Poor Lotte the morning after her ordeal!
On the Monday following the Real Feria de Mayo all of the Alpacas were back home and getting back to normality!
As a treat I thought I would let them down into the bottom field, where there was more grass for them to feed on. Because the alpacas had not been down into the bottom field for sometime the grass had grown very high and unbeknown to me, within the grass there was a large area of a weed that I now know to be called the ‘Lions Teeth’
On the Monday evening we had arranged for Nigel & Ginny and Dr Monyka Portocarrero to come round for dinner and for Monyka to look over Lilly and Martina and to give us her views on our new cria ‘Lorca’
We had rounded up all of the alpacas into the paddock, when Ginny suddenly realised that ‘Lotte’ was missing! We knew that eight had come back from the show, so we were really puzzled to know where she could be, as she was nowhere to be seen in the field.
Nigel and I began to search the bottom field to see if she was hidden in the long grass and to our horror we found her lying in a clump of the ‘Lions Teeth’ and she was pinned to the ground by the sticky leaves of this plant and unable to move. The more she struggled the more the leaves tightened their grip on her. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes I would not have believed it. We managed to free her from the weed, but she was absolutely exhausted, so Nigel and I had to carry her to the shelter at the top of the field.
Had Nigel, Ginny and Monyka not come round when they did, we probably would not have noticed that one of the alpacas was missing that night and had we not found her when we did she would surely have died!
It was at that moment that we realised the enormous responsibility we have looking after somebody else’s alpacas that are worth a considerable amount of money. As you can imagine I felt absolutely awful, but I had no idea that by letting them graze in the bottom field would turn into a life threatening situation.
As a treat I thought I would let them down into the bottom field, where there was more grass for them to feed on. Because the alpacas had not been down into the bottom field for sometime the grass had grown very high and unbeknown to me, within the grass there was a large area of a weed that I now know to be called the ‘Lions Teeth’
On the Monday evening we had arranged for Nigel & Ginny and Dr Monyka Portocarrero to come round for dinner and for Monyka to look over Lilly and Martina and to give us her views on our new cria ‘Lorca’
We had rounded up all of the alpacas into the paddock, when Ginny suddenly realised that ‘Lotte’ was missing! We knew that eight had come back from the show, so we were really puzzled to know where she could be, as she was nowhere to be seen in the field.
Nigel and I began to search the bottom field to see if she was hidden in the long grass and to our horror we found her lying in a clump of the ‘Lions Teeth’ and she was pinned to the ground by the sticky leaves of this plant and unable to move. The more she struggled the more the leaves tightened their grip on her. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes I would not have believed it. We managed to free her from the weed, but she was absolutely exhausted, so Nigel and I had to carry her to the shelter at the top of the field.
Had Nigel, Ginny and Monyka not come round when they did, we probably would not have noticed that one of the alpacas was missing that night and had we not found her when we did she would surely have died!
It was at that moment that we realised the enormous responsibility we have looking after somebody else’s alpacas that are worth a considerable amount of money. As you can imagine I felt absolutely awful, but I had no idea that by letting them graze in the bottom field would turn into a life threatening situation.
God was looking down on us yesterday!
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