Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Cornell Labs held at Angel Tree!




Well, it was that time of year again

and Cornell asked once again to have Angel Tree host the vet students for one of their first labs on various farms. The students started arriving and getting into their blue "jumpers" as I call them (you'd have to ask the students about their nick names for them! :-).They quickly rallied around and started to learn about "the alpaca". We here at Angel Tree use llamas as guard animals for the alpacas...and we have a young female llama that has decided that she wants to be the star of the show. "Liberty" quickly won the hearts of everyone and allowed us to demonstrate, poke and prod for the sake of learning about the llama and alpaca. There were 4 goups totally 90 students in all that came through the farm on two days. They filed in and filled the lawn with cars and seemed anxious to learn about some of their potential future "clients"...the llama and the alpaca. We vaccinated, trimmed toenails, drew blood, completed blood cards...and even sedated a few of the adult llamas for their pedicures! Yes...can you imagine having to be sedated for YOUR pedi??? The animals tolerated the barage of students fairly well...but everyone was ready to be put out to pasture when all was said and done. A lot got done and it was beneficial to everyone...the students, professors and us! (PS: I did the "chipping" or microchipping that night...without an audience!) It was a few days packed with learning! Thanks students (and Dr. Smith!) for all your hard work...sometimes it's not easy wrestling an alpaca :-) but they are incredible creatures and we hope you enjoyed them as much as we do!

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