“A Full Service Alpaca Farm Including Seminars and Consulting”
"Dr. Dork" Stories, or life on the farm . . . .
Here are two stories from our farm and we share them so that others may understand the true meaning of being humbled.
Early on in this alpaca operation, my business partner and I decided that we would shear our alpacas. After all, he is a large animal veterinarian and I had sheared many sheep. An alpaca is just another fleeced animal - right? Why pay someone to do what we can do?
Tom lives in Wisconsin where he has his veterinary practice and the farm is here in Oklahoma where my wife and kids help out with farm chores. Tom was glad to escape from the great white north and arrived in late April ready to shear over the weekend and bring back the beautiful bags of pristine fleece we had read so much about. He had confidently told his wife, children and many of his clients he would return to Wisconsin with the yearly fleece harvest from the alpaca ranch.
I had purchased some re-furbished electric shears, oiled up the motor, sharpened the blades and we were ready to go. I re-read one of my old books on shearing sheep. Ahh, it was all clear to me.
Six alpacas, three crias and two idiots . . .
Sheep are somewhat easy to shear. You pick them up, set them on their butt and they sit there passively – only held a bit. The shearer starts at the top and shears down with the fleece coming off almost like a peeler works on a potato.
That Saturday morning, my wife Kathy asked us when we would be done and I confidently told her that about 15-20 minutes per animal should be about right. It was about 9:30 AM so she said lunch would ready by 11:30 or so.
While Tom and I prepared, he asked me how long it had been since I had sheared. “Only a few years” I replied, but it was actually more like ten (fifteen to tell the truth . . . ).
“Would the alpacas react like the sheep” Tom asked? “Of course”, was my immediate and thoroughly confident reply . . .
We led the first alpaca to the prepared site, and I grabbed her to place her on her butt. With a firm hold and deft swing, I then hoisted her up moving the center of mass so that she was placed on her tail all in one fluid motion. Tom nodded and murmured approval and respect at my clear and confident ways of managing this potentially difficult situation. “No problem” was my terse comment.The alpaca just sat there. In truth, I was flabbergasted, but I nodded “knowingly” and asked for the clippers much like a surgeon asks for the knife. I was a professional and I knew just what I was doing. “Here”, I asserted, “hold the alpaca right like this”. Tom scurried around me and supported the apparently calm alpaca. It was really nice for me to show Tom, the large animal vet, some good alpaca management.
The next moments are somewhat of a blur and much has been reconstructed by my wife and children. Suffice it to say that alpacas can jump - in fact quite high! Who would know? But what goes up will then come down.
There is a very, very brief moment of time (I think it is called a nanosecond) between turning on a noisy clipper and an immediate muscular reaction of the “calm alpaca”. Somewhere, there is a picture of the two of us looking up at this alpaca who was now considerably over our heads.
My family asserts that the alpaca coming back to earth bowled both of us over as it landed, the clippers went flying and every alpaca watching this went to the farthest corners of the pasture as fast as they could run. That is correct, we did not have any of them in a pen and of course not one had a halter on. The alpacas then turned and watched . . .
The electric clippers were buried in mud, I was thoroughly humiliated and Tom was laughing; “ha ha ha, aren't we having fun”. He really is such a good sport about this. My wife and children could be seen rolling about on the living room floor. I don’t know why.
We went to round up the alpacas. Second mistake - they have eyes, they see, they understand. The crazy “two leggers” were coming to get them and were going to kill them with an infernal buzzing machine. Oh, did I mention that these were imports?
I think it was an hour or maybe two, time goes so fast when you are having fun, but after much effort, many bad words, sweat and such we had managed to get one (1) of the alpacas cornered. For unclear reasons, this dam was not happy and now sweat was mixing with rumen juice - this stuff stings when it gets into your eyes.
While Tom grabbed and held her, we then both picked her up and carried her back to the barn to set up again. Who could know that they are so heavy? I used the shears along the back blanket fleece. The damn clipper made so much noise that she tried to escape every time I approached her. But we were clever and were now doing this in a barn corner - in an area that had been cleared of manure and hay. Kathy came out and asked if we need help - we stopped briefly and very calmly replied “no, we are doing just fine, thank you”.
Kathy left, we watched and waited until she was out of sight and started our frenzy again.
Every time the clippers were turned on, the “calm” alpaca dragged Tom back and forth through the piles of manure that we had so carefully moved away. I scurried after both of them clippers buzzing, fleece flying, alpaca alternately screaming/spitting and Tom swearing. Who could know they were so strong?
The alpaca learned that the extension cord was only 25 feet long and that the barn corner was 30 feet from the outlet. Who could know that they could measure so accurately?
The shearing was going really well. One alpaca had several shorn stripes down its back, we were both covered with slime, fleece was stuck to everything, in our mouths, on our clothes and we were constantly trying to pick up pieces here and there. Much was green colored. Who could know the volume of rumen juice?
