A Close Shave

04/11/2009 by Rosemary.

Howling wind and heavy downpours of rain today but I battled on with the hand waste management regardless.  I don’t want the Lovely Lina to think she has gone down in the world when she arrives on Saturday!  She and the rest of the girls are going into the new paddock but all the same!  It is hard work going back to a bucket and spade but with the quad out of action, more on that in a bit, there was no other option.

I had a nice break at lunchtime when a lovely alpaca breeder from Devon phoned to check on Little Star’s progress.  We had a long chat and exchanged experiences but then it was back out for feeding and waste.  As I went up to fill the boys and the sheep hay I had a nasty shock, everyone rushed down when they saw the hay arriving except for Mossop.  He appeared to be bleating in an odd way and standing on his back legs in the field shelter.  I charged over as he normally rushes up and was horrified, he had got his head through the empty haynet and it had entangled round his horns.  Somehow he had then twirled round and round and tightened it round his neck so he was hanging from it like it was a noose.  I felt so guilty and I didn’t have a knife with me - it was so taut it wouldn’t come off the hook and I couldn’t get the hook out of the wall.  I had to pick him up, not easy with a huge sheep, to ease the tension and then wiggle his head out.  He was fine but it was ironic as I had just been saying to the lady from Devon that I was not too sure the haynet was a good idea - it is now cut down and thrown out!  That is the second suicidal animal in recent days.

I am ashamed to admit this but my cria are not all registered yet and the reason for this is that I am still waiting for the microchips.  I know the post is bad but it has been nearly six weeks now so I emailed the supplier and  within half an hour I had an email saying they had been dispatched ages ago and must have gone astray, more were being put straight in the post.  Excellent customer service and I shall use them again - Alpaca and Llama Care Ltd.

Brilliant news today is that Cool Dude ate Camelibra!!  He suddenly got the hang of the routine and ate all I gave him - it was mixed with the hay like stuff Rob gave us to try.

More eggs today but one was a tiny little miniature one, perfect but only 2cm!  I’m going to have that one for breakfast!  Today we were due to have frittata as it uses 8 eggs but I didn’t have all the ingredients so I made 6 quiches instead.

Carl is now out in his shed welding and looking superior.  He went down to look at the quad and discovered it was out of fuel which he says is because I didn’t turn the fuel on.  The thing is I had driven it round all morning without turning it on so I don’t see it can be that.  He says the smoke was something to do with being on a hill and stalling it which is total rubbish because I did not stall it.

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