Cleavers and alpacas! Our alpacas like nothing more than browsing along our hedge lines and tucking into what they find. Unfortunately this includes cleavers (as we know them). Cleavers have many names including: goosegrass, catchweed, stickyweed, robin-run-the-hedge and apparently sticky willy. Cleavers officially is a herbaceous annual plant that loves Spring Farm. As we are in higher level stewardship we don’t use herbicides except via spot spraying for thistles and docks so we have an abundance of wild flowers on the farm. This is both good and bad with cleavers in the latter category! This is because the seeds love alpacas and alpacas love putting their heads into hedges and in so doing, pick up a multitude of the seeds which are a nightmare to get out of the fleece.

Cleavers and alpacas!

As to what have cleavers ever done for us? Ancient Greek shepherds would use the barbed stems of cleavers to make a “rough sieve”, which could be used to strain milk. Linnaeus later reported the same usage in Sweden, a tradition that is still practiced in modern times according to Wikipedia.

In Europe, the dried, matted foliage of the plant was once used to stuff mattresses. Several of the bedstraws were used for this purpose because the clinging hairs cause the branches to stick together, which enables the mattress filling to maintain a uniform thickness. The roots of cleavers can be used to make a permanent red dye. I can safely say “I did not know that” and just hope that our alpacas steer clear somewhat more than Osiria has done.

Alpaca trekking (walking) here at Spring Farm has allowed us to meet some wonderful people and share our passion for alpacas, our farm and the amazing wildlife around us. Spring Farm is a working alpaca farm not a “petting farm” and we grow hay and haylage for sale out of our wildflower meadows. We are part of the Higher Level Stewardship scheme and as such use no pesticides or fertilisers on the farm. We don’t typically cut our wildflower hay till after the 15th July to allow for nesting birds and to allow our meadow wildflowers to flower and seed.

So far this year we have had three film crews on the farm. One has aired already (cBeebies) and the other two will air shortly. Our proximity to London and our amazing friendly alpacas are in part the reason, but I would also add the beautiful Sussex countryside and our wish to publicise alpacas in a positive way.

Our alpaca trekking or walking business is going really well and the main limitation is we only do one walk a day and don’t use the same alpacas to walk every day. We try and limit our walking group to a maximum of 8 walkers (except in special circumstances) that way the alpacas don’t become jaded and we get share around our walking duties between males/females/young and old alike!

Lastly, we also get to go off the farm occasionally to local and national events. We were very proud to take a “show” team to our local village festival – Fletching. We have also featured at the National Pet Show in London and will be at the Edenbridge and Oxted Show at the end of August.

If you are thinking about alpaca trekking or llama trekking for that matter, Spring Farm is an ideal place to do it. We are very proud to have been awarded a TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence for the second time running (we have only been open for 2 years for alpaca walking)!

Lastly, we now have all our baby alpacas on the ground and safely in the field with their mum’s. We had 29 babies this year and after a couple of sales of mum’s with cria at foot, there are 26 bouncing crias in our fields and all are doing well!

This weeks CBBC programme “Down on the farm” featured Spring Farm’s alpacas on CBeebies – and Vicki was centre stage. On the 18th March Spring Farm Alpacas was the setting for Down On The Farm. This is a brand new five-part series for CBeebies, which explores the outdoor world of farming and the countryside. From livestock to harvesting, presenters JB Gill and Storm Huntley discover where their food comes from and how it’s grown. JB and a production crew visited us on one of the coldest days in mid March and spent most of the day with us.

JB with Spring Farm alpaca goodies!

JB, Vicki, Millie and the film crew spent most of the day with us to ensure they had what they needed for the shoot. The alpacas were really well behaved and really took to JB. JB has a farm himself and is obviously comfortable in a farm surroundings and is great with the alpacas. On the CBeebies website, JB said “I spend a lot of time on the farm, so it will be great to share this experience with the CBeebies audience. This is a really exciting venture for me, and I look forward to learning more about farming throughout the show.”

Vicki, Millie and JB filming

One of the great features of alpaca fibre is its luxurious feel and warmth. Never was this so needed as on the day of the shoot. The weather was cold and grey and it was a real relief to get “hands on” with the alpacas who had virtually a full years fleece at that time – they have since been sheared as we head into the Summer.

Filming halter training

As it was too early for births, JB and Vicki spent their time feeding our alpacas, moving them from field to field and halter training. The video (CBeebies Down on the farm – series 2 episode 4) of the shoot can be seen at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b07bt3zl/down-on-the-farm-series-2-4-carrots-and-alpacas

Or there is an alpaca fact file on:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/watch/down-on-the-farm-alpaca-factfile

We really enjoyed having JB and the rest of his crew here and the alpacas were as good as gold. It would be nice to get them back when we have field full of baby alpacas (cria) but if you are interested in buying alpacas or booking an alpaca walk in the meantime, please get in touch.