We both learned something profound and important that day - alpacas are not sheep!
Meanwhile - the other alpacas just kept watching . . .
It gets hot and steamy in Oklahoma in late April and by 2 PM we had one (1) alpaca shorn. The fleece was collected and weighed - we got a lot from this alpaca - about two lbs with blanket, neck, leg/belly all in one soggy pile. We had some really nice strips about a clippers blade in width and about twelve inches long.
Both of us were covered with bruises, hair matted, stinky in ways I had not known before.
The rest of the day and all day Sunday were . . . . well not much more interesting than the first part. I shall spare you the sordid details.
Humm, shearing season is soon coming up, now shall I sell tickets to this annual event? Na, I'll just pay the pros to do what they do best.
Dr. “Dork” and Associate
Well here I am, standing about two steps inside the show ring entry gate next to my alpaca – who is lying down - and she won’t move.
Everyone is watching the scene . . . .
Behind me, waiting to enter the ring, our daughter Katy is giggling, exhibitors behind her are craning their necks, the judge is watching (with eyebrows up) and the bleachers are twittering.
Before the show started, Katy and I walked both alpacas through this very ring. They were troopers, looking at this and that, but not balking at all. They both held their heads high, led beautifully and strutted through the ring. Blue and red ribbons - bring ‘em on!
After what seemed an eternity, the gate attendant came in and together we picked up the kushed alpaca like a sack of grain. She grumbled and I am at the end that will get spit on (please NOT now!). We moved her a couple of feet to the side allowing Katy to enter the ring. The bleachers murmur at the commotion I am causing. Am I going to be dismissed from the ring? Egads.
Katy’s female alpaca enters, walks a few steps and promptly drops down in the same spot! The ring audience roars with laughter and I feel a rush of blood to my face. Both the halter judge and his apprentice judge/ring steward look over at us with less than bemused looks.
Leaving my “dead wood” unattended, Katy and I now pick up her dam and move her aside. Now others stride into the ring, holding their animal's heads high - yes very high. Why is that alpaca snickering, and that other person who just looked down at me smirking - is a guy who USED to be a friend!
Well, when you see a man down - kick him . . . .
The remaining alpacas elegantly and imperturbably walk both into and around the show ring. I see flash pictures being taken of Katy and me trying first to get one alpaca to stand and then another.
It has almost a “Keystone Cops” visual. One end up - the other down. I would get on my knees and lift up, Katy holding the animal up by the halter. Then the other end up and the first goes down. One alpaca up, the other down. Sweat is now pouring down off me with bad words and bile coming up. Back and forth we go.
The bemused looks of the judge and apprentice are now replaced with hands on their hips and pursed lips as they look at the animals that have finished their walk in and are standing for judge's inspection. They glance over at our animals lying down like piles of stones not feet from the ring entrance.
What is going on?
Both these animals have been in the ring before - they are not new to this situation. We look like country bumpkins, idiots who have never worked with our alpacas.
We finally pick one alpaca up and move her some four to five paces away from the entry gate. Inexplicably, she now gets up walks quite normally! The gate attendant and Katy pick up her animal and move her too. Now, both alpacas walk perfectly around the ring.
The judge was rather gracious. During the placement comments, he explained with some degree of added emphasis. “This is a shorn class where we look at the alpaca's MOVEMENT” . . . and pauses for emphasis with a look toward Katy and me. “Some of today's alpacas allowed their MOVEMENT to be better exhibited than others.”
I smile wanly. I am not sure if my face is beet red or pale white. Katy is not giggling.
The winners were awarded (we were not) and we walk from the ring being the last to leave. And at the exact spot where both alpacas kushed before - they both DO IT AGAIN!
Howls of laughter come from the audience and more flash pictures from cameras to record the embarrassing day.
The next class was being called in and now our alpacas are literally right in the doorway. With help from several people (yes, I still had some friends), we physically lifted them up and carried them out of the ring.
After the show, I went and apologized to the judge and apprentice for the disruption. I explained that our animals had never done that before.
They both grinned ear to ear and explained that it could not have happened to a “better person”. It turned out that just before our class, a male alpaca had urinated at the exact spot where they kushed. The ring steward had cleaned it up, but some smell must have remained. Our female alpacas apparently were receptive, smelled the male's urine at that spot and they KNEW that he was around somewhere. All they had to do was kush and wait for him! They are not stupid after all . . .
I wish there was a lesson here, or a way to prevent this. However, this you can be sure of. Despite all your work, there are some days where things just don't go right. Therefore, when there is a day that goes well, enjoy it and hold your head high. You many never know when you too will be brought to your knees in front of all your “friends”.
Humbled (again) in the show ring.
Steve H.