They of course don’t mind sleeping outdoors when we have a frost and it’s interesting to go to the barn in the early morning and see all our colored animals are white from frost.

There are a few projects we need to do to get ready for the winter, like changing the grade near the barn for better drainage. Linda is putting mouse guards on the beehives and starting to feed the bees to help build up their stores for the winter.

We are fairly new to Facebook and are surprised at the number of folks who follow us there. We often have people come up to us at different events and tell us they saw where we were going to be on Facebook.

We look forward to going to the Virginia Christmas Market this month. This will be our first time at this event and it lasts three days. We have been very picky about new products for this event and our web store, but I think folks will love the new offerings we will have. Later in December we will be at the Gloucester Holiday Festival. This event was snowed out last year, but we had a white Christmas! I am sure it will be a great time this year.

We have been talking with the wonderful folks at House of ‘Phia. They import the beautiful handmade shawls for us from Bolivia. If all goes well we hope to have some more varied products from them soon so keep checking our web store for some nice and unusual Christmas Gifts.

For our yarn customers we have greatly expanded our yarn selection this year. We have everything from rovings and yarns from our own animals to hand dyed or painted yarns and blends for the fiber artisans out there

We know all our fiber customers will be as warm and happy as our alpacas this season and we thank you all for your support.

Bees Pay!

2010-09-07T00:00:00-04:00

Jar of fresh Honey!

We harvested the honey from several hives today. We have one pound jars both with and without comb. Sold at the farm or at farmers markets only.