Alpacas on CBeebies

Last weekend during “the Summer” Vicki and I attended the National Pet Show having been invited to attend back in the Winter. It was a pretty mad few days with the South of England Show on the Sunday/Monday of the weekend before followed by shearing our herd on Friday. Having finished at 8pm, we then packed up in preparation for driving to London’s Excel Arena on Saturday at 6am!

We were the only alpaca breeder at the show and featured in the “Animal Zone”. Vicki did the Saturday with the help of her little brother – also Chris – in setting up. I joined Vicki on the Sunday which gave us both a chance to look around the rest of the show. We took three boys – Obelix, Neptune and Oberon.

The show is really well attended and we spent two days talking constantly and asking questions. The first questions are invariably “Are they Llamas?” and “Do they spit?”. Happily we were on hand to educate. The two days were punctuated by trips to Costa Coffee and checking out if any of the exhibits were relevant to alpacas – watch this space!

Alpacas always generate a huge amount of interest and if we could breed mini alpacas who could thrive on roof gardens, we would have emptied the farm in a day! As it was, the press did feature us and in particular Obelix in The Daily Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/08/pictures-of-the-day-8-may-2016/obelix-the-alpaca-at-the-national-pet-show/

We hope to have spread the word as far as alpacas are concerned and also hope to entice members of the animal loving public to venture out to Sussex to try their hand at alpaca walking.

National Pet Show

Baby llama alert! We have had out llama girls for just under a year and yesterday, Mandola gave birth to a beautiful light fawn girl! Mandola (and Suada – the two pregnant female llamas) came to us from Italy and the weather of the last few days probably reminds her of the South Tyrol where she was born!

Llama gestation is the same as alpacas and a baby llama is typically born after 11.5 months. Mandola is a first time mum but gave birth without any problems and her new cria is doing really well and suckling perfectly. She has a little coat on as we seem to have reverted into Winter today with sleet and freezing winds.

We have yet to name the little girl bit will update you when we have a name.

Suada is due to give birth any day as well and then the two crias will be able to play together. The first alpacas are due to give birth in just under a month – so its a busy time here

at Spring Farm Alpacas (and Llamas!)

We were really fortunate today to have a wonderful Spring bluebell walk with Gareth, Alex, Mia, Roy, Dawn and Jade here at Alpaca Walking with Spring Farm Alpacas. In our woods there are currently carpets of wood anemones and bluebells. Our woodland is ancient woodland which you can tell by the wood anemone coverage.

As you walk by the woods, the aroma is subtle but so reminiscent of an English wood in Springtime. A lot of commercially grown bluebells are not our native variety and don’t have a scent – a real shame.

A few interesting facts about bluebells…The UK is home to approximately half the worlds population of bluebells. To tie in with our local village of Fletching, Bluebell sap was used in the middle ages to glue feathers onto arrows. Also, the bluebell is dedicated to the patron saint of England – St.George – and last year, the bluebell was voted England’s favourite wild flower (followed by the primrose and poppy – in that order).

The alpacas were exceptionally well behaved when we stopped for a photo break. It is almost as if they were taking in the backdrop as well! A bluebell walk with our alpacas is a real Spring highlight of the year and all too soon the woodland canopy fills in with leaves and the bluebells fade away. If you want to savour this very English experience, get in touch ASAP and book your alpaca walk whilst there is still time!

I took a quick walk around the farm this afternoon and took some pictures of the Spring flowers that are now coming out. As I set foot outside the door, there were three mallards on the lawn searching for worms after the recent rain.

I then went through the middle of the farm taking in the bluebells and wood anemones in one of our tracts of ancient woodland (Sounders Wood). I then crossed over to Rigg Wood where there are a large number of fallow deer – although with a lot of leaf litter in the wood it is almost impossible to be silent and approach them.

The woodlands are particularly magnificent at this time of year with the anemones just coming off and the bluebells taking over. One of the pictures is of a wild white bluebell.

Today, looking out of the bedroom window we were lucky enough to see a grey heron in “Gate” field. This is the first time we have seen one at Spring Farm on the ground. We presume it was picking up worms but in any case, it avidly stalked around the field.

Grey heron – from our bedroom window

Whilst watching the heron, we noticed a dog fox at the bottom of the field. It was behind the heron and intent on an early breakfast.

Sneaking up

Heron’s are pretty crafty themselves and this one took off before Mr Fox would get within range. It then flew across the field and settled down again. This gave Mr Fox another opportunity but only momentarily as the heron decided enough was enough and flew off for a more relaxing breakfast elsewhere!

Too slow! The heron takes off