Honey is one of the very first girls to join our herd – she has been with us for seven years!
If you have ever wondered how alpacas trim their toe nails then wonder no more! Because Episode 3 joins Terry, Ruby, Nick and the girls at the gorgeous Lyzzick Hall field for some health check and toe nail trimming! Fancy hey?
Lyzzick is home to one of our firm favourites Wings who is quite possibly the loveliest and most delightful alpaca on the planet! She is currently feeding her own baby from last Spring Little Red and also his best buddy Kitty (whose mum doesn’t make enough milk) so she is an absolute trooper :)
We hope you enjoy learning about our basic health checks and handling from Ruby – let us know in the comments!
Transcript
Hi guys and welcome to our YouTube channel
Alpacaly Ever After Video Diaries, guys I
just wanted to say a massive thank you for
all the comments you’re leaving it’s awesome!
Please keep them coming ask us any questions
about any of the Alpacas and about what me
and the team get up to and we will endevour
to answer them and put them into these videos
and you guys can take part.
So yeah, thank you for your comments.
So today guys, episode three!
Its flying, we’re doing really well on these
videos, first day of spring and yeah Me, Ruby
and Nick are getting together and we are going
to be doing some toenail clipping!
These are actually shears for shearing, i
can’t find the toenail clippers I think Ruby’s
got them, but yeah we’re going to be coming
down to Lyzzick Hall and we’re going to be
doing all these Alpacas!
So please yeah take part guys, please follow
us and lets get them sorted!
Alright!
Hello…
Everything’s in order I see!
So what are we doing? are we getting them
in?
Yeah so im planning on today with these girls
here at Lyzzick Hall, just getting them in
for a bit of, what I would call an MOT checking
their weight, checking their health, checking
their teeth, checking their toenails and we’ve
got Nick who is obviously one of our newer
members of staff, so he’s not done any toenail
trimming and stuff before so it’s just a bit
of a lesson for him as well.
And yeah, just to check these girls are all
good!
If they need any medicines or – hey baby girl
– any pedicures so we’ll get catching them.
So do you want me and you to go round them
up?
Yeah, we’ll go start rounding them up.
We’ll just get a few in at a time and then
I’ve got room to do their nails and things.
That’ll do Rubes * rope noises*
Oh Lola she says!
‘don’t touch that rope on my butt!’
There we go… so have we got Red?
We’ve got Red in yeah and Wings, we’ve got
Babies and their Mums in so they should be
nice and happy!
Yeah this is important just to keep an eye
on them, we try to make sure we’re doing this
at least once a month really on each site
each animal just to basically, we’re keeping
medical records to check if their health is
stable and that they’re nice and healthy.
But what we’ve done is me and Terry have caught
some of the girls and the babies, so we’re
gonna give them a bit of a healthcare check
so we’re gonna check their weight, check their
gums, that they’re a nice healthy colour,
check their teeth, check that it looks like
you know, they’ve got nice healthy eyes and
then we’re going to do a toenail check and
today I’m going to show you how to trim their
toenails which is exciting.
Wings is one of our friendliest Girls, and
this yeah, she’s got a baby, so she had her
baby Red in I want to say May/June last year
so this is little Red her baby so because
she’s had a baby which is a Cria, that’s what
a baby Alpacas called.
Just incase you didn’t know, but because shes
had a Cria we’re expecting her weight to be
lower than usual because she’s put all her
energy into producing milk, keeping that baby
going, and Wings is actually kind of super
extra amazing because she’s fed two Cria this
year because we also had another Cria born
called Kitty and her Mum couldn’t really produce
milk so Wing’s has actually had like an adopted
twin So Wings has actually been feeding two
babies this year so that’s amazing of her,
it’s super good.
But when we’re weight scoring, the first place
we’re looking is on their back so you’ve got
their shoulder blades here and then obviously
their spines coming along here and just after
the shoulder blades we’re feeling their wool,
so if you give that a little feel there…
awesome.
So from this we’ve learnt that hello Wings!
we can feel her spine but we can’t really
feel each individual rib unless we’re pushing
quite hard so for me that is slightly underweight
but not in a concern zone from Wings becuase
we know she’s got two Cria feeding off her
so considering she’s feeding two Cria and
obviously keeping herself fed that’s not too
bad.
– So would you consider that a two/three?
