At the end of June, our 4-H Llama club participated in a show up in Noblesville for three days. Here are the kids from our club that attended. There are two that are missing who couldn't stay for the third day. Overall our 8 kids (of over the 100 kids that participated) did VERY well in the competitions. My two llamas are the two in the Middle Xancoo and Peach (they are brother and sister). Xanny took first in showman ship, second in PR, second in obstacles and fourth in pack. Very good showing for this being his second show. He has a very good handler this year. Peach got first in fleece.

We are now getting ready for our county fair and then after that will be the state fair and then we are done showing until next spring.

Here we have Peach and the daughter with the judge during Intermediate showmanship. There were over 30 kids in this division that they split it in two. I have a feeling the state fair will be huge as well this year. Peach is a good girl and this is her first year being shown and she is we think about three years old. She is very inquisitive and is so funny sometimes. She is self loading when it comes to the trailer meaning we don't have to halter and lead her to get her to go in. Not a lot of llamas will do that.

All three llamas and the three alpacas all have different personalities which is very fun sometimes and others not so much. Everyone asks the first time they meet one of them "they spit right?" or "I'm not getting near it cause I don't want to get spit on". As far as the spitting is concerned, they mostly spit at each other and it's mostly over food. However if you irritate one they will usually give you a warning before they give you a good spit. And, look out if you do get spit on because it is going to stink!

If you have a chance to visit your county or state fair check to see if they are having a llama show and go check it out. You will learn a lot and see some amazing animals.

Random Animalness

This week I have been helping the children work on their 4-H projects for the upcoming fairs that we are participating in. We have been going thorough all of the photos for the scrapbook and analysing images for the Photography poster and the boy has been taking pictures for his Llama project.

So while we were looking at all of the stuff we have crammed on the computer, I thought I would share some of our zoo with you....would any of you like to come and help scoop poop this weekend?

This is Ted the alpaca before we sheared him a few weeks ago. He just had a birthday on Sunday July 5. He's a good boy once you catch him and get a halter on him and he sings...a lot! Of all of our Lamas he is the talker of the bunch. *Lamas with one L is to include both the Llama and Alpaca family.

This is Snickers.

We got her last year when

she looked like the photo on the left (which is her at about 3 weeks old). She came from a farm where her mama had her in someones attic. The owners decided to evict mama and then found out she had babies. There were two of them and her sibling decided he would rather live in a tree and we couldn't get him down.

I picked snickers up and brought her home and we bottle fed her and she grew up and moved to the big house outside and accidentally met up with Scooter and this year Snickers became a mama herself.

She has four little ones that she is done with (meaning they are weaned). She is a really good mom and is still just as friendly as ever and will let you pick her up and carry her around still. She is also a thief so if you come for a visit leave your shiny stuff in the car because she will take it.

Here are part of the Lama gang and Marley. They were all very curious about each other. Our two femals were very concerned and tried to "mother" him over the fence. They all sniffed and inspected him but none of them ever tried to spit at him or scare him off in any way.

Here we have a reappearance of Virginia. This is a baby picture with Bo. She was such a cute little thing. She went through many "looks" as she grew from the mouse/rat

looking thing when we first found her to the

little hedgehog looking thing here to the possum look she has today.

The only thing that never really

changed was her tail and it seems to be

the one thing most people comment on when they meet her for the first time. That and all of her teeth when she yawns.

Bo was such a good "daddy" to all of the baby critters. Virgina used to climb all over him and he never minded a bit . Above we have her making the rounds through the house.

Well, that's it for today. Next up some Lama Love and maybe some cats and dogs.

later

Meet Virginia

Hope you all had a Great 4th! It poured rain and all the fireworks were cancelled or rescheduled until Sunday around here.

Ok, this isn't something you see everyday in your bed...unless of course you live in my house then you might.

This is Virginia (AKA Ginia or Ginny). Yes, she is a possum who thinks she is a Cat. She eats with them and sometimes naps with them if her bed is out to be washed.

They (the cats) try to in turn "play" with her but she doesn't play. She saunters through the house with a cat trying to play with her tail and she just goes on. Her tail does come in handy though as the kids use it as her handle to pick her up by.

She "can" hang by her tail but she doesn't like it (I think it givers her vertigo) as she trys to grab at whatever she can to right herself.

During the day she can usually be found either under a chair in the living room or behind the bed in my room or maybe wrapped up in a blanket left lying on the floor. At night she wanders around the house and may wake you up with her VERY cold nose in your ear unless someone happens to think to find her and put her in her cage for the night.

