By Karen Nicholson, Stepping
Stone Farm Alpacas, Stowe, VT
Eric Hoffman, in his book, The
Complete Alpaca Book, writes: "Understanding how alpacas communicate
is both entertaining and an extremely valuable management tool. After 6000 years
of domestication, alpaca behavior has been modified by human management and
breeding, but communication among alpacas is still rooted in their ancestral
past. A look at behavioral research gives us insight into the amazingly broad
repertoire of communication alpacas have inherited." (2nd edition, pg. 33)
Below are a few
stories where llamas and alpacas exhibited interesting communication and
behavior:
Beyond Survival Instinct
Brad Kessler in his book, Goat
Song, tells an amazing survival story of a ram and his protector, a llama,
living in the wilds of Vermont.
A neighboring
farm had a dozen or so sheep and a guard llama. The owner's interest in the
animals was to trim their fields. For fencing, they had a few strands of rusted
barbed wire.
The llama did
his job well until one summer a pack of coyotes began to take the sheep one by
one. By September, all that was left was a ewe, a ram and the llama. The llama
had a haggard look. The ram never left his side. The ewe was doomed with fear.
Sure enough by frost, only the llama and ram were left. Then one day — gone.
Hunting season
came and went, winter, and early spring passed. One day, late spring, the llama
and ram were spotted nearby. The owners of the animals were contacted, the
llama and ram caught, and put tight in a barn. Somehow they still managed to
escape twice until finally, the barn was so secure that they no longer could.
Reproductive Instinct
One day I put one of our breeding
male alpacas in the pasture with two females (with crias at their sides) that
needed to be bred. This has and continues to be our preferred method of
breeding. In that pasture there was also a maiden female gestating at 11 ½
months.
The sire went
over, sniffed the manure pile to see who was receptive, and then went to check
the females against his findings at the pile. Then, he began chasing one of the
females. I left the pasture to go do other chores and would check back to see
if any breeding was taking place.
Minutes later,
my son came running to tell me that the sire was breeding the very pregnant
female! My son explained that he saw this female approach the sire and cush. He
then mounted her. Concerned for her well-being and the unborn cria's, I ran to
get a halter to get him off of her! I put him back in his pasture and then
examined the pregnant female. She remained cushed, like a receptive female
would. I inspected her vulva and observed her for a while. All signs were that
she was fine — ears forward and an overall relaxed body posture.
I took the
opportunity to do fence clipping so I could keep an eye on her. About an hour
later I saw a pair of feet dangling out. She had an easy delivery; a vigorous
cria and she passed a healthy placenta.
In hindsight, I
believe she cushed for him because she knew it would help to bring on labor. In
humans and other species, intercourse is thought to help bring on labor. The
sperm contains prostaglandin, which can help soften the cervix.
Exceptional Guarding
We have a small herd of four
females plus crias. In the warmer months, they rotate on pasture with access to
a 3-sided barn. There is no question that Opal is the herd guard, and we hear
her warning calls from time to time when an unknown dog walks by or wildlife
lurks in the forest beyond their pasture. She's discerning with her alarm and
only alerts the herd when there is true danger.
One day, she was
alarming. I went to investigate and for the first time ever, she was facing the
house, not the forest nor the logging road where neighbors walk their dogs. She
went on and on and I could not figure out what she could be alarming about in
the direction of the house. The rest of the herd had banded behind her staring
intently in the same direction.
After about 10
minutes of this, suddenly there was a great cracking sound and half of an old
maple tree came crashing across the driveway, exactly the direction she had
been facing and alarming. After the tree was down, she discontinued her alarm
and went back to grazing. Two weeks later, she delivered a male cria. We named
him "Timber".
Mothering Instinct
Stardust is our 'star' when it
comes to reproduction - exceptional crias and ability to nurture her young. In
her 5 years of production, she has had 5 flawless births; all vigorous crias
and they grew strong and healthy. This spring, she surprised us with a cria one
week before 11 months of gestation. Just after birth, we usually stay back and
give the cria the opportunity to walk and nurse independently and bond with its
dam. This little one did not get up and did not sit prone position, so we
intervened. Upon investigation, we found her temperature to be 4-6 degrees
below normal.
After a couple
hours, we were able to get her temperature up and then hold her up to get her
nursing. For the next 30 hours, we had to check her temperature, hold her up
under the dam to attempt to nurse, and syringe small amounts of goat collostrum
into her mouth. At one point in the middle of the night, she appeared
dehydrated and assumed the death position, so with no 24 hour vet available, we
injected IV fluids under her skin and tube fed her. All the while, Stardust
allowed us to do all this to her cria. She stood perfectly still while we tried
to get the cria nursing and hummed calmly to her baby.
