HISTORY 6

September 4, 2001

What a wonderful weekend! Over the Labor Day weekend, we went to the Marty McGee Bennett clinic at A Paca Fun Farm in Mt. Airy, MD, hosted by Neil, Jo, and Bari Padgett. For three days, we learned how to "read" alpacas and work WITH them to train them. Actually, she told us she was teaching US handling skills because the alpacas already know what we want them to know: how to stand still and how to move. We just have to learn how to get them to do these things when we want them to, rather than when they feel like it.

I met some wonderful "alpaca people" at the clinic - and watched while they learned to handle their "problem" alpacas. It was amazing! Using Marty's techniques, it's possible to learn to handle even a difficult alpaca in under 15 minutes. The secret is balance (keeping the alpaca balanced on its own feet instead of leaning on the handler). You can learn all the same techniques from Marty's book, the Camelid Companion, which you can find on ( her website or on the Camelid Dynamics website.

We got lots of good suggestions on how to get more feed into Forrester. Marty suggested getting a rain gutter or a half-round of PVC piping and putting the food out in a long line instead of in buckets. Someone else suggested just having more buckets than there are alpacas. But when we got home, we found that the guy who took care of our 'pacas while we were gone figured out how to feed Forrester: he cleared away the hay from one end of the manger and dumped Forrester's feed in there.... the other two fought over the buckets as usual while Forrester calmly ate his feed with no interruptions!

Also while we were at the clinic, we heard about the Alpacarama. It's an "equal opportunity" auction to be held in November. "Equal Opportunity" because no one will be allowed to bring more than 4 alpacas, and every alpaca brought to the auction has to be for sale. There'll be classes in fiber spinning and blending, too, which should be lots of fun! It's $250 for the pen rental, where you can keep two alpacas, but I think it's free if you just want to come and look. There is a fee for dinner, I think. You can find out more about it at the Americpaca website

Our cria still hasn't been born. This is the one that was due on July 26th... then the due date was amended because the sellers decided to use the new charts, and the new due date was August 20th. But it still isn't here. Sigh.

Before we left for the clinic, Rick sprayed the fields with some kind of weed poison that is harmless to the alpacas. It was supposed to kill the weeds practically overnight, but that didn't happen. We're going to have to keep on pulling them out by hand, I guess. Sooner or later our fields will look like pastures, but it sure seems to be taking a long while. I am beginning to doubt we'll have them taken care of before our girls come home!

We have decided to break the upper field into two parts so it won't be quite so overwhelming to clean one of the pastures. Not only that, but then we'll have two smaller fields which we can use to house the females and males until we get the lower field "pasturized." I think we're also going to put up an awning in the smaller of the two sides of the upper field, rather than try to build another shelter. The awnings look like those metal carports that sell for about $1000, but they're made of canvas or orchard cloth or something, and are much less expensive. We saw samples of them at the A Paca Fun Farm this last weekend, and as soon as we can find out where to get them, we'll put some up!

We finally called our "sponsors" - the folks at Almost Heaven - to come out and show us how to do the worming shots. I could not figure out how to be sure I was getting under the skin rather than into the muscle. Bob and Lee Ciszewski came over and showed us how to find the right spot and how to spot the skin and how to do the injection, so now we can give our guys their shots every other month. During the alternate months, we'll give them a third of a cup of Panacur Crumbles each for one of their daily feedings for three days. They seem to like the stuff well enough, and it is a lot easier than giving them the paste. It's expensive, though: $40 for ten pounds. The three days of feedings takes up about a pound, though, so it should last awhile.

September 6, 2001

I spent some time yesterday and today working with the guys, just to see how they'd take to it. Kimball has an "oh, well" attitude and doesn't fuss at all. In fact, he seems to like having his ears and mouth worked with, which is all I've done with them so far. Forrester doesn't like it one bit. If I put the rope over his back, he bucks. If I use the wand, he's fine until the rope touches him, then he bucks. Giving him lots of space to escape in, giving him all the rope he needs so that he stays in balance, I can get him to eventually stop.... with his neck laying flat out on Kirk's back! It's funny to watch him, but I feel so sorry for him, and I'm willing to take the extra time with him. He's clearly terrified, and it will take time to overcome that, I'm sure. Kirk doesn't like the whole procedure one bit, but after a couple of attempts to shake off the rope, he finally settled down. Altogether I think I spent 15 minutes a session, with the majority of the time being spent letting Forrester run around escaping.

It's amazing what a little patience and balance will do. Rick was really surprised and impressed by the whole training session today (he didn't get to see yesterday's session because he was teaching). It is all so calm and unhurried, not at all like what it was in the past when we wanted to catch and do something with the guys. When we go to Almost Heaven next week for herd health, I'm going to try to use some of the balancing techniques to see if I can avoid having to restrain the animals when we give them their shots. It's worth a try, I think.

Lee Ciszewski of Almost Heaven called me today to let me know that Sarai has been pregnant for a whole year today. She doesn't even seem especially uncomfortable, and is just going about her business as usual. Lee and I both are about to tear our hair out with impatience, waiting for this guy!

We did discover another problem today. I think I'm going to call the vet tomorrow to ask about it. Kimball has a runny nose, which he's had on-and-off ever since he came here. He is eating well, but his stools are clumps rather than beans, and his nose runs for several days. Then it stops and his stools go back to being beans again for another several days. I'd guess about a week at a time, maybe two weeks, in each mode. When we took Sobata with her cria to Dr. Baum, she gave Sobata antibiotics for the same problem, so maybe we should get them for Kimball as well.

September 7, 2001

We took down our portable panels and put up a 12 x 12 "catch pen" in front of the barn so I can practice catching the animals the way Marty McGee Bennett teaches. I think the most valuable thing I learned there is the importance of keeping the animals in balance, not letting them lean on you or away from you, but stand on their own four feet. Forrester is the hardest to work with, because he starts bucking as soon as the rope touches him, whether he can see me or not. If I use the wand to catch him, he doesn't react as the rope goes over his head, but as soon as it touches him, he's off! Poor guy. Since I know *we* haven't done anything to scare him so badly, and I'm sure no one at Magical Farms did anything to scare him, I wonder if he was just born timid, like some people are. In any event, I'll work on the animals a little bit every day 'til they forgive me for my past sins and realize I really can be trusted!

We also found another source for hay. The guy we have been getting hay from sold us 6 bales of rotting hay. He says it's okay for cattle, so he won't give us our money back or replace the hay. Obviously, we won't buy from him again, but it was discouraging. The first batch of hay we bought was all stems, and the second batch was all spoiled, so here we are trying a third vendor. Sure hope this one works out! We're also ordering more of the grain. The vendor tells us that Agway has changed the way they package the feed, so that now it is considered "textured" rather than "crumbles" or pellets. I'm not sure I know what that means, but the vendor said it's something like granola - everything looks like what it is instead of being shaped into little cylindrical pellets. We'll get that on Tuesday, I hope. Also heard back from the vet today. He'll be here at 7:30 in the morning! Talk about up with the birds! I'll write more after we've seen him and possibly taken action on his advice.

September 8, 2001

The vet arrived at 8:30 rather than 7:30, but that was okay. He's great with the animals! We had a tough time catching Forrester - the poor little guy was absolutely terrified. First he tried running, then fighting, and finally he just kushed and trembled. The vet was very gentle with him, though, so maybe it wasn't as bad for the little guy as it looked. In any event, the vet took another stool sample, which he said he'd put through the centrifuge, and took a blood sample. He'll get back to us on Monday or Tuesday with results. He also looked at Kimball's runny nose, but didn't have any comments about it, so I guess it isn't serious.

More later...

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