She's coming up on her first birthday (or maybe it has passed - they are so small when they are born it was hard to guess how old she really was when we found her). We found her last Summer in August right after her mama had been hit by a car. She was sooooo tiny! We think she may have been riding on mama's back when she was hit and Virgina was thrown - just guessing of course. We bottle fed her for a couple of months and then got her weened to cat food and now she eats cat food and has a sweet tooth for cookies and suckers and anything else she can find to get into. She also uses the cat litter box (most of the time).

She's a really good "cat" and she doesn't give you any lip like the other cats do and she is a pretty good conversation piece as well.

The End

What About Bob?

Bob...or Cookie Bob...or Fluffy...or Little Bit all belong to this fellow. He was found by the neighbor kids in a sticker bush when he was about 3 maybe 4 weeks old (his eyes were still blue) with matted eyes. They called us to see if we would take him since their one son is allergic to cats. I said yes, we would take him (what's one more with the already 5 we had) and nurse him and clean him up BUT he could not stay forever.The little neighbor girl named him Fluffy which lasted until she left. We sat around that night trying to come up with a name and then my daughter said what about Cookie and so Cookie it was. At this point we had no idea what sex it was (because I can NEVER tell when they are that little which is why we have a female named Fred). When we finally figured out it was a boy my son said that Cookie was a girls name and he was going to call him Bob. So Cookie is now Bob or Cookie Bob to some.
Well Bob hung around for about 5 weeks as we did find someone to take him and give him a home. While he was with us though, he was a favorite chew toy for the basset puppy Daisy and a great little play mate for Little Bear the raccoon. Once Bob went to his new home, Little Bear became just that...a Bear and rebellious because her best friend was gone. Daisy has since found other things to chew on (mostly shoes and dirty laundry).

Here we have Little Bear and Bob tussling and carrying on and generally having a good time.

So that is the story of Bob.

And if you need a good movie to watch this forth of July weekend why not watch What About Bob with Bill Murry and Richard Dreyfuss - great movie and very funny...kinda like Bob the cat.

The Little Deer

So I get this call a couple weeks ago as I'm walking in the door from Bible School. My first thought is don't answer the phone, let it go to the recorder. I picked the phone up anyway (in the garage) and it's our Scout Master wanting to know if I can help a deer? His friend has called him to see if he knows anyone who can help him and he called our Cub Master (who wasn't home yet from the same Bible School) so he called me. The story I got was his friend's daughter found a baby deer that day being attacked by dogs. She thinks the dead deer she saw on the road might be his mom but she wasn't sure but the little deer was hurt so she picked it up and took it home.

I'm hearing this story and thinking a little deer attacked by dogs, it's got part of his rump missing and bites on his face etc. and I'm picturing this bloody mess in my head but agree to go meet the friend and see what I could do (you know being the vet that I am).

Anyway, I met the friend and met the little scared deer and it wasn't nearly as bad as what I was pictureing in my head. He did have a bite on the side of his face and a bite on his rump but it wasn't visiable when his fur was smoothed over it. He was dehydrated because the friend said he wouldn't drink anything and I had a bottle and some formula and forced it down his throat. We loaded him up and brought him home.

We tended to his wounds and fed him some more and put him to bed in the bathroom.

The next day he was walking around downstairs and discoved "the cave" (under the desk where our dogs like to lay) and made himself at home.

He didn't like the bottle but would drink from a bowl and then he found the fountain in the living room and started drinking from that too.

He finally got a name (other than Bambi and dinner) of Marley - don't ask, the three year old neice in Texas named him.

Here is Marley and Bay so you can see either how small he really is or how big the bassett is. The bassett out weighed him by probably45 pounds.

This is Marley with Bob the kitten relaxing in "the cave".
Bob is also the favorite chew toy of Marley (and Daisy and Little Bear). Bob has since found a new home and is no longer a chew toy. I'll tell you more about Bob later.

Anyway, Marley seemed to be making progress and would go outside and do his business and talk to the Llamas and generally explore the back yard.

A week after we brought him home he had a seizure and died. We have no idea what caused it other than he may have had some internal injuries we couldn't see. In any case with all of the young animals we have dealt with over the years, when they are so young there is never any guarantee that they will make it and if at all possible it is best that they stay with their mothers. Only his mother had been killed so it was up to us. I feel bad not knowing if there was more we could have done for him or if we did something wrong but he was eating good and getting pleanty to drink and he was pooping and peeing just fine so it's a mystery.

I still miss him though.