It was good to see the alpacas happily trotting towards us this morning: it meant we had been forgiven (as hoped..) and for what? Well, yesterday evening we did a spot of toenail trimming. This meant getting the alpacas into the barn (they weren’t happy), enclosing them in a stall next to the goats (which made them even less happy) and then… 'handling them' (which they pretty much all absolutely hated)!
Alpacas, despite having the softest coats of all livestock, that you simply want to sink your hands into and squeeze, are not tactile animals and physical contact is pretty much something they avoid where at all possible. And yet to trim toenails physical contact is pretty necessary! Usually, toenail trimming is a once or twice yearly job and is often done by the person who shears them but sometimes more frequent checking and trimming is needed. White/pale alpacas tend to have pale toenails that grow faster than coloured alpacas with darker toenails (something to do with the relationship between the pigment and keratin (the protein within the nails)).
The reason we were trimming was because we noticed Jupiter (who is white) had a slightly twisted end to one of his back nails which needed immediate attention. Being on soft ground means nails don’t get ground down as they might on rougher ground in the wild and indeed here at Cadbury the alpacas are on grass all the time.
Interestingly, we did not need to touch Saturn’s feet as her nails were all fine. Saturn is our darkest alpaca. She was also highly protective when we caught Mercury to check hers. We had no idea an alpaca could scream quite so loudly! We were aware of their spitting capabilities though so we kept our heads turned well away. Fortunately Mercury’s feet needed very little: although pale, she is still young and so her nails have not had enough time yet to overgrow!
Half an hour later, job was done and we let all five of them back out into the paddock where they flicked up their tails and galloped off. IF they were at all cross this morning though, the site of Jack carrying a fresh trugg of hay, soon made them mellow again!! Phew!!