Hairdresser by day dentist by night!!

When you have a farm you certainly learn to wear many hats. Some days you are a nanny other days a carpenter and one never knows what the days challenges will bring. Yesterday while shearing one of our female alpacas "Tee-Tee" we noticed her teeth were in need of trimming. Now I have seen this done and have read up on it as much as possible. We have the OB Wire to do the job but this is one job that I was not looking forward to doing. It was important to get her teeth done because she is going to be bred this weekend and it is essential to get her in tip top shape and address all of the husbandry issues before breeding. She was shorn, vaccines were done, nails trimmed and the only other thing that was needed were her teeth to be trimmed. To trim the teeth you need to make a notch in the side of the first tooth with a dremel and then using the OB Wire you literally saw through the teeth. I know just the thought is giving you the willies. It is important that the mouth be held open with a rolled hand towel and another person is needed to roll the lips back so they don't get cut. A third person is needed to spray water on the teeth as the sawing generates tremendous heat. Well I'm proud to say we successfully trimmed Tee-Tee's teeth and it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be so the new hat for the week is dentist.