Suddenly aggressive alpaca male

[Ann Marie]

Last night I was contacted by an alpaca owner who has two alpaca boys, both 3 years old. She was very worried as one of them suddenly has become aggressive against her and she does not know what to do. The fact that she has two children, 3 and 7 years old, makes the situation even more unpleasant. Personally I have never come across such an animal and I promised to ask in this forum. Hopefully someone can come with advice!

The breeder of this alpaca is very experienced and I cannot believe that something has been wrong in the upbringing. Both alpacas came to this new owner when they were about 11 months old. According to the breeder his mother is a tough lady and all her sons have turned out to be very curious (A-babies?) so I guess genetics is one part of the problem.

Both alpacas have always been very kind. This special boy, however, a bit more than the other one but never exaggerated (I have never met them so all I am telling here is what I heard on the phone). So when it was time for a birthday party with the children there were some activities out in the alpaca field. Suddenly the owner discovers that this alpaca is following a small 5-year old boy. The boy is frightened and the owner tries carefully to push the alpaca away. He becomes irritated and continues following the little boy. The owner then pushes harder which results in a very aggressive answer from the alpaca who is rearing at her and chest wrestle her in a very scary way. To make a long story shorter, since that day every time when he now sees her he is attacking, but only her, no harm whatsoever is done to her husband. She is now not entering the alpaca field.

One explanation to why the alpaca was selecting this little boy among all the others could have been that he had newborn puppies at home and his mother is a vet. Perhaps he was full of extremely interesting smells and this was triggering the alpaca. And when the alpaca owner came she was behaving just like an alpaca male with the consequence that the alpaca now sees her a The Big Rival. Comments, someone?!

Just after the problem started both boys were gelded so now everybody is waiting for the hormones to disappear!

We were discussing two options:
1. The owner keeps away from him a few months. Perhaps he will forget what made him upset.
2. She tries to educate him and tell him who is the boss and to respect her personal area. Perhaps by taking him on walks in the woods and with lots of obstacles to make him focus on other things then being upset with her.

Or perhaps there are much better options!

I suggested the owner to attend Julies clinic in September bringing the alpacas with her. I am sure Julie could be a great help.

We would greatly appreciate comments and suggestions! Somebody who has experienced similar behavior?

Ann Marie

[Marty McGee Bennett]

I am so sorry that these people find themselves in this situation. And I wish it was unusual unfortunately it is all too common. There is a great deal of information about aggression on the forum and part of a chapter devoted to it in my book the Camelid Companion. I have written many articles and I have a audio CD about it.
If you search for aggression on this forum you will find many many posts.

Almost everyone is surprised by aggression even though the warning signs are always there. It is also common to make an attempt to explain it away by analyzing the reason for the incident. Like the fact that the child was a around particular smells. In my opinion the trigger is largely irrelevant and distracts the owners from what needs to be done. In this case the animal should be gelded immediately and re-homed. I don't think an animal like this is a good fit for a place with young children. Unfortunately the outcome is very often not positive. Based on your description this animal does not consider that humans need to be respected. I am sure that he got this impression from the humans themselves because they encouraged disrespectful behavior like following, rubbing nibbling and invasion of space and thought they were signs of affection instead of aggression. When the human pushed the alpaca away from something it wanted then it was the same thing as a challenge and since the alpaca has been led to believe that humans are not anything special there is no reason for him not to accept the challenge and try to prevail.

Unfortunately this impression is difficult to change in an animal that is three. If he has not been gelded he should be immediately. I would absolutely caution this woman to be very very careful because the boundary has now been breached and the alpaca could become very aggressive and hurt this woman or her children badly. If he still has fighting teeth the situation is quite dangerous. I am not saying he should be euthanized but I would say he is not a candidate for continuing to live with or around children and the behavior may get quite a lot worse not better.

Rather than go into detail about the rest of the process of trying to correct the behavior I will refer you to the information I referenced earlier in the post. I will say that a member of the forum wrote about an aggressive male and was convinced that he would be ok after a change in environment-- they sent him to live with a group of males to teach him discipline-- only to have him come home and behave even worse that in the original circumstances. They ended up having to euthanize him. I wish I could be more positive but I think that aggressive animals need to be managed in a way that assumes that they will always have the potential to be aggressive. Behind a locked gate in a pasture that no one can accidently get into and absolutely away from children.

[OHL]

Ann Marie,
Gelding is of course a good first step for this boy, but I'm afraid it isn't as simple as "forgetting" the triggering event. His behavior is the result of years of interactions that have formed his opinion of humans.

He has made very clear that he sees humans, specifically this person, as needing to be controlled/driven out of his area. This becomes a behavior, not just the result of hormones, although hormones typically make the aggression more serious.

11 months old is still a very impressionable age, especially for a type-A personality that is not being raised with mature, appropriate alpacas in his company.

A person without experience dealing with these types of behaviors who is already spooked by the animal is likely not going to be able to correct/retrain him effectively. Even someone with experience can't always "fix" this type of behavior.

Is the breeder willing to take this animal back and replace him with another, mature and well-adjusted animal? This would be my first recommendation - especially where there are young children involved. This is not a safe situation, even after gelding has taken place.

Sara

[Ann Marie]

Thank you so much indeed for your very interesting answers, Marty and Sara! It really is a difficult situation for this alpaca owner as the whole family is very attached to both their alpacas. I think they need time to understand what really has happened.

Aggressive males certainly is a topic that all breeders - big and small - should know and inform about much more. And how to raise A-babies. And never sell an A-baby to someone without previous alpaca experience, at least not without detailed information about how to raise it. And certainly never having it as a sales argument. The biggest problem probably is to identify an A-baby. I know a big breeder in a country with lots of alpacas who on purpose let people (even encourage them) take almost newborn alpaca babies to bottle raise them in order to get "nice" animals. I was absolutely horrified when I heard it but the breeder was telling us about it as a very clever marketing idea. This breeder is even selling bottle raised animals to a higher price than not-bottle raised individuals. There will always be a surplus of males without breeding potential and this breeder is convinced to have found the perfect "added value"... Such peolple you never reach with arguments. And unfortunately you never reach the people who buy such animals as they most likely are not interested enough to learn more about alpacas. They think they are making a very intelligent short-cut. As we all know, alpacas are so cute, especially the babies, and it is extremely difficult to make people understand what can happen.

Ann Marie