Get your hats and mittens boys and girls…

Because it’s herd health time (cue streamers, fireworks, and maybe even dancing girls jumping out of cakes)! I can barely contain my enthusiasm. There are some months that herd health day isn’t really that bad of a chore. Especially like last month…when I managed to slink/slither/skulk my way out of participating at all. In my defense it was a non-toenail month (Ivomec and vaccines only) and Jen and Kim whizzed through the entire herd in about 5 hours regardless. Did they really even need me? It would have helped some for sure and I did feel a little bad about it. Just not bad enough to go and suit up.

This month yours truly shall not be so lucky though. Over the past 5 or 6 years I have probably done 2/3rds of the toe nail trimming every other month on a herd that has ranged in size anywhere from 180 to 300 alpacas depending on the year and the season. It’s been good for building up the calluses on my hands to be sure.

If we are lucky we will be able to shanghai one of our guys from regular chore detail tomorrow morning and tackle the herd in two teams of  2 (one holder/shot giver, one trimmer), maybe even a 5th person to work the clipboard and change needles! That might just be crazy talk though.  In any case though it’s still a drag when it’s only 30 degrees outside, in the end we are usually able to accomplish it all in less than 8 hours. Now I better to go and find my thermal underwear and my Sorrells which I haven’t yet had to put on this year.