Sweet Harmony Farm

It’s good to see Julio being his usual self.  By his usual self, I mean spitting with Guinness over hay, threatening to spit at Bo, Coty, Arlo, and the new boys over hay, being the first to finish eating at dinnertime thereby trying to steal the others’ feed, and some mild body-slamming of the others to push them out of the way ~ just because.  And perhaps a kick if we humans are too close to his back legs.  Not that any of these traits are particularly endearing, but they are who Julio is.  It’s autumn now, cold and windy with shorter days, and he’s also resumed acting as the guard, first to check out any possibility of danger.  He is back to being our alpha!

At the beginning of summer we’d noticed him acting a bit ‘off.’  He’d stand around a lot, or cush more than usual, he’d eat his pellets slowly and sometimes not finish them, nibble at hay rather than enthusiastically chew, and ignore Guinness at the hay bins.  An alpaca that doesn’t ‘stay with the herd’ is one that is probably ill.  Then we noticed he had a small lump on one jaw.   Over a few weeks the swelling would go up and down and back up and sometimes poor Julio would even drool.  I kept in contact with our wonderful vet, Amy.  Once we noticed that he was clearly thinner, she came right out.  Our poor Julio appeared to have either a tooth or jaw abscess!  She drew up 5 injections of an antibiotic for us to give to him over 10 days.

Amy gave Julio the first shot with ease, giving us instructions on how to do an intra-muscular injection, something we haven’t done before.   Yikes!  Two days later Julio must have been feeling better.  He also must have sensed our apprehension and thought it would be a fun game to play ‘keep away from the humans.’  At dinnertime we would entice him into the pen to eat with Arlo and then we’d corner him to do his shot.  We’d catch him, but he didn’t want to stay caught!  Julio is a tall alpaca and very strong and he’d push forward against me almost knocking me down.  Dan could hold him longer than I could, but Julio would literally take him ‘for a ride’ around the pen with Dan hanging on.  I wish I’d had a video camera for that scene!  He’d kick at us and try to climb up the pen walls to get out.  Stressing him is not good, so we’d give up after about 20 minutes and just let him out to rejoin the herd in the pasture. 

Julio needed his shots.  Several days of trying went unsuccessfully, each time with Julio taking Dan for a ride in the pen.  By Saturday we were frantic.   Val came right over!  Having had alpacas for years, and having over 70 alpacas on her farm, Val is a natural. She came into the pen with us and Julio just watched.  She talked to Julio in her calm, soothing voice.  She scratched his ears and neck and showed him the needle.  Our little hoodlum just stood there.  She very gently held him.  She then instructed Dan on where to stand and exactly what motions to do with his hands.  Dan administered the injection, and Julio never even flinched.  All this couldn’t even have taken 2 minutes.

The remaining 3 injections, we caught Julio, I held him, Dan gave him the injection, then DONE.  No drama!

Yup, that’s our man Julio, the Drama Queen.