You can see a distinct kink in her neck here.
Jj is for Jottings 44. Happy Birthday, April.
Some time this month, April turned 20 years old. That is quite an achievement, since we were told that the average lifespan of an alpaca is 15 years. She is a lovely, gentle soul and was always an excellent mother. Although, now I come to think of it, she and Geisha had many a ding dong fight until a few months ago, so maybe not quite as gentle.
A few months ago I noticed that her neck seemed to be caved on one side and there was a large lump on the other side. It hadn’t been noticeable when she had a year’s fleece on her. So I asked a dog chiropractor to come and see her – as you do. He felt up and down her neck and said that she’d cracked the wing of a vertebra, and the lump was calcification. It probably happened during one of those fights with Geisha. Clearly there wasn’t anything that could be done about it, and she doesn’t seem to be in pain, and at least now we knew the lump part wasn’t anything sinister. It does mean that she is somewhat restricted in her movements and can’t scratch one side of her face with her hind toenail, for example. But April has solved that one – she rubs her face on the side of her special breakfast dish (which is actually an old refrigerator vegetable crisper, and I have absolutely no idea where it came from).
Her neck looks normal from this side – as she eats her brekky out of the vegetable crisper.
April continues in her quiet, unassuming way. I now stand guard over her at breakfast time, so the others can’t steal her food, and she knows that, when I take green feed out to them during the day in summer when there’s no green feed in the paddock, I will always give her some away from the others so she gets a fair go. That way, I sometimes manage to sneak her an extra treat which the others aren’t aware of – a handful of crab apples yesterday. I don’t think she will be with us for too much longer, so we just appreciate the old darling while we still have her.