Sheep are nothing if not subtle! As the weather has turned colder in the last couple of days (we have had snow flurries and frosts), we have started to give the sheep and alpacas a bit of hard feed. It amounts to less than a handful each but should be enough to provide a bit of extra warmth and energy without making any of them too fat!! Today was day two of our new regime and lo and behold, at approximately 3pm, the sheep were waiting at the gates, with the alpacas not too far behind!!! The photo is of Muckle, the rest were jostling for position nearer the opening!!!
We are hoping that Pluto will cotton on to what is happening with the feed and start to eat some alongside the adults. He still occasionally comes over for his milk but not often now – a good thing really!!! We mentioned alpaca 'male berserk syndrome' back in the summer – this is when a male becomes 'over familiar' with his human owners, something that can happen with bottle fed babies. It is in fact a hormonal change but is more likely to occur with cria that have become very tame. In Pluto’s case he is tame – ish but is showing no signs of over familiarity at all. This is good as the only way to sort it, is to castrate and we would like him to grow a bit bigger before we consider that!!