Alpaca Friends

I find the alpaca herd dynamics quite interesting. It must be the sociologist in me.

We noticed last fall at the shows that Maddie is very attached to Sommerfield. If Maddie was separated from Sommer, she would cry and whine. It makes sense. Maddie was taken (by us) from her mom, and the only alpaca who has been with her the entire time since being away from her mom is Sommer. Though I wonder if one of the other girls were there, she may have shown her attachment to them as well. Sommer just happened to be the only other girl there.

When doing herd health on Saturday was noticed how tight Apollo and Tucker are. When J was trying to trim Apollo's nails, Tucker went out of his way to try to push between J and Apollo. They are true buddies. We still haven't figured out why they don't fight. We hear stories of how boys will fight, and in fact, Tucker was in so many fights at the farm he came from, that is why they wanted to get rid of him. No fights at our farm (knock on wood). We've wondered if Snowstorm keeps the peace. I have seen him put an alpaca in their place. Even if he is gelded, he still seems like the leader on the boys side.

I find the cria fun too. When J was trimming an adults nails, one of the cria would come up to him and sniff at his hat. They are such curious little creatures.