I keep meaning to update, but when faced with the choice of updating the blog or getting in just a little more study time, I'm going with the studying. It seems like every day is a quiz, midterm, or some other sort of stress inducing event right now. Last week I had a quiz on Monday, a midterm Tuesday, a quiz Wednesday, a quiz Thursday, and a midterm and a lab practical Friday. This week I've already had a quiz, a breed ID, and I'll have another quiz tomorrow and Thursday. Ughhhh.
I did relatively well on my animal science midterm. I was hoping for an A, but I ended up with a solid B. Given that I flubbed an entire section on sheep, I'm ok with that mark. I may not feel so positive when I get my A&P marks back though. I felt like I got at least a B on the lecture midterm, but the lab practical was excruciating. I'd studied my butt off for it and I still felt like I knew nothing. On the bright side, everyone I've talked to is pretty sure they failed it, so maybe she'll be forced to curve it.
Anyway, I've missed two "Tuesday Lab" updates! This is unforgiveable!
Last week we went to Northwest Alpacas.
We got to see a one day old baby (baby alpacas are called "cria"), pet a couple alpacas, and then watch a "spit off" pregnancy check and a breeding.
A "spit off" is an easy method of checking to see if a female alpaca (called a "hembra") is pregnant. She's put in with a male alpaca (called a "macho"....I love that one) and watched. If she's open, she'll go into the "kush" position (kneeling down) and let him mount her. If she's pregnant, however, she'll "spit him off", and not let him near. We weren't quite prepared for just how quickly the hembra would spit, so I and a few others were standing right next to the fence. I'm a little slow to duck, so I ended up with alpaca spit in my hair. Awesome!
We watched the poor macho get spat off by about 10 females before his job was done. The poor guy never got discouraged and he kept up a mating call the entire time. For those who have never heard a camelid mating call, it's something else. It's described as an "orgling" sound, and if you look it up online you can hear a sample. The macho will orgle for the entire time he's trying to convince a hembra to mate, and will continue through the entire mating itself. Since alpaca matings last about 45 minutes, the sound can get a little grating.
Today's field trip was to Laffalot Farms. They raise Nubian goats.
For those who don't know, I love goats. Just adore them. One day I would like to own goats.
These guys weren't quite as friendly as the goats I'm used to (the petting zoo goats were unbelievably socialized) but they were still very nice. They just weren't used to having 30 people in blue coveralls descend on their paddocks, and I think it spooked them a little.
Still, we got to pet a few goats and talk to the farm owner who has been raising them for 26 years. One of my favourite parts of these trips is listening to the farmers and finding out what is important to them and what their lives are like. Despite a pretty healthy amount of large animal exposure, I've almost never dealt with actual farms or farmers, so it's really interesting to get an idea of what their lives are like. For anyone who has dairy animals (cows or goats), there's no such thing as a vacation. Those animals have to be milked 2-3 times a day, and if you're not there to do it, there's going to be a problem. Goats, especially, don't often like being milked by someone they don't know and trust, so even hiring someone to come in and do the milking while they go away doesn't always work. Just makes me more sure that I never want a dairy animal!
This week we have a double field trip to make up for a week where we had no lab last month. This field trip should be highly exciting because we get to go to the zoo! Yay!
Alright, I can feel my brain shutting down. I think it's bedtime.
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