Poor Mercury our young alpaca (right in the photo) was in a bit of a fix this evening. We noticed at feed time that she was not walking too well, she seemed rather reluctant to move and when she did, was slightly bandy legged and stiff. We began to suspect the worse: rickets (due to lack of vitamins), acute pain, injury??? The only way to check her out though was to get all five alpacas up to the barn.
It is usually easiest to move the alpacas as a group, as any attempts to split them will result in very stressed animals, all going in different directions and none of them the way you want. We slowly edged them towards the top of the field and calmly and quietly ushered them past the goats into the sheep stalls at the back of the barn (currently empty of sheep). As we walked we noticed that Mercury had a few bits of bramble sticking out from her fleece and we wondered whether this might have anything to do with her walking problems.
Whilst Jack held her firmly, David began to feel her legs and body and he was amazed to find all sorts of bits of bramble tangled up in her underbelly and behind her legs including a huge length that was really twisted in her fleece. We were not sure whether removing these may have sorted things but when we let her go she certainly walked a whole lot better.
Whilst we had Mercury we also checked her toenails and gave them a quick trim too, we also noticed Jupiter and Venus’ nails needed attention so whilst Jack held each animal in turn, David set to work with the hoof trimmers.
We had both commented how calm Saturn was whilst we dealt with Mercury (her daughter). Last autumn when we brought them all inside the barn for weighing, Saturn was incredibly protective of Mercury, screaming, spitting and kicking out. Little did we know today however, that her 'appearing' to be coping, was actually the calm before the storm. Once we had let Mercury go but then caught and held Venus, the screaming and the spitting really began!!! We both had to turn our heads and protect our faces from the vile grassy regurgitation. David wondered if Saturn understood we were helping Mercury so kept calm then, whilst not understanding why we were then went on to restrain Venus.
Anthropomorphism or reality??