The gift of keeping alpacas is amazing and lasts all year. How can we give back? What can we get better at? How do we do it? Being intentional is a great place to start. Plan to build on what you are already good at, or things you need to improve or add into your repertoire.
Next year could be a great step forward if we approach it with intention.
Alpaca Tribe is hosted and produced by Steve Heatherington of Waterside Voices.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy
Transcripts
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[00:00:25] Hi, Steve here and welcome to the podcast for Alpaca People. Hey, how are you doing? Happy holidays, happy Christmas and all that. Alpacas. Don't care, do they? It's just another day. Uh, and you might feel a little bit like that as well, but hopefully not. Hopefully you're enjoying spending some time with friends, family, a good book, some good podcasts.
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[00:01:24] And the gift that we can give them. Our alpacas is to understand them a bit more, to interact with them on their terms a bit more and care for them in the best way we can. We, we do that. We, we aim to do that. That's our, our plan. But how about next year? We, we try even harder. What are the things that we can do?
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[00:02:16] Now, now, don't wait. Don't go waiting for having as much information as you possibly, ever, possibly, possibly could, ever have. That's too much. You need enough to be safe for you and for your animals, but then you need to get on and do, and do it in small steps. Do the small things. Do the things that are gonna make a difference and that are gonna build confidence.
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[00:03:09] There are curiosities that we need to satisfy because that's an interesting spell. Let's check. It isn't fly strike or whatever and there's Olympic alpaca. We need to, to. We need to intervene at times, and that's part of our responsibility. So those are things that we can do, but learning in small steps, building the knowledge, building the experience, interacting with other people.
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[00:04:05] The birthing preparations and all that kind of stuff. If you are, if you're breeding and. Animals getting older. The fleece is not growing as long as it used to. Do they need coats? Where can you source a coat? Don't wait till the last minute, till the cold weather arrives, but have some in advance. And it does make such a difference.
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[00:04:47] So older animals is a good. A thing to be thinking about. There are things we can do better, things that we can care for in terms of their, uh, nutrition, what do they need, how much do they need? And that kind of thing. So that's something I'm hoping to revisit in more detail during 2025. Oh, oh. That's, I think that's the first time I've said that.
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[00:05:48] And breathe. Go spend some time with their alpacas if you can, if you get a chance to, they still need feeding. They still need seeing too. And, uh, most of the other guests, if you've got guests in the house, they, they like it, they like to come visit and to see, but if the weather's not so good, mm oh oh, oh, we're just gonna have a cup of tea.
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[00:06:25] And, uh, it was so cold the lake had frozen at this bottom end where. Uh, there's not as much movement and therefore the, the, the skin, the little bit of ice turned into thicker eyes got really quite thick, thankfully, and I'd had, this was one of the early years and I'd had the, the girls and the career up on the terraces and decided to bring them back.
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[00:07:07] They do like, they do alpacas, just love the excitement of doing something new and fresh, uh, and, and slightly naughty. I think they got, uh, we, we could all relate to that. I think. So there they were. There they were heading down the carpark and I, you know, sorted after them. And Heri, she wandered down the carpark and then she wandered onto the ice.
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[00:07:45] Skittering around and, and she decided she was gonna sit down. God cut my feet, I'm gonna sit. So she just ced down and she sat there looking a bit. Hmm. And I was hurrying across going, oh, I, now what do I do? And they'd all closed the curtains in the house. Not that they would've seen me anyway, I don't think, but they decided, oh, it's, uh, Steve's, Steve's doing that.
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[00:08:28] I couldn't attract to anybody's attention. Didn't have, I, I dunno whether I even had a phone though. I must have had a phone, but I didn't have a phone, uh, to be able to get a phone through Anyway, so I, I, I, um, oh, what do you do in a situation like that? So I, I kind of laid down and stretched myself out on the ice and very, very carefully for any sounds of the ice cracking.
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[00:09:18] I'm sure it wasn't very comfortable. I'm sorry, have my knee for that, for doing that, but it was, it was an emergency. I needed to get you off the ice. So I grabbed an, and I pulled and she skidded. I kind of, kind of slid her across the ice and as she got to the edge of the ice and ready to get back into the car, she just kind of whoop and popped to her.
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[00:10:00] Thank you. So I'm glad that all turned out well. Uh hmm. So avoiding situations is a good thing to do. So be prepared. Do the stuff and when you have to go and do them by the, do the feeding and the whatever by yourself, then do take care. But go spend some time with the alpacas. We, we got some treats for them.
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[00:10:44] On Christmas day as I record this, it's Christmas Eve towards the night before Christmas when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. Uh, memory, memory fail at this point. I can't remember where, where it goes after that. That always used to be part of the family tradition reading that story, but it's not night yet.
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[00:11:32] Make some space for you and your alpacas and breathe. Have a good time. I'll be doing another episode, another short one for New Year's Day, and that's only a week away. Take care. Bye for now. See you again soon.
