Heavy Layers Cut From Over Grown Llama

hey y'all welcome to R Choy shearing my name is Katie and today we have a severely overgrown llama he hasn't been shorn in several years this is probably his first shearing maybe even ever never know what's going to happen when you have a wild llama like this very excited to get in there and to get this guy feeling better because it's been a long time since he's felt the breeze on his skin but we've got sharp gear no fear so let's get over there and get cheering for those of you who are new we don't often handle tame llamas and Jamie here isn't one of the few this is actually a first time even being pinned and he surely isn't tter broken which is true for most of the animals that we Shear I stand behind him close enough not to get kicked hard but also to convince him he can't move backwards holding fiber provides no stability because the length of the mats it's very important that everything we do is slow and low energy I don't want him to stress out and the only way I pull that off is if he can trust me and the obvious damage to his bunny ears is a sure sign that he'll be head shy we'll need to be extra delicate as we approach those got a lot to come off he's been a total dude so far but I'll quickly gauge his personality and the complexity of this project once the barrel or the body of the fleece begins rolling off I find it safest to position myself on the opposite side as I start on these overgrown cases a llama can nail you if you stand anywhere behind their front shoulder and those pointed toes are pretty mean when they're angry if this fleece falling scares him I'll be safe from shots fired my body also works as important pressure telling him that he can't step away from the mats hopefully convincing him to stand still instead I'm not just worried about startling my new buddy these mats are heavier than the standard growth and due to misinformation Jamie has missed 5 years of annual haircuts the weight of this fleece pulls on the llama's skin causing a tension wrinkle that to finagle my shears around and focus so hard on just not nicking him my gear is designed to use the natural oils of the animal but that requires me going against its skin cutting through mats and sticks is brutal for gear but there's no other way to free him of this big hunk of fiber my left hand works hard to manipulate the fiber but it seems to expand Forever Without End that's it what normally would take me 30 seconds to remove has taken three times as long because of the severity of his matting unfortunately we're less than a quarter of the weight done but if you listen closely you can hear my shears chop through some of the sticks in his mats another interesting fact about llamas is they hate having their legs touch so it's no surprise when I begin to remove the mats from his thighs that he begins to distrust me a little he can lie if he likes but I don't have time to stop he's already hot and I need to get this off of him I also need him to stand so I can't allow him to to think that laying down got him what he wanted I go back for his leg to prove that I'm not going to harm him but it's not worth blowing him up so when he gets upset I go ahead and move to the next spot most people would find it difficult to quantify how much fiber is on an animal when it's overgrown but this shot does that Justice in my 15 years of experience nobody has been shocked by how little has come off a llama learning from from the last side I try cutting the mats free before I start taking off the barrel this side is already much more manageable and that's good because he's starting to lose his patience with me the mats complicate everything and any llama only has so much patience to give got attached to the Llama goodness yeah I got breathed in I know buddy I'm getting it off by resting his fiber on himself it looks like all the work I've done has been for not it is crazy to think that I have removed so much already but by laying it back on the Llama you lose his body completely again I make a mistake with my shears and I pull on his skin I don't Nick him but it's enough to frustrate him and cause him to lose his patience this is pretty less than ideal because I have a lot more of this blanket to remove and if he lays down that's going to make it incredibly hard or if he chooses to dance either way it shows how fragile the relationship between animal and Shearer is and how much focus it requires in every moment I'm pretty relieved to have the second half of the barrel off now that he's starting to get a bit worked up I'm trying to get off as much as I can as calmly and as quickly as possible my job is to make him more comfortable not to make him look pretty but the goal is always to get them as clean as possible so that they don't develop mats that they have to live with the more impatient he is the more time I spend outside of the fiber and it's really run down my gear so it's about time to change I'm going to use mine oh he's getting back up I'm happy he decides to stand on his own but I need him all the way up so I pester him a bit to encourage the process the deep red skin between his leg is an indication of how hot he is and how quickly I need to move but now that I'm at the second back leg I know it's going to be a battle both male llamas and alpacas have a set of teeth called castrating teeth and they use those in combat to turn their enemies into Unix those battles often involve leg biting as a response a lot of llamas will lay down to protect their legs his nuts are huge and those twoo I probably shouldn't yell that on camera what's said in the barn stays in the barn Jam's droopy lip is another indication that we need to move quickly but I can't move too quickly because I know he's going to be head shy he's behaved excellently up to this point which is extremely exciting because we'll be shearing him for many years to come and if he has a good experience this time it's just something for us to build on so that every time gets less and less stressful for them the front legs can be just as big of a challenge as the back legs are but he's actually doing really well for me here it's a good thing we've restored a little bit of patience and Trust because going through his fiber has been so hard on my gear I actually have to change my gearow that blades oh yeah he's doing a good job though he's a good boy you're a good boy Jamie honestly maybe it was a bit soon to compliment because he was not having it on the back leg and he had kind of figured me out I adjust as a counter and honestly that's where it all seemed to go wrong that's not mouth spit either that's stomach acid so I really ticked him off when I first smelled this rancid fluid at the age of 14 I thought it was pretty gross but after having to wear it for an entire shearing day I got pretty used to it he's to feel however he wants about the fact that I'm still going to clean him up I did forget that we had to get the ears though and I already knew he wasn't going to be too pleased about that so adding a spitter to the mix is just going to make this more interesting I don't want to yank on his ears because that'll hurt him but I do need to grab his head so that he doesn't Jerk it around while I'm shearing by his face that was the last straw about that you just be in a Lama you let me know if you want me to put it down the Lama or the the camera and help like let me know if you want me to help I just needed to remove some of the slack so that he can no longer point to spit at least while daring clean up his tail while she does this you'll get a couple glimpses of his testicles and they are far from the normal on a llama they're elongated and I imagine that this is the body's adaptation to intense heat that was trapped in there for many many Texas Summers this is just one example of the many physiological effects of an overgrown fleece the lines all over his body is another common thing I find in overgrown animals I wonder if each line is due to a mat or maybe even a break in them hair behind hister it he's going to have to keep the hair behind his alter More Jamie wake out brother I sure am these are definitely several years worth of mats as you can see it just kind of forms Pages like a book um this is why animals should be shorn every year every animal every year because if not it will just continue to grow and grow and grow and eventually this is going to be so hot that they just can't survive anymore at least down here in Texas so this is a great example of why we've got to do our yearly maintenance and I know that our boy is feeling much better thanks for tuning in you guys we'll catch you next time sheer on

Channel: Right Choice Shearing

Views: 282,574

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Id: Q1orDYmNgpY

Length: 12min 24sec (744 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 08 2024