“Erm, I think we had better get outside, Rafa is humping his Mum,” I said.
“Oh bugger. I guess that means it’s time to separate them?”
We ran outside to interrupt the act, and immediately split Rafa from the group by putting him in a small field, next to the girls, but with a fence and a gate between them to stop him interacting with them. But he could still see them.
“Oh, look at him,” Lorna said sadly. Rafa was standing right up against the fence, looking longingly towards his Mum.
“He’ll be fine, don’t worry. We will just have to get him some friends as soon as possible.”
We toyed with the idea of trying to find a miniature donkey for Rafa to have as a companion, but in the end we decided alpacas were best. We contacted a breeder from Gaucin, a small village behind Marbella, and arranged to buy two very cheap, young blue-eyed males, just to keep as company for Rafa. We had to endure two weeks of poor Rafa pining for his Mum, and hardly moving away from the fence, looking forlorn.
After the two weeks of paperwork and arranging transport, Marcus and Alejandro arrived. We moved Rafa and his new buddies around to a new area at the front of the house that we had prepared for them, and all seemed calm. After a few settling in days, despite Rafa being definitely bottom of the pile in terms of hierarchy, they calmed down into a good routine, slowly munching their way through the weeds and rough grass in their paddock.
One day, we had been into Montoro to do our weekly shop, and on our way up the hill to the house, I was unable to see the boys in their paddock.
“That’s strange,” I said. “I can’t see the boys.”
As we passed the girls’ paddock we could see why.
“There they are, bloody hell, they’ve escaped.” Lorna said.
The boys had indeed escaped and we were looking at our three girls, sitting calmly along the floor in a line, all facing away from us while Rafa, Marcus and Alejandro were having a ‘Barry White’ moment. We jumped out of the car hoping that it had only just started and shouted, yelled and clapped loudly, trying to stop the boys. Although it was very difficult, I might add, we did somehow manage to chase them back to their paddock.
We had read in our research that usually, alpaca boys don’t become fertile until around three years old. Given that all these boys were young, we hoped that the mating would prove unsuccessful. After all the disasters we had suffered we just were not ready for more emotional turmoil. As the weeks passed, the girls’ behaviour didn’t seem to change and we put it out of our minds, believing that we had had a lucky escape.
Looking back now, we could (and probably should) have done some spit-offs with the girls. This is a way of testing if a female alpaca is pregnant; by introducing her to a male. If she is not pregnant, she will invariably sit down for him to mate her. If she is pregnant, she will spit at him. I’m sure there are many men who will sympathise with the poor male alpaca that gets that job.
35 Alpaca Chasing
Animal count: Five dogs, two feral cats, two chickens and eight alpacas (Cassandra, Lily, Bermuda, Rafa, Galaxy, Eduardo, Marcus and Alejandro).
In March, Lorna made the trip back, this time to be there (well, not actually there this time) for the birth of her next grandchild. Mark’s baby was due any day and we were expecting the worst to happen when Lorna was away, so I decided to not to try to do too much, just stay at home and make sure all the animals were all right. However, one day, Miguel pulled up outside, just for a little chat about the weather and the olives, and I had opened the gate. When I came back in, obviously I had forgotten to lock the gate behind me. We very rarely have visitors, so security is often the last thing on our minds.
After an hour or so, the dogs were being very quiet and everything seemed calm, so I went out to check that all was as it should be. To my surprise, the alpaca boys were not where they should be, again. I couldn’t see them anywhere and the front gate had been pushed slightly ajar. A slight wave of panic hit me, as I realised that the boys (that’s the non-fence challenging alpaca boys), had gone under their paddock fence, found their way around to the front gate and pushed it open. God knows where they were, or how long they had been gone.
As luck would have it, Miguel was still around, working as always on his tractor, and he pointed me in the direction of his house, where there is a large area of land with a reasonable covering of grass. Our animals are used to living on dry food, hay and alfalfa and whatever grass we manage to grow on our land, so if there is any possibility to feed on a patch of lush vegetation, that is obviously too good an opportunity to miss.
So I trudged over to the boys, trying to work out how on earth I was going to herd them back to our house. The normal food trick was going to be no good: they were out to get the food that was there, which was a better option than I could offer. Without fencing, grabbing an alpaca is nigh on impossible as they are flight animals. That is to say, if they are frightened, they run. They don’t fight, they get away, and when they run, boy can they run!
After a few minutes’ walk, they came into sight, and I breathed a sigh of relief; at least I knew where they were. However the lack of fencing around made it difficult and I didn’t want to upset them and chase them further away. I enlisted the tractor-driving Miguel to follow them and slowly usher them back in the direction of the house. Although he was keen, while I was trying to be quiet and not upset them, he was using his Spanish farmer’s animal call which sounds a little bit like a Red Indian attack cry. Of course every time he did this the alpacas freaked a little and we were back to square one.
