Yesterday I had occasion to use one of my favorite tools, the catch rope. Our catch rope is one from the Camelidynamics range. It is made of a beautiful soft cotton rope and has an adjustable ring and hook attachment making it adaptable for any size alpaca.
Our dear Chai still has some remnants of the facial abscess that she developed in the fall. We thought it had gone, the holes that it was draining from were healed and there was no swelling in the immediate area. There must have been a tiny speck of bacteria left though, as within a short while we could see the abscess was growing larger again. So it’s back to draining the abscess on a daily basis and treating it to see if this time it will go completely. Abscesses can be tricky devils to get rid of, and it has been our experience that it is not unusual for an abscess to reappear quite easily.
Ric often works as a substitute teacher for the local elementary schools. Having gained his degree in elementary education he feels that he should put his education to good use. He enjoys working in the different schools and the schools seem to like having him.
Yesterday was one of the days that Ric was teaching, which left me to deal with Chai’s abscess on my own. Chai is a sturdy girl, even following her recent illness and weight loss. She has regained a lot of the weight she lost prior to giving birth to Kanika, but I am still concerned that she is not 100% well. Of course Chai is not too keen on us messing around with her facial abscess and often pulls away as we try to drain and treat it.
In situations such as Chai’s when I don’t have anyone to help me, I find the catch rope invaluable. I can easily catch Chai while she is eating in the morning and once the catch rope is on I can steady her and prevent her from backing away from me while I work on her. I don’t like to tie alpacas up when I am working on them, I find that the restriction puts them on edge and makes them harder to deal with. With the catch rope I can give the alpaca a little leeway to move and help the alpaca to feel less trapped.
As I work on Chai she will frequently put her nose up in the air in an effort to get away from me, often I can adjust my touch to where she is less inclined to raise her nose up, but sometimes there is no getting around the fact that draining the abscess is painful. It has to be done though, and so if Chai persists in putting her nose in the air I loop the loose end of the catch rope over Chai’s nose like a halter nose band, which gives me a little more control over her.
The catch rope is quite long, when I work with halter training crias it is great to be able to put the catch rope on them and also put a good space between us until they feel more comfortable with someone getting close to them. The length of the catch rope allows me to put that space between the crias and me. The other advantage of having a long catch rope is that when you leave your medicine supply box outside of the pen, you are able to open the gate to the pen, reach your supply box and then return to the pen, all the while still having your alpaca contained by it’s being on the other end of the catch rope. That is exactly what happened to me yesterday.
Having started to soak and drain Chai’s abscess I realized that I had left the Scarlet Oil that I was going to apply to the abscess in the medicine supply box outside the pen. I could have tied Chai up, or I could have draped the catch rope over her back while I left the pen. It was so easy though to leave the catch rope on her, and then leave the pen for a couple to seconds still holding onto the catch rope and maintaining contact with Chai while I retrieved my supplies.
The catch rope is a simple piece of equipment, but sometimes it is the simplest things that are the most useful and certainly in the instance of the catch rope that is the case.
A Taste of Life at Windrush Alpacas 