Well, now that you have read about "The Colonel", let’s talk about his girls. Our hens fall into two categories, the new and the old. This designation has absolutely nothing to do with the age of the girls, but everything to do with the time when we acquired them.

The four old hens came with the farm, although finer hens we couldn't have chosen. The new girls are ones we brought home with us from a special trip to the mainland. FYI, the names didn't come with the birds, they were chosen by my children. This post focuses on the old girls.

"Zig" and "Zag" are two of the old girls. They are Barred Rocks who lay the most beautiful brown eggs. There is only one person in the house who can tell them apart: my son Kahana. He can even look just at the eggs and tell you which one laid it. I think maybe we need to get him into more hobbies. Currently Zig (or maybe it's Zag) is the Colonel’s mi amore.


"Martha", and we are not talking about Martha Stewart here, is a Buff Orpington just like The Colonel. Martha is a sweet girl who lays soft brown eggs. She is gentle and will gladly eat out of your hand. Over the past couple of months we had thought and hoped that Martha was broody (i.e. sitting on the eggs until hatching) -- but eventually she gets up and leaves them. Maybe she will reconsider in the spring. Interestingly, the eggs don’t all have to be her own. She is just as happy to sit on whose ever eggs are in the nest box.


"Henny Penny" is so much more than one can imagine. She is a nervous Nelly who seems always to be worried about something. Henny is usually our visitors’ favorite because of her unique appearance and curious ways. She is a Golden Bearded Polish who lays smooth white eggs. Polish are a crested breed, which means that they have a top hat of sorts. We are not sure, but think that this elaborate headdress affects her vision and balance. Henny seems to run into things when she gets excited. Another reason she is a farm favorite is her flying ability.

Our home is situated on a hill and the coop is on the lower slope. When we call the girls over for a treat, Henny uses the slope as a runway and flies on down. This is truly a glorious sight, we have even caught her on the barn roof.



I have included photos below of our girls. For more information on the breeds and just because it is a fun site here is a link to a hatchery that we like.

Fall is really here. We've had a couple of days of frost in the past week. The girls greet me in the morning with billowy breath. It is so calm here, our baby was born, everyone who is going to be bred is bred, and halter training is underway.

In this post I thought I'd introduce you to a few of the other creatures we share our farm with. One of the most colorful of which is our rooster, The Colonel. The Colonel is a huge Buff Orpington who takes his job of protecting his harem very seriously. There is not a delivery person or contractor on the island who doesn’t have a healthy respect for our golden feathered boy.

After one of my husband Jeff’s last run ins with him, I took matters into my own hands and decided to make him a little less dangerous by trimming/removing his spurs. For those unfamiliar with roosters, Mother Nature designed them to be able to fight by giving them spurs down behind their feet. These are very useful not just for defending against other roosters but well meaning men, women and children. Below are photos of our spur removal process. (Just to let you know, removing these did not make him friendlier.)


Notice the size of those spurs!

So how you may ask did we 'remove' said spurs? Here is a link to the Youtube video that will show you how to do this at home. Click Here.

Orcas Moon’s Autumn Diva arrived at 10:30 am last Sunday morning! I’ll start at the beginning.

I went for a run at first light, came back home and fed the herd, then headed back inside to see if I could wrangle a breakfast date at the ferry dock with my husband. While he was getting ready to go, I went to check the girls one more time before leaving (mama Carmen's due-date was the following day).

My oldest son, Garett, came with me and he noticed immediately that something was up -- Carmen wasn’t eating and was humming loudly while cushing in her stall. The not eating part is VERY uncharacteristic of her. I am not implying that Carmen is a glutton, but she never really misses a meal! The humming part well, she is from a very vocal family… no joke her whole family is a bunch of hummers.

We both looked at each other and thought "this is it…!" I was excited and terrified at the same time. Get the book; get the cria kit; cameras; cell phone; husband and the rest of the family. The children were truly over the moon -- no pun intended! Not only was there to be a new baby cria, but it was a Sunday morning: no Church!!!

Carmen must have read "the book," because it really couldn’t have been more textbook perfect. Carmen was in active labor for less than an hour. The baby was up and walking around in less than an hour after that and nursing shortly thereafter. What an amazing day!

We have included a slideshow link below to better tell the whole story of the little Autumn's birth, enjoy.

[Click Here for Slideshow!]

Oh her name...! Well she was born on the eve of the autumnal equinox, and - of course - her mother Carmen is an opera star!