After a few attempts I managed to get him to be quiet, and luckily good old Ramon drove past so we managed to get him involved too. We had to endure the initial attempts of Ramon believing himself to be master of the animals and trying to grab the alpacas, but they were far too quick for him. So, on the bonnet of his dirty old pickup truck, I sketched out a plan with my finger. I drew the gates to our house and the alpacas. Then I drew three little stick men, one to represent me, behind the alpacas driving them forward, and two more either side of the alpacas to keep them from going left or right.
I gestured to Ramon and Miguel that under no circumstances were they to shout or call. They were to keep their arms up, and wave them around if the alpacas tried to pass them. After about 15 minutes of maybe ten metres forward, five metres back, and various eating stops for the boys, we crept over the hill nearing the gate. I was praying that no cars went past, because no matter what we are doing, our local farmers always toot their horns and if that happened I knew we would lose them again.
I had left the gate open, both to the fence surrounding the house and the gate to the alpacas’ paddock. As it came into view, and I was trying to figure out the next move, the three boys just trotted back into their paddock without any fuss or encouragement from us. Alpacas do have a way of making you look stupid sometimes, as if they know what they are doing. Sometimes we might be trying to clip toe-nails, or the vet might be taking a blood sample, and the animal will fight for maybe 30 minutes and just when you think it’s an impossible task, you say to yourself, one more go. Then they just stand there and let you do it as though nothing has happened. It is the most frustrating feeling in the world.
I once saw a documentary about the making of a film that featured some alpacas amongst other animals, and the animal trainer said that alpacas were the hardest animals he had ever worked with, much harder than even lions and tigers. They just do whatever they want to do.
36 Flystrike
Animal count: Five dogs, two feral cats, three new feral kittens (we decided to name them Andres, Fernando and Sergio, in honour of the Spanish World Cup winning team), two chickens and eight alpacas.
The worst thing about living in Andalucía, for me, and much worse than the searing heat, are the flies. During the summer and into October, flies become the most annoying thing in my life. No matter how many doors and windows that you close behind you, some always get in, and by the end of s
ummer they even seem to become immune to sprays.
One of the things you hear about when researching farm animals, and talking to other owners, is something called flystrike. Flystrike is when an animal has a wound, or a collection of hair matted with faeces, and a blowfly comes and lays its eggs in the wound, whereupon they hatch and become maggots. If this isn’t caught, the cycle can keep going: when the maggots become flies, they lay more eggs and the problem escalates.
One morning, we went out to feed the alpacas and Lorna noticed some blood on the back of Cassandra’s legs.
“Err, Alan, have a look at Cassandra, there seems to be some blood around her lady-bits!”
“Oh God, what now? Yep, I can see it, let’s get a hold of her.”
We closed them in their field shelter, where we always feed them, and, while Lorna got a hold of Cassandra, I lifted her tail for a better look.
“She seems to have cut herself, I need to take a better look. Hang on, try and keep her still.”
As I looked closer, and used my hands to look into the wound, I could see what looked like bubbles. I didn’t really know what they were, but I had an idea.
“I think she’s got flystrike and there are eggs in there. Maybe we should get some tweezers and get them out. I don’t mind doing it.”
So we got the tweezers, but I couldn’t get hold of the eggs, and once again we were forced to phone Manuel, and make the hour-long round trip to collect him. On the journey I explained the problem to him. He was convinced it was flystrike but would check when he arrived.
Lorna again held Cassandra, while I watched as Manuel dealt with her. When he looked, he could see what I saw.
I said, “I think there are eggs here,” and pointed to the bubbles.
“No, they are the maggots. It is the back end; they breathe through there and eat the dead flesh from the front, burrowing their way in.”
So what I thought had been eggs were in actual fact the back ends of the maggots, about two days into their life cycle. It sounded horrific, and we were really worried about Cassandra, but as Manuel took hold of the maggots with long tweezers, and pulled them out one by one, they left behind little holes where they had been, like a little honeycomb. It was very interesting in a morbid way, and left a very clean wound which was easy to manage. We gave Cassandra an antibiotic injection, and had a daily cleaning and cream ritual, but in no time the wound was healing.
Sadly, about a week after the antibiotics, Cassandra aborted a very small cria early one morning. Obviously, she had become pregnant during the boys’ escape. Although we were a little upset, we knew that the pregnancy had not been planned, and it was better that she was healthy. Of course, as she had been pregnant, this did raise the issue that the other two girls were also pregnant, and if so, they should be due around Christmas. We talked about Lily’s previous premature birth, and we decided that if it was meant to be, all would be okay. We just had to cross our fingers.
A week or so later, we actually had a repeat of the flystrike problem, this time, in a wound in between the toes on Rafa’s foot. We were able to deal with it ourselves this time, and his foot made a quick and full recovery. So far, they have been our only instances of this horrendous problem, but it is something we are always on the lookout for in the summer: it can manifest itself so quickly.
37 Eggs in the Morning?
Although we had had more than our fair share of setbacks and heartache, and we had put the house on the market just to see if anything happened (the worldwide recession was starting to bite), we were beginning to settle into our new life. We had no money, really no money apart from for essentials, shopping and gas plus petrol for the car.