– So I would class that as a two uhm yeah
so two is a little bit underweight, on the
system you’ve got zero to five, three is perfect
, so three is perfect weight, you’re not concerned
they’re super fit and healthy, four is a little
bit overweight, so if they’re a little bit
overweight your obviously looking at putting
them on a bit of a diet, five is if they have
that flat back that I talked about , that’s
way overweight, you want them to cut out any
treat food, they’re on a weight watchers diet
, you’re being pretty strict with them.
So the next thing is we’re going to be giving
them some medicines especially we’ve got a
little baby here called Red, she’s not been
feeling too good, we’re going to be giving
her a multivit injection, uh mking her feel
a little bit better, we’re going to be giving
all the Alpacas some Vitamin D because it’s
Winter Time give them about 5 ml each and
we’re going to be worming them.
We’re going to be worming them with Ivermectin
they usually get about 2ml each and if you
listen to Joe Rogan, you can do people with
this for Covid so yeah but we’re going to
crack on so yeah do you want to start doing
toenails?
Yes, so when we’re doing toenails, if you
want to get a pair of gloves, we just make
sure we put gloves on becuase it basically
stops getting all the mud of the Alpacas onto
our hands and also it means that if your wanna
get any mud out that your not going to get
it all over your fingers and in your fingernails
so it just keeps things a little bit more
hygenic.
so if you pop some gloves on.
So I trim with my right hand all the time
I find it easier to put the guard on and off
with one hand so if you’re happy with that
but it just takes a bit of practice and then
I tend to stroke down their leg from their
shoulder then they know you’re coming and
then I pick up one foot and for Wings at the
moment she’s got leaves on her feet bit of
mud so im just removing all that so i can
have a look at her foot itself.
So with Wings’ foot she’s got her pad so that’s
what you refer to as the pad which is all
this soft bit here, Wings’ pads are pink,
some Alpacas have black skin so they either
have like pink or black skin so her’s are
pink, obviously a lttle bit muddy today, and
then she’s got one small callous here, so
if you have a little look at that, that’s
not a concern for us, but it just means a
hardened bit of skin, often in wintertime
when it’s dry then wet, they do get these
callouses , but for us that’s not a concern
it’s just something to keep an eye on that
it dosen’t get bigger.
And then she’s got her toenails here so with
the toenails erm I’m just kind of pulling
the dirt out of them so i can see how much
longer they are than her pad, so you can see
here they’re quite a lot longer, they’re probably
about a centimeter over at the moment, so
we’re going to trim them, they grow in like
a triangular shape, so when you’re trimming
them you’re taking the guard off and then
as long as you know you’ve got a nice steady
hold of their foot, I’m going to trim from
the sides, sorry thank you, can you just try
to get Pickles out for a second Nick.
So you’re trimming at the sides so you’re
wanting to trim side to side and one of Wings’
is slightly bent so you’re making sure that
you’re not kind of excentuating any bends,
you’re trying to reduce them as much as possible,
so with Wings i’m trimming them like that
and then they don’t have to be really short,
but you can see now they’re a nice length,
they’re not growing over the foot so we’re
happy with them, so that’s perfect!
So the next thing i’m going to do is worm
her for the year and i’m going to be giving
her ivermectin so ivermectin goes at the bottom
of their neck under their skin so we pull,
push in and 2ml to their weight, one two!
give it a rub and then last some vitamins,
we’ll giver her 5ml of vitamin D, and she
knows how to keep her head, because she loves
a bit of vitamin D, there we go.
And that’s her sorted!
Right so guys, that was the basics into doing
some toenails and some, just some care of
the Alpacas, body scoring and some injections,
vitamins and things like that so yeah, hope
you got something out of it, if you haven’t
I hope you enjoyed watching it.
We’re going to be doing lots of more videos
like this so just to say a massive thanks
to Ruby, we couldn’t do any of this without
Ruby, she’s awesome at looking after the Alpacas,
you can say good things about me now.
Uhhhh Terry can grow a beard!
Oh yes!
So yeah guys, we’re going to finish off here,
we’re going to feed them then head back to
the office and clean up so yeah, catch you
later
Thank you!
Alright!
Hello…
Everythings in order I see?
Yeah.. stop can you not make it look like
your on a episode of East Enders?
fighting teeth which are super sharp and that
would really hurt, it would cut into your
finger, look!
RAF out, checking up on us, just checking
that we’re doing things right, it’s PETA,
flying by haha
Guys, can you believe it?
three videos!
ughhh Tom you *beep*
