These are truly beautiful animals, and I feel very blessed to have them in my life, and to be able to share their lives. Some of my favorite moments are quiet times in the pasture just watching them. I observed the following, and I'm writing this, as I hope I will never forget this.

A farm in California purchased a female weanling (Lelu) from us, along with another female weanling (Daphne) from another farm a few hours from us. The transport scheduled to pick up both girls from us, as we are fairly close off of I-25. So we loaded up our gelding in one compartment, and Lelu in the other, and drove to meet the other farm halfway to pick up Daphne so she would be here when the transport arrived.

The girls took to each other right away when we introduced them in the trailer. They settled down, and did very well during the trip back to our place.

When we arrived home, we let the alpacas in the nursery pen out to pasture first, to give everyone plenty of space to welcome Daphne. Then we led Daphne and Lelu over to the entrance to the pasture, which is by the corrals where the other alpacas are kept.

Lelu knew right where she was immediately when unloading and was anxious to get to her Mom and the others. Daphne led well, keeping up with Lelu!

Once in the run leading to the pasture we removed the halters and leads and watched to see what would happen. We were expecting Lelu to tear off towards her Mom and the others who were over on the opposite side of the pasture. It was very obvious when Lelu spotted her Mom and the others, and she headed towards them.

At about that same time Daphne got a little confused (she was following Lelu) and headed the opposite direction, back toward the corral area where the other alpacas were. Chris and I started trying to herd her and redirect her back to the pasture, and get her attention on Lelu. I glanced over to Lelu at this time as I did want to see the reunion of her and her Mom.

Well, Lelu stopped and looked back to see where Daphne was. Then Lelu turned around and came back to get Daphne! She stayed with Daphne, and did NOT head back towards her Mom and the others until we finally got Daphne pointed in the right direction and she was following Lelu again. We watched as Lelu joined the others, but, all the while Lelu kept an eye on Daphne. It was one of the most wonderful things I've seen in a very long time.

Boy do I love these animals!

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Alpacas are constantly amazing us with their intelligence. Here are a few early memories of our first introductions to just how smart these creatures are!

When we first started with alpacas, I attended a handling class at Rocky Mt. Llamas, led by Bobra Goldsmith (highly recommended). During this class, one of the many things we did was to teach our alpacas how to load into the back of a minivan. I thought to myself, oh great, this will take the rest of the day, and we're not going to learn anything else! Boy was I wrong.

The first time I led Johnny (my alpaca) up to the back of the minivan, let him look around, then we more or less put him into the back of the minivan. The second time I led him up to the back of the minivan, and then proceeded to just help/guide him into the back of the minivan. The third time I led him up to the minivan, let him know what I wanted, and he jumped right up into the minivan himself, kushed, and was ready to go!

When we first brought our alpacas home, the first time we let them out to pasture, we had a mini panic when it was time to bring them in. How are we going to get them back into their corrals? Well we just happen to have a German Shepherd (Quanta) who is great at herding, so we brought her out to the pasture. She had a blast, rounding up the alpacas, and finally getting them into their corrals. The next day when it was time to bring in the alpacas, we brought out Quanta again. This time she barley herded them, and they all went running in. The third day when it was time for the alpacas to come in, they all went running in the minute they saw Quanta coming. Quanta never made it into the pasture!

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