I have been discussing Guard Dogs and Guard Alpaca a lot recently. not all dogs and not all Alpaca are cut out for the job and certainly in the Alpaca case they should be adults and castrates or likely to mount the sheep. However, at Kensmyth, we keep all our species separately so don’t have that problem and have excellent Guard animals LOL

well we have had some very exciting Visitors to Kensmyth in the week recently and Alpaca Genetics have been the topic of conversation, including Importing new ones – bit of a hint there I think.

Meantime, a visit I was not happy about was as a result of the ongoing issue with the horse kick (not mine) I had back in August 18 and my right leg found me in hospital for X Rays yet again…

I have been told it will take a very long time for the injury to heal but is it healing?

wow – we are switching from frost

to warm sun to wet

to frost again –

who has control of the Weather switch ?

well you guessed it – as I knew you would. The latest resident Equine to join Team Kensmyth Equines at our Alpaca farm is this stunning colt miniature horse. yes horse not pony folks.

not much taller than a bale of hay or the dog…

to the right our stunning homebred 2018 seven and a half month colt PONY, to the left the 6.5 month mini HORSE

Thank you to Simon our Farrier for letting me take this photo – if you want to put in perspective how small this colt is, my hands are a small size 7 and these are his tiny hooves…

no words can describe how beautiful this sunset was but boy was it cold too!

well, as went through who had to be WEANED from the different herd groups and when, we discussed many things and one of them was of how someone had said (apparently) that I bred miniature ponies.

I did laugh at the time because our British Spotted Ponies although ponies are definitely not Miniatures! Anyway as we moved from group to group ( I soooo hate weaning as a Mum it goes right through me to take cria from their Mothers no matter how old, big or heavy in weight they are) we discussed the virtues of the Colt born to Kensmyth this year who is really rather stunning.

Those in the know (Alpaca Breeders) know it takes ages to separate the right groups and we wean by sex with a mind to colour (most don’t know Alpaca are colour prejudice which means if you put 2 white cria with a dark colour they will bully it and vice versa) so it took a while. Big chunky monkey cria all been on hard food for months!

By the end of it we had decided on many things, including the colt and I wonder if you can work out what the most recent cherished gift addition to Kensmyth Equines was LOL???

I have been known to put many folk off the idea of Farming. Those who think it is all sunny outside and fluffy lambs often get a shock when the harsh reality of true farming and Winter sets in. Try today for example..

   no café coffees and hot chocolate here

I have been reading some hilarious blogs on the way some folk “keep” their Alpaca… sorry but I am going to say what I think on my own Blog page, it is my opinion after all, but here at Kensmyth, they are “kept” naturally – that means as free as possible and as close to their origins…

in cold weather (not wet and cold) they love being outside, it is what their fleeces are for after all…

      how stunning is that

what better way to welcome January 2019 than with something slightly different that I have personally never seen before?

Blue Lilies – that also smelt heavenly…

and I could not but fall in love with these roses too…