Alpaca animals are the cutest, sweetest creatures…unless you have an aggressive alpaca.
They’re not so cute.
How does an alpaca become aggressive?
There are two reasons that your adorable alpaca cria can develop into a nightmare:
- An alpaca imprinting on humans
- New owners not recognizing the signs of an aggressive animal early and stopping the behavior.
Imprinting happens when you overhandle a new cria.
Sometimes it is unavoidable because it needs medical attention. We had a cria born on a day that was 104 degrees and became dehydrated. We ended up handling this female cria a
little extra…and we were new alpaca owners.
This female became “friendly”. She would run right up to you and skid to a stop. We didn’t think much of it. We thought it was nice to have this friendly alpaca instead of being like the others who stayed at arms length.
Then this alpaca started tugging at our clothes. We didn’t think much about it either except that it was slightly annoying.
Finally, this female began charging at us and bumping us. She never bit or kicked. She had what we call “bad manners”.
One day we decided to work on her attitude. We had recently read an article on dog training and it gave us and idea. It might not help but it wouldn’t hurt to try either.
We filled a plastic spray bottle with half water and half white vinegar.
One of us walked into the pasture with the bottle concealed but ready to use.
She did her usual and charged at the persons back who then spun and sprayed. The spray did not actually get her in the face which was where we had planned to aim.
But the smell was enough to stop her. She snorted. The person continued on their way. She started to charge again.
Another spray. Another near miss. She never actually got spray in her face but the smell was bad enough to her that she didn’t try charging again.
To this day that female alpaca has not charged again. We took the bottle with us several times but kept it concealed. We wanted to make sure she was stopping the behavior when the bottle wasn’t around.
We have taken the bottle back into the field within her view at a much later date and she becomes very standoffish. She remembers the bottle and doesn’t like it.
Remember, our alpaca animals behavior was disrespectful not dangerous. If an animal is dangerous, you should seek a professional trainers advice.
Getting this alpaca animals bad behavior under control has made going out to our pastures fun again. It’s wonderful walking in the field without worrying about getting bumped. And she is really a sweetheart. We halter and do all of the other care without problems. She just needed to learn her boundaries and fortunately for us this simple thing did the trick.
Will this strategy work on other alpaca animals?
We don’t know. We just know this worked well and quickly with our female. The best solution is to avoid letting your alpacas be disrespectful in the first place.
