Dreamsicle Arrives

5/17/13 Sad news, it turns out the Dreamsicle had a fungal infection at some point in the past and it spread to his brain. We started noticing some small tremors and he was never able to gain any weight. He died on Mother's Day- very sad. We miss the little guy!

Last Wednesday, we bought a new alpaca, his name is Dreamsicle although we'll call him Dreamy most of the time. He's about 7 months old and looks to be an eating machine, his head has been in the hay trough most of the time since he arrived. He's considered a Light Fawn color, the name Dreamsicle is because he has a small, almost orange area of fleece on the back of his neck. It was more pronounced when he was a baby and the light color is a little wider now. He's in good health and we have him penned with our two smallest/youngest boys, Hershey and Toby. They seem to be getting along, a little bumping and pushing when let out to run a bit but normal for boys. Over the next few weeks, we'll slowly introduce him to the 3 larger boys but will most likely keep him separated for a while just because of the size differences. Here are a couple of pictures after he arrived and started to settle in. That's Toby behind him in the first picture and Hershey looking on in the second. Donna is getting ready to leave the small pen. She watches the boys like a hawk, we have a web cam mounted in the barn so we can check them when they are inside.

Here's one more picture of a little guy we saw at Bear Garden Farm called Pepe. He has beautiful fleece but has a problem with an open abcess on one of his legs. Vets are working it through and if his prognosis is good, we might think about bringing him here to Hidden Bend Retreat for some extra care. More later on his story. We love his coloring!