Should have gone to Specsavers!

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My son, David came down on Friday afternoon with his lovely collie dog Jax.  He always gets roped in for a few odd jobs when he is here.

I was still serving customers in the shop at dusk and had hurry down to make sure the chickens were shut in before it got too dark.  I usually take a scoop of food to entice the odd strays into the pen.  I did not notice that Jax had gone ahead of me into the chicken coop.  When she saw me she tried to get out, which she did by barking and jumping through the flock.  In the process about a third of them waddled and cackled out of the shed into the field again.

This meant a comedy chase around trying to persuade them all back into the pen so we could bring the male alpacas down from the shop paddock.

Again, I did not notice that Jax was behind me.   I walked up to get behind the alpaca group whilst Mike opened the gate at the bottom.  I was planning a leisurely walk down but Jax had other ideas and decided to help by running them down at speed.   Mike was not quite ready with the gate with the result that four of them missed the entrance to their paddock and joined the females who were coming up for their evening feed.

Chaos ensued, with the females being chased and the males trying to mount them whilst their friends in the right paddock were getting excited and wanted to join in the "fun".  By this time it was nearly dark.

Luckily we were near the barn and with the help of Dolly (my dog), Jax and David we managed to get them all in the barn and we  separated boys and girls into separate pens.  A Few of the girls were still outside which made things a bit complicated.  We would have liked to just release the males and herd them over to their paddock.  

In the end we led the four male alpacas  across the field on halters and when they were secure in their own paddock we released the female alpacas, who were, by then, happily chomping on the hay.