Just about 30
hours after birth, the cria was finally able to get up and nurse on her own for
the first time. I was relieved, but not secure that she was going to be fine. I
checked on her two hours later and to my great surprise, this dam, who had just
hours before let me do anything to her cria, screamed at me as I approached and
covered me with spit from head to toe. Despite my efforts to get close to the
cria, I could not. Finally, in complete frustration, I had to relent and trust
that our star knew she could take it from there and that it was her time to
bond with her cria. Of course, I checked on them a few times in the night, but
from a distance. A week later Stardust resumed her old ways; she ceased
screaming at me and let me near her cria as she has let me near her others.
Communication
We had a male alpaca that came to
us difficult to handle and not very trusting of his human caretakers. After a
few months of positive handling, he came to trust us and greet us when we
entered the pasture.
One day while
cleaning up manure in the pasture, he walked right up to me, stared right into
my face, hummed loudly, and then walked over to the pile and urinated. He
repeated this two more times. It wasn't until the second time he behaved this
way that it occurred to me that he was trying to tell me something. On the
third time I found what he wanted me to find, he was straining to urinate at
the pile.
I called the vet
and he indicated that it was most likely a UTI (urinary tract infection) and
that I should treat it. He said it sounded like it was caught early since he
had a fair stream of urine but with obvious straining. The vet said he should
improve within 1-2 days. He was obviously feeling much better on day two when
he stopped coming over, humming in my face and going to the pile. I later found
the source of his UTI. My children had mistakenly given him a whole bale of
alfalfa instead of hay when they were doing chores.
Cooperation with Other Species
On our farm we have: 2 alpacas,
10 sheep, 2 goat does, 3 Lowline Cattle (bull calf, cow, steer), 3 Red Wattle
Pigs (sow, boar, meat), 1 Maremmma LGD, and 25 Guinea Fowl. Everyone eats
together without any problem. Everyone sleeps in the same general area unless
there is bad weather, and then they all have their distinct shelter areas that
they go to. The sheep all stick together, the pigs and dog all stick together,
and the cattle and alpacas stick together. The goats float between the three
groups.
One of the
alpacas, a bred female, spends most all of her day with the cattle grazing or
sunning. One interesting thing I have come to notice is that General (our LGD)
is on duty at night and sleeps most of the day. Our pregnant female, Beana
seems to take over the day shift. She is on high alert, and whenever she hears
something suspicious, she will take off running toward it. Her alarm alerts
General (LGD) and he wakes up and takes over while she herds everyone together.
It is very neat to watch.
We used to have
three LGD's and each had a job. General was the baby of the group and was the
herder. Now that it is just him, he seems to work in cooperation with Beana,
the alpaca, and has given the herding role to her. They seem to work very well
together. I'm not sure how often the perceived threat is an actual one, but
there have been instances of coyotes in the area. We kind of have a
three-pronged security system as the guineas or Beana, the alpaca, seem to
sound their alarm first, and General (LGD) takes over the investigation while
Beana herds the animals together. It is fun to watch and perhaps as a result,
we are a predator-free farm for the most part!
Our camelids
have an amazing array of interesting behaviors to observe: body postures such
as the alert stance, submission, the standoff, or relaxed position; ear, tail
and head signals; vocalizations such as humming, the alarm, orgling; scent such
as flehmen when the male alpaca sniffs a dung pile to decode the scent and
reproductive status of his females; locomotion displays such as pronking or
fighting; herd response such as banding or offensive aggressive herd response.
Every camelid farmer should take time out in the day to observe his/her herd,
perhaps even keep a diary of interesting behaviors observed and, for sure, -
share your stories!
Karen Nicholson, of Stepping Stone Farm Alpacas in Stowe, VT, has a
herd of nine alpacas bred and managed for valued traits including: fiber
excellence, conformation, reproductive vigor; hardiness and temperament. Also
on the farm are: two French Alpine dairy goats, Indian Runner ducks, broiler
chickens and several laying hens, all integrated into their farm management
program. Karen writes for three farming journals and keeps a blog: http://stowevermontalpacas.blogspot.com/.
Any comments, questions or stories can be directed to: stowealpacas@gmail.com.
Eric
Hoffman, in his book, The Complete Alpaca Book, writes: “Understanding how
alpacas communicate is both entertaining and an extremely valuable management
tool. After 6000 years of domestication, alpaca behavior has been modified by
human management and breeding, but communication among alpacas is still rooted
in their ancestral past. A look at behavioral research gives us insight into the
amazingly broad repertoire of communication alpacas have inherited.” (2nd
edition, pg. 33)
