Woops II

Okay, okay! I have mentioned how dumb we are about animals, right? This one really is tops!

We went to an alpaca show. If you haven't been to an animal show let me tell you a little bit about it. A judge stands at the front of the ring and watches as you (the anxious handler) guides the animal into the ring. They watch everything about the animal. How it carries itself, puts each foot down, the shape of its head, how much guidance it needs, fleece and finally the shape of its body. They tell us (as handlers)to dress down, dark pants and light shirt (they don't look at the handler?)Then we stand with our anxious alpacas and wait for the judge to get to our animal so they can can pull a pinch of fleece out of the animal, part the fleece, and feel the rear end to make sure we are presenting an exquisitly sexed specimen. Depending on the size of the class this can take five minutes to twenty minutes. Or in alpaca time five seconds to twenty seconds, (they lose attention quickly).

We were showing four alpacas. Two white males, one white female,one bay black female. The older white male (Zach)took a sixth place out of sixteen we felt was pretty good. The white female (Isis) took a fifth place out of eighteen which was just as good. Ebony took fifth place out of six which was: "Oh well, so glad we came" (pitiful sigh)! Zip took the walk of shame, (eliminated with a smile and thank you for coming).

We also took two of the grands (human boys - Peyton & Levi). The grands were great help. Standing with the animals when we needed a helping hand, emptying water buckets, even scooping poop!


Sunday afternoon was the end of the show. The grands were helping us load animals store equipment etc. Everything got a little confused. Everybody walked out toward the trailer with a white animal. To make a short story not so long, the lone white female Isis ended up in the back of the trailer with with one of her half brothers and Ebony was in the front half of the trailer with the other brother. When we got home and brought everyone out and put Isis in the boys pen and One of the brothers in the girls pen!! It was mass confusion/orgy/conception(?)

The next morning we realized what we had done --- CRAP!!!

When Alpacas are pregnant, then exposed to a male they will spit at him. Don't you wish that was a human alternative? (Not tonight honey, I have a ...SPIT! Think of the money that would be saved in birth control methods). So at this point (a week later) we are waiting for the fourteenth day spot to take the male to ALL of our females to do the SPIT TEST!!! If the half sister spits at the male she gets the shot. If Ebony spits at the male she will get the shot. But then the two white boys mother was previously bred to another sire but not yet spit tested, do we hope the previous breeding took? OMG!!!...farm living is the life for me?