My Journey with the Yass Valley Veterinary began back in 2012 when I approached the clinic for a high school placement. After much discussion and promising that I’d be on my best behaviour I was given a chance to come for 2 weeks placement during the winter school holidays.
I was quickly immersed in the life of clinic, holding anxious dogs, being thrown into the air by a horse during a dental and assisting with a difficult calving. What I appreciated most about the placement was that despite my obvious lack of coordination and knowledge I was accepted as part of the team and thrown into the fray.
One specific case comes to mind when I think about my school placement time with YVV. It was a busy afternoon and Stuart had just received a call that an alpaca was struggling to give birth. (Known as an unpacking I soon learnt). We jumped into the car and sped out straight away. While I had seen calvings and lambings before this was a different matter entirely. When Alpacas are unpacking, they tend to imitate a person in excruciating pain, and this one was performing like something out of a horror film.
Unphased Stuart dived in and extricated one leg, then another and that is when we hit our first hurdle. The Cria’s extremely long neck was bent around over its back and there seemed to no hope in hades that the little fella’s head was going to come out. Stuart however knew better and was able with significant effort to twist the cria out of the womb. The little monster of a Cria appeared quite dazed in the winter sun but was soon sitting up and looking for mum.
8 years later I was starting one of my first weekends on call with great trepidation. As the Saturday morning shift came to a close, I was informed by reception that there was an alpaca unpacking! I packed the car and hit the road with a vague idea of the address, heading into an area with no reception. After an hour of bush-bashing and several attempted phone calls with the owner, I arrived at the destination to find a herd of 200 alpacas in the sheep yards. We found our struggling hembra (female alpaca) and set to work extracting the cria.
The little macho (male alpaca) was well and truly stuck with his head bent around over his back and only the left leg showing. I reached in and carefully pulled the right leg up and before I knew it the little fella whipped the left leg back in! With memories of 8 years of ago fresh in my mind I knew I had a trick up my sleeve. I quickly returned the right leg into the womb creating the space to swing his head around and up into the summer air. It wasn’t long after that the little fella was out and trying to stand.
As I stooped to assist him a clod of spit and grass landed a direct hit between my eyes! I looked up to see that the culprit was the cria’s mother who wasn’t taking to kindly to my interference and on that bomb shell it was time to leave.
