Today was sunny but very cold and as we continue to lament at the slowness of the grass growth, our thoughts once again turn to our stocking levels. We are definitely going to advertise Pluto and Mars for sale and possibly Mercury too. Having three alpacas (Jupiter, Neptune and Venus) is a minimum and we feel this split is the most sensible in terms of who had bonded with whom. The only issue is if someone without alpacas is interested, they will need to get the two boys castrated asap so they don’t mate with Mercury, and really they are a bit too young still! We had thought we might need to castrate Pluto by now as bottle fed cria can get a little ‘over’ friendly and a way to sort this is castration. Pluto however has not given us any cause for concern. Ideally the best age to castrate alpacas is 18 months/ 2 years when they have really stopped growing, any younger and growth can be affected, although NOT health.
We will perhaps advertise the two boys as one sale and the addition of Mercury as a different choice and see what happens!!