LLAMA FUN

Every weekend we take the llamas for a walk after their breakfast.  We started just using the halters and leads and then progressed to putting a beach towel on their backs.  A friend made some frames for backpacks so now when we go walking, we almost look the part.  The backpacks will be the next step.

Everything went well when we tied Udo to Donnegal, but when we put Donny at the rear, Udo was having none of it (didn't want the other boy near his rear end), so sat down.  The only way to get him up again was to take Donny's lead off his frame.

This morning when we were going out the gate for this walk, Bill was in front with Donny.  Just as he was going through the gate in front of me, I saw what initially looked like a lump of poo stuck on his upper thigh next to his scrotum (on Donny that is).  But it was the wrong colour, so I went in for an inspection.

Needless to say he was not all that keen on my holding his tail up and peering in, but what I was looking at was a bloated tick.

Knowing I would not be allowed to get too close, I squirted  a couple of syringes of methylated spirits to dampen down the tick and then kitchen tongs 5 minutes later  - all the while holding up his tail and with much dancing around.  (On a cat or dog I would have used tweezers, but with a boy this size, a larger implement was needed.)  My boy was also not keen on kitchen tongs advancing on this area either – clicking and pulling!  It took about 10 goes to actually latch on and get the monster off – she wasn’t coming easily.

 However you can see the result in the images above – on extraction, the tick became deflated as the blood ran onto the tongs.  I then soaked a rag in water and actually got my hand in there to try to get rid of the metho.  All in all, he (Donny that is) took it really well and didn’t kick me at all – I was in the firing line so to speak.

I had a couple of his favourite dead wandoo leaves in my pocket which he gladly devoured so I think the memory of the experience was short lived.