We could no longer afford to go out for meals, or to buy each other presents for birthdays and Christmas, although we always put some aside for presents for loved ones. But yet, as we walked the dogs in the mornings, breathing the fresh morning air in springtime or enjoying a thunderstorm of rain at the end of summer, our lives had really changed. We no longer slaved away at our jobs, never seeing each other, and having no time to appreciate life.
Instead of having the latest innovative mobile phone or device, we still have the original phone we bought when we arrived, now well into its fifth year of life, held together by a raggedy piece of gaffer tape.
If we could just sort out our finances, we could stay here forever. We have certainly grown accustomed to the way of life here, and when we talk to people who say, “We would love to do this one day, maybe when the kids are older,” we always groan to ourselves or allow each other a little smirk knowing it will never happen. Why wait until the kids are older? If you move when they are young, they will learn the language in no time, probably within six months. Why make a three, five or even ten-year plan? Who ever knows what is around the corner.
As our two little chickens had managed to avoid the threat of any local wildlife having them for dinner, we decided to add to our brood by going out one day to a farm in Cordoba where we had heard it was possible to buy all sorts of chickens. We were enjoying the few eggs we got from our two, so we decided half a dozen more would be an added attraction around the farm (plus we have kind of fallen in love with chickens, they are just so funny).
We headed out one day in early summer in Frank, the mobile greenhouse, and made for the farm we’d been told about. When we pulled off the road, I think we had been expecting a large warehouse, comprising neat rows of cages, with all different types of chickens. But when we pulled into the yard, things could have not been more different. There were crates spread about the floor with rocks on top to stop individual cockerels from escaping. We could see large wheeled cages, similar to supermarket delivery cages, with hundreds of young, balding chickens, geese and ducks.
We felt sorry for these confined birds, but we had come here to get chickens, so we had to ask the man. He brought us over what could only be described as a chicken menu, on which he pointed out the best breeds to live in the campo, for producing eggs, not meat.
We chose three pairs of different coloured birds: two black/brown, two white, and two speckled grey girls. They were brought out unceremoniously hanging by their feet from the man’s hands, swinging as though they had had their necks wrung and were to be plucked for dinner. But he thrust them into a cardboard box and they huddled in a corner, starting to cluck a little. We loaded them in the car, and set off.
As I am sure many holidaymakers and expats will tell you, road signs in Spain can be haphazard to say the least, so in my haste to get home, I took the first turning signposted back to Cordoba. As we followed the road, however, winding through fields of hay and sunflowers, we realised we had gone wrong. We could see the motorway, about 300 metres away, running parallel with the small road we were now following. It was over 40 degrees, and I was beginning to panic that by the time we got home, the chickens would be ready-roasted. Eventually, after about 40 extra kilometres of countryside driving, we managed to get back on to the motorway and I put my foot down to get us home quickly.
When we got there and opened the box, it was a relief to find them all still with us. We carried the box to the field where the ‘chicken shed’ is, and let them out. It was strange, but they seemed to move as one. They all huddled into a corner, clucking and pecking at each other, and although we tried to move them around, going behind them and clapping and shouting, they moved together, as though they were stuck together. We worked out that they must have been living in such cramped conditions that it was a real culture shock for them to be free, and although we would have loved to save more animals from a horrid life, we are pleased that they now have a great time, running around with the alpacas. We get plenty of eggs as a reward!
38 Poor Lily
Animal count: Five dogs, five feral cats, eight chickens (we decided to name the new chickens after some of our elderly relatives, so the six new ones were named Audrey, Eileen, Mabel, Jess, Marge and Jean, and they joined Beyonce and J-lo) and eight alpacas.
All of
a sudden, at the beginning on November, almost a year to the day since Lily lost her last baby, we were outside letting the girls do some ‘gardening’ for us, by eating the weeds that had grown up with the autumn rain. I had said to Lorna recently that I was sure Lily was looking a bit rounder, but we were not convinced, because, of course, her fleece was building up with the cold weather.
“I think you’d better see this,” I said to Lorna, watching Lily roll around in the dust. “Look, her boobies are huge. I think that confirms it, she’s pregnant.”
“Oh God, let’s hope she can hold on for a bit then, she isn’t due till Christmas.”
So I rushed in to have a look online to see how early alpacas come into milk before they are due to birth. My mind was put at rest when I read that it can be at least a month before the birth, and Lily was about six weeks away from being due.
“I do hope she can hold on this time, it was so awful last time. I just want it to be okay for her,” Lorna said.
The following week, we popped out to run some errands in town. We hadn’t left until late morning, and all seemed fine. On our return, I was reversing into our courtyard to unload some shopping, and I could see Lily sitting in the girls’ stable with what looked like a nervous little dog next to her. I was out of the car quickly.
“I think there’s a dog in the stable,” I shouted “Oh shit, nope, it’s a baby. Lily has had her baby.”
Inside the stable, sitting next to Lily, was a little brown female cria. We turned her over to give her a clean, but noticed that she was bleeding from her umbilical cord and there were patches of blood on the floor of the stable. We couldn’t be sure if it was from the baby or from the birth.
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