For Immediate Release:

Orcas Moon Alpacas heralded in the fall with its own new addition – “Orcas Moon’s Autumn Diva.” The entire farm helped “Carmen,” the newborn’s mother, welcome the beautiful, 15-pound, brown baby girl alpaca (known as a “cria”) early last Sunday morning, September 21, 2008. Within an hour of birth, little Autumn was up on all fours to meet the rest of the herd, now 16 strong.

Autumn is the farm’s first cria since the Pietsch family assumed operations earlier this year. Orcas Moon Alpacas is located on Dolphin Bay Road between the ferry and Eastsound. They specialize in breeding Huacaya-type alpaca for their warm, hypoallergenic and lightweight fleece.


Mother “Carmen” with Cria “Autumn Diva”

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Contact Information:
Jennifer Pietsch
Orcas Moon Alpacas
329 Dolphin Bay Road
Eastsound, WA 98245
jenp@orcasmoonalpacas.com
360-588-2446 (must dial 360)

With my girls return home and the arrival of Triton, I have had to rearrange many of our animals. Good pasture layout promotes efficient grazing and simplified herd management. It requires a good deal of planning: it doesn’t just happen. Every piece of land is unique and will create its own demands when it comes to laying out your pasture. Here are some considerations:

• Terrain - Is your location hilly or flat? Do you have water features, ponds or other natural features that will require special attention? Is part of your pasture low-lying such that it may collect water during the wet times of the year?
• Vegetation - Is there brush or forest?
• Climate - How might your local weather patterns impact pasture regrowth?
• Irrigation- Are you able to irrigate your pasture to lengthen your forage growing season?

Upon moving to our farm, much of the fencing and layout was already completed for us. The preexisting fencing is diagrammed below in blue. For our purposes this layout was fantastic. We essentially had three pastures available to use with a center runway and catch pen for medical exams and the like.

The red outlines represent "run-in" shelters. The run-ins are three-sided shelters with an open front for severe weather protection. The upper and lower pasture on the left of the diagram use a shared run-in with a center divider, which is situated to avoid the brunt of the winter weather here in the pacific northwest. The smaller old pasture has its own run-in, and was the farm's original pasture.



All three of the pastures connect to a center "runway." This allows for easy herding into the catch pen below. The gates allow us to easily restrict and control animal movements when needed.

The area in green is the pasture we added this summer. We spent months trying to figure out the most practical and cost effective way to fence our new pastures. We wanted to be able to provide the herd with more pasture and a greater area to roam and graze while maintaining the ease of animal management designed into the original pasture plan. The new fields would also allow rotation, giving the flexibility to permit fields to regrow and heal from communal "bathroom" staining.

The red area in the diagram above represents our barn. It has two stalls serving as run-ins that connect into our new pasture. This eliminated the need to build additional run-ins (at added expense) and allowed us to have the animals closer to our home (better supervision and increased enjoyment), and lastly saved the work of hauling the food, hay and supplies to a different location on a daily basis (time and energy savings).

We have set up an additional catch pen in one of the small fenced in areas adjoining the barn. The animals and I are still getting used to using this one and still find it easier to use the old catch pen for medical exams, haltering, toenail trimming etc... We will all adjust.

One shortcoming of the new pasture is the lack of a center runway. Ideally the runway would continue from the old pasture directly into the new pasture. This is a feature that was left out as a budgetary constraint. We will in the future to add this runway and have planned it into our new pastures. Note the aligned gates continuing through the new pastures.

To summarize, good layout design maximizes your existing pasture space. This is particularly important with small farms that one does not want overgrazed. The use of interior fence lines, multiple gates and runways facilitates the easy movement of animals from barn to pasture, and from pasture to pasture.

Next Steps

We were lucky that our original pasture was laid out so efficiently for us from the get go. It gave us a great jumping off point to continue new pasture development. If you are starting from scratch I suggest taking time to do some homework, look at other farms, and ask questions about how they decided to arrange their pastures, what has worked for them, and what has not worked as well.

There are alpaca farms nationwide (alpacanation.com) that welcome visitors and would be more than happy to share their insights on this important part of the business.

Welcome home Manhattan, Brooklyn and Tinkerbelle!


Three of my girls are back from breeding at Krystal Acres' farm on San Juan Island… and they brought a friend with them, beautiful Triton! Triton is a breeding male who will be spending a little time here with some of our other girls. I am so happy to have everyone home again, pregnant and grazing where I can see them and enjoy their quiet ways.