Marty McGee Bennett
08-02-2005, 04:32 PM
Greetings,
My wife and I recently purchased 2 young male alpacas, about 7 mos old. I found your website and found it very helpful... I was encouraged about your discussion regarding facilities, seems what we had put together for our 4 cows is ideal for the alpacas. (Cows are gone)... We were advised to keep them in a small enclosure for a couple of weeks and just hang out with them so we got to know one another... I am in a wheelchair, so I would just sit by the fence with my hand on a board and talk to them and let them smell my hand... All was well until we opened up the gate and let them have the run on about an acre... At first we would call them, shake the grain pan and then close them in at night, they would come on the run... But within a few days, this routine stopped working, the act as thought they really don't care to be closed in at night, and the grain trick, well it went out the window too... We are doing a lot of reading as we want to do things right... We haven't haltered them yet or done any contact thing...
My question ( I'll stick to one as I have many) is -- Should we expect the alpacas to be coming when we call them and reward them with grain?
Thank you,
Don & Connie
HI Don and Connie, I think what happened is that when you let them out into the big pasture they had more interesting things to do than visit with you. Please don't have hurt feelings. Remember that alpacas are shy and they are also very herd oriented animals. When the novelty of the new pasture wears off and the grass dies and you are doling out the feed, I suspect you will suddenly become much more interesting to your alpacas. It is important that you organize your property with laneways, holding pens and catch pens so that when you do want your alpacas to come in... food notwithstanding... you can make it happen. Hand feeding is great but make sure that your animals are polite about it or I would recommend discontinuing the practice.
Alpacas would rather sleep out at night if the weather is nice (and even if it isn't) and if there is a good reason for them to sleep inside when the weather is nice you may need to herd them in. Confined spaces when you are a creature of flight is unnerving. Make sure that you never grab your alpacas around the neck and they will become more confident about confined spaces and more comfortable coming up to you. For more information about barn and pasture set up have a look in the guild library.
Marty
My wife and I recently purchased 2 young male alpacas, about 7 mos old. I found your website and found it very helpful... I was encouraged about your discussion regarding facilities, seems what we had put together for our 4 cows is ideal for the alpacas. (Cows are gone)... We were advised to keep them in a small enclosure for a couple of weeks and just hang out with them so we got to know one another... I am in a wheelchair, so I would just sit by the fence with my hand on a board and talk to them and let them smell my hand... All was well until we opened up the gate and let them have the run on about an acre... At first we would call them, shake the grain pan and then close them in at night, they would come on the run... But within a few days, this routine stopped working, the act as thought they really don't care to be closed in at night, and the grain trick, well it went out the window too... We are doing a lot of reading as we want to do things right... We haven't haltered them yet or done any contact thing...
My question ( I'll stick to one as I have many) is -- Should we expect the alpacas to be coming when we call them and reward them with grain?
Thank you,
Don & Connie
HI Don and Connie, I think what happened is that when you let them out into the big pasture they had more interesting things to do than visit with you. Please don't have hurt feelings. Remember that alpacas are shy and they are also very herd oriented animals. When the novelty of the new pasture wears off and the grass dies and you are doling out the feed, I suspect you will suddenly become much more interesting to your alpacas. It is important that you organize your property with laneways, holding pens and catch pens so that when you do want your alpacas to come in... food notwithstanding... you can make it happen. Hand feeding is great but make sure that your animals are polite about it or I would recommend discontinuing the practice.
Alpacas would rather sleep out at night if the weather is nice (and even if it isn't) and if there is a good reason for them to sleep inside when the weather is nice you may need to herd them in. Confined spaces when you are a creature of flight is unnerving. Make sure that you never grab your alpacas around the neck and they will become more confident about confined spaces and more comfortable coming up to you. For more information about barn and pasture set up have a look in the guild library.
Marty