The weather is OK , and I cannot wait any longer - today we must vaccinate the alpaca. For the babies it will be their first injections and for the rest of the herd it will be annual boosters . Whilst in theory it is not a difficult thing to do , as always , the practice is usually harder.
The weather is better , but the ground is still slippery and undoubtedly DH will take several tumbles as he wrestles with 60 kg of unyielding alpaca . Not surprisingly he hates these jobs ! He has had a couple of black eyes in the past , but hopefully today will be calmer. I am slightly concerned , not with the procedure , but 2 of the animals we are going to vaccinate are pregnant - advice is split on this ( as always) , some say only vaccinate when they are open then no fear of pregnancy problems , others say it makes no difference. We have always vaccinated with this annual booster when the females are open , however, Blue Tongue vaccination took precedence this year and they were all vaccinated but this did clash with mating times and we had to stick to the schedule or next years cria would be born too late - now we shall see if either school of thought has precedence , but I am unhappy that we may loose 2 pregnancies......wait and see.
The weather is better , but the ground is still slippery and undoubtedly DH will take several tumbles as he wrestles with 60 kg of unyielding alpaca . Not surprisingly he hates these jobs ! He has had a couple of black eyes in the past , but hopefully today will be calmer. I am slightly concerned , not with the procedure , but 2 of the animals we are going to vaccinate are pregnant - advice is split on this ( as always) , some say only vaccinate when they are open then no fear of pregnancy problems , others say it makes no difference. We have always vaccinated with this annual booster when the females are open , however, Blue Tongue vaccination took precedence this year and they were all vaccinated but this did clash with mating times and we had to stick to the schedule or next years cria would be born too late - now we shall see if either school of thought has precedence , but I am unhappy that we may loose 2 pregnancies......wait and see.
Yesterday the girls had the run of the garden all day , and thoroughly enjoyed mowing the grass and pruning anything they could reach . At bed time they decided that the patio looked like a good bet , and for a while they all sat and contemplated the view , all they needed was a gin and tonic and they would have been set. Since this was not forth coming , they did eventually amble back to their field , but it was a mild night and so they sat around all over the place instead of close to the hedges as has been the style recently.
3 comments:
Good luck with the vaccinations and I hope you don't lose the pregnancies. Someday soon we will have to vaccinate our llamas for the first time, and Kelly has the same concerns as your DH - except I do believe llamas are even bigger. Oh dear, black eyes for everybody!
I wish you luck ! although our vaccinations went pretty much without a hitch , except a little bit of 'skiing' around the catch pen for John . I am quite interested in llama - apparently they can be used as herd protecters for the alpaca , is that right?
Actually I don't know if they can be used as protectors for the alpaca, but they certainly can be used as protectors for goat and sheep herds. One of our three llamas actually killed foxes who entered the sheep pen at her previous location, which we also think is a help for our chickens! So I could well imagine that they would protect the alpacas as well.
Post a Comment