Cleanliness is next to Godliness!

 

Just a short blog tonight as I am completely cream crackered!  Whether you are doing self-catering holiday lets or bed and breakfast, it’s the finishing touches that take the time, but make all the difference to your guests.  So I spent all morning at our holiday cottage, then rushed back here just in time for our vet David Parkin to arrive.  Although Philly has put back on all the weight she has lost, and looks much stronger in general, there is still pus coming from the abscess.  We thought we were really getting on top of it, but now we are not so sure.  Consequently, we are going to switch to using another long lasting antibiotic, Zactran.  The only thing with this drug is that it can cause stomach problems in alpacas, so we will just have to monitor Philly’s progress carefully.  It was good to meet the two American students from the Royal Veterinary College in London who came with David and who are getting some work experience with Intake Vets. They have very little knowledge of alpacas.  I think it was probably a bit of a shock to the system coming to Northumberland where it was trying to snow today.  One of the girls is from California and one Louisiana – both a bit warmer than here!!!!

I think that I must have been really bad in a past life, as I even had to dash into Newcastle this afternoon to get the last bits and bobs for the cottage and didn’t get back until 6.30ish!  At least Mike had a bottle of wine in the fridge for deserving causes!!

 

I suppose I had better explain the title of tonight’s blog - the importance of disinfecting your animal trailers and animal barns at this time of the year.  Apart from the fact that you will not be welcomed with open arms (and rightly so!) if you arrive at a show with a filthy vehicle and trailer, it is good herd management to keep everything disinfected.  We use Virkon disinfectant for all these jobs.  If you have any teenagers who are looking for a job in their spare time, then let them loose with a jet spray and they will be quite happy for some time.  They might end up spraying each other, but I don’t worry about such things.