Training my replacement?

We’ve always been kind of circumspect whenever folks have asked us about our kids and their involvement with the farm. Yes, the kids may have in the past shown flashes of interest in the farm and it’s management but not what one would call a real passion. Something which we were ok with. We felt as though they needed to come to this, to a great degree at least, on their own. We weren’t going to force it. If you were looking for pastoral images of the family walking the alpacas together down the country lane you would have to look elsewhere.

For starters as far as the boys are concerned this whole alpaca thing is something that Mom and Dad have always done, so it’s just not viewed as being all that exotic or exiting. While Sammy did used to help me out now and again when he was a little guy and I was the sole member of the cleanup crew, by the time he was initially old enough to really lend a hand we quite frankly had gotten to a size where we had started to have staff doing most of the day to day cleanup around the barns and fields and I was more apt to be at a computer rather than with a shovel in my hands. Though the kids would always chip in on days when we would get hay deliveries and such or perhaps help their mom with a new cria, there were no set daily chores for them involving the alpacas. When there were some things that we could use help with we would encouraged them to chip in but it was never a question of doing a given task in return for having food to eat or a roof over their heads,

Things started to change some last year, especially for Sam who was then 12 at the time. It started with his love of mowing grass, particularly using the zero-turn radius mowers we have here for taking care of our pastures. Told that he could both earn a little money and essentially spend 2 to 3 hours a day playing on power equipment, he was hooked. We actually had to call him off a couple of times because he wanted to go and mow paddocks that really weren’t in need of it yet and/or that we were going to try to graze down with the animals. Youthful enthusiasm!

Though it was no doubt slightly warping to his pre-pubescent mind, Sammy also began to help me manage breedings last year. We do all of our breeding here by hand. That is to say that the Herdsire in question arrives on a halter and lead at the barn where a given female is located (either Main Barn or Arena), does his business, and then returns to the Stud Barn. Though good in terms of keeping a handle on everything reproductively within the herd — particularly when combined with my wife’s skill as an ultrasound tech — it does become time intensive, especially when you have 20+ open females to tackle at the beginning of the season. Though Sam wasn’t ready to set up the breedings himself, what he could do that was an invaluable time saver was look after a given breeding after I got it “going,” allowing me to go off and start another breeding (or two) elsewhere in that same barn. That cut the time it took me on any given day to do the breedings often in half.

This year my newly minted teenager has been an even greater help. Whether going and rounding up animals to load them onto the trailer, looking after breedings, or even helping us on herd health day, it’s been quite a transformation. Obviously it helps that Sam now has not just the head but also the physical size to not get bullied around by the knots of hormones (I’m talkin’ ’bout you Sovereign) that make up the Herdsire corps here at CCNF, to say nothing of some of our grumpier bred females. Just today in fact he helped me do a couple of breedings in the morning and then ran the clipboard (think pit boss) the whole afternoon during herd health, calling out animal’s names, while writing down their body scores and any other things that needed noting as they were getting called in from the rest of us while we were trimming toe nails and giving shots. I’m obviously proud of him and would be anyway though the fact that my son is severely dyslexic just makes his doing that particular job for us even more remarkable.

For the first time in his young life Sam is starting to get a real taste of what managing the farm takes from a first-person perspective. There is even talk that he will come with us to the fall shows for the first time this year to work and help out (as opposed to watching DVDs with his buddies). Though I don’t think Sam is totally clear on how he feels about that prospect, I for one am looking forward to it!