The Toothamatic

Did you know that alpacas’ teeth grow? Eating wears them down but sometimes the teeth grow too long on our soft pastures (rather than the rocky terrain of the Andes in South America). Occasionally we need to trim their teeth. Sounds scary, right?

That’s where the Toothamatic comes in. It’s a tooth trimmer. One that saves Alpaca Breeders lots of time and money, and makes teeth trimming much easier on the alpacas. Designed by an alpaca breeder, this tool can be used with lamas too.

• It’s lightweigth (4.8 lbs.)
• Easy and Fast to use (2-4 seconds). This eliminates the risk of overheating the tooth which occurs when using a dremmel tool.
• Reduces stress on the alpaca and the human.
• Offers the “option” to adjust the length of the teeth.
• Saves serious $$$ over veterinary teeth trimming.
  

  Before. Older alpacas sometimes need a trim.

  

  Dental work - over in seconds

After. I'm ready for my close-up Mr. Demille.

Here’s what trimming teeth is like with the Toothamatic: It’s a Thursday afternoon, I am running around doing lots of errands, tight schedule, deadlines everywhere, the whole nine. On my To-Do list is trimming teeth on 3 alpacas. I drive up to the barn only 15 minutes before I have to go pick up my dumplings at school. I hop out and run to the barn. It’s pouring rain. I run into the office and ask Jeremy (my farm manager), “Can we do teeth now?”

“Sure,” he says. Phone rings. Its my hubby, the Artist, who asks what I’m doing. When I tell him, he complains, “You’re not gonna smell like teeth on our date tonight are you?”

“Of course not,” I assure him. Jeremy assures me that any teeth aroma will evaporate quickly. It does smell bad and we are supposed to wear masks because tooth dust is carcinogenic. Did you know that? Yeah, but I don’t worry much about it. I’m such a rebel you know.

In less than 10 minutes, we had trimmed teeth on 3 alpacas without any blood, sweat, or tears. Soon I was off to pick up the kids, take them to their lessons, pick up the babysitter, etc. …And in case you were wondering… perhaps it was because I had distracted surprised the Artist with NBA tickets, but I never did get any complaints that night that I smelled of teeth.  (Thanks Toothamatic! *wink*)

Win Your Very Own Toothamatic!

I believe firmly that every alpaca/lama farm should have one of these. They retail for $195. It will pay for itself after 2 or 3 uses. If you don’t win, contact Don Marquette at The AlpacaRosa to buy one. Tell him that you saw the Toothamatic at Alpaca Farmgirl AND buy one by 12/31/08 he will give you 10% OFF! You will be so glad you did. There are a total of 4 Ways to Enter to win, and everyone is eligible. You can enter as many ways as you like. Each method of entry = 1 entry into the contest. Here’s how:

1. Visit our Alpaca Herdsires list and then leave a comment answering this question: If you had got to breed one of your females to one of our herdsires, which one would you choose?

2. Subscribe to our RSS feed so you can keep up with what’s new on Alpaca Farmgirl. To do so, click the pink button on the homepage to subscribe to Alpaca Farmgirl. This means that you can receive updates from my blog each time I write a new post. You can choose to read them in a reader such as Google, or have them sent to your email account. Once you’ve subscribed to our RSS feed, leave a comment and tell me that you’ve subscribed. (If you are already a subscriber just put that in your comment. Thanks!) Consider subscribing to the Alpaca Farm Business feed as well. That feed is different, and subscribing to either one will get you an entry.

3. Follow me on Twitter and leave a tweet on Twitter about this giveaway. You can write whatever you like as long as you link to this post. Leave a comment that you tweeted with a direct link to your tweet.

4. Write a post on your blog about this Giveaway. You can write whatever you want, just link back to this post. Leave a comment that you did this with a direct link to your post. If you don’t have a blog, email at least 3 people to tell them about this Giveaway. Leave me a comment that you did this.

* It is important that you leave a separate comment for each method of entry.* Winner will be chosen at random. This giveaway ends on December 18th at midnight CST.

Each day from December 1-7, I will be announcing 2 Giveaways per day. One prize will be unveiled in the morning and one in the afternoon. View a list of all the giveaways so far. Happy Holidays!