Farm visitors and frisky alpacas

I met a wonderful couple this morning that came out to the farm to pick out one of our Narragansett turkeys for Thanksgiving. They live local to us on a small farm. I had a very nice visit with them and look forward to chatting more when they come on Wednesday to pick up their dressed turkey.

On that note... I have three turkeys to butcher in the morning for customers to pick up on Wednesday! It should make for a long morning.

Our young male alpaca, Finley, turns a year old this week. He has, up until tonight, been peacefully living in with the girls because the only other pasture right now to put him in would be with our other two intact males that are three years old and I feared he would be picked on too much. Finley has not shown any interest in the girls before.. and I have been watching for it.. but tonight when I was down at the barn he was full of spunk and pronking around the pen. I turned around for a moment to move one of the feed bowls and I could here orgeling! I turned around and there was Finley cushed over our seven month old female cria Celia! She wanted nothing to do with him and popped right up. Male alpacas generally are not able to sucessfully breed until 2-3 years of age but there are more then a few documented cases of juvenile males being fertile. I have three older open girls in that pasture as well that I don't really want him to breed with. So, I moved him into the 10x10 catch pen in the barn for the night. He wasn't very happy about it and started humming right away. I hope he settled down quickly as the catch pen is in the barn loafing area that the girls have access too so he shouldn't feel too isolated from the herd, which includes his mom. I will be curious to check on him in the morning. Then I need to decide what to do with him from now on. I guess it is time for more fencing to go up!

Tonight the kids and I made pumpkin cookies. They helped me measure ingredients and mix the batter. Then they had fun rolling out the dough and then using my many cookie cutters to cut them into shapes. 12 minutes later... yummy!

I got an even dozen eggs from the chickens today. I have started painting another sign to advertise eggs for sale. Hopefully it will be done in a few days as I have about four dozen eggs in the house now.