Autumn the Alpaca

This is Autumn, my Alpaca. Autumn and Daphne came me to live with me last August from Bird Farm Alpacas in Lampeter. I have known Emma and Rodney for some time and when I moved to Wales, only an hour from where they live I visited regularly and decided I wanted some Alpacas of my own. 

After lots of thought, meeting and greeting and discussions with Emma, I chose two ladies. Autumn and Daphne

Autumn has a skin condition where she loses hair on her ears, legs, nose and eyes and despite years of tests, treatment, trials, love and medicines by Emma she still had bald ears and puffy eyelids and a bald spot on her nose. You can see in the photos below how she looked....

What attracted me to Autumn was not her looks, but her peaceful manner and total acceptance of the ear washing and cream application, even though she hated it. And bless her, I loved how daft she looked with sudocreme on her ears and nose!

Since she has been with me, I have continued the treatment - washing with a mild antiseptic, drying and applying some sort of barrier cream every two to three days. In November I had to move them to a field a bit further away where warm water was not available, and so, in January I changed my treatment of Autumns skin. I thought that with treatment there was no change for the better, so how about leaving it untreated for a while and see what happens........and look at what has happened! The main photo shows Autumn with eyelashes and a furry nose, she looks so pretty now!I Unfortunately her ears are still totally hairless, but at least her face looks beautiful now, and I am hoping this hair growth will last - Emma thinks she is better suited to the damper conditions of winter, so we will see as the weather gets better what happens. But for now, I am over the moon happy with her pretty eyes :-)

I have added a photo of Daphne - my other wonky Alpaca, she had severe hip damage last year when she was kicked by a horse, but still managed to produce little Gus with no problem. She walks with a slight 'gait' now and has one really sticky up hip bone but is otherwise fit and healthy. She has a lovely nature, quite bossy and definitely not scared of human contact when its food time and I love her to bits. I'm going to start halter training her soon, can you imagine how funny it would be to take her for a walk through the village.........!

How did I ever get by without Alpacas in my life I'll never know, but these two lovelies make me smile every day (yes, even when I'm picking up their poo and its pouring with rain and I never get a lie in bed!)

I have their fleeces from last year which I am about to process, so I will post some photos when I'm doing it! 

Have a great day

Tina x