The top guy here is medium brown, Orion (Slammer). Remember shear day back in May, we gave him this funky hair cut? We called it a show cut. Well, here he is a week before his show.

Dark fawn Polaris (Lars) will also be going to the show. His cut isn't quite so extreme. Today is Lar's 2nd birthday.

♪♫ ♪ Happy Birthday to Lars ♪ ♫ ♪

These two boys are full brothers, same mom and dad. Mom is white Ariana, our very best fleeced girl and dad is Macusani's Chin Chin, a handsome black guy who lives at Luka's Alpaca Ranch down in Jackson, MI. Because they are related like this, they will go into a class together called Get of Dam, where actually their mom is judged even though she isn't there.

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Within a month before an alpaca show, the national alpaca organization, AOBA, requires a health exam from a vet for alpacas to be allowed onto the show grounds. Next week is our show at Birch Run, so today Dr. Kristin did the exam on these two guys. Both she and I laugh because basically all she does is take their temperature and fill out a health form - to the tune of a $40 farm call.

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Actually, I'm glad that this cursory exam is required because at least runny noses and loose poop is noticed and we sure don't want to be exposed to anything. At the show, another vet will look the 'pacas over and check that their microchips and papers match.