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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In memory of Fischer's Sir Lancelot:

Saturday, August 21, 2004 I pulled into our driveway at 11:00 a.m., returning from a trip to Colorado Springs. The first thing I noticed was Alexandria out in the pasture. She looked funny, so I left my bags in the car, and headed out to the pasture. After watching her for a few minutes, and seeing that she was dilated, I determined that she was in labor. Chris came out and I told him we would be having a cria in the next 8 hours.

At 12:20 p.m. Alexandria delivered a beautiful medium to dark fawn male. Right after Lancelot hit the ground, Alex sniffed to check him out. Then she lifted her front leg, and started going for his head. She looked like she was going to stomp on his head! This of course startled me, and I startled her, which caused her to back up and stop. Then she became very motherly and protective.

Then we noticed that Lancelot was having trouble breathing. Very labored breathing. I approached Lancelot to see if there was membrane covering his nose, - there was not. Alex spit on my head while I was checking out Lancelot ... now she was very protective! Lancelot was still having labored breathing, so I called our Vet, and she came right out.

While waiting for our Vet to show up, each alpaca in our herd came up to greet Lancelot. And each and everyone of them pressed their noses up against his nose ....

Our Vet, knew right away that Lancelot had a deformity called Choanal Atresia (The nasal passage is blocked by bone or tissue). Lancelot was puffing his cheeks, and breathing through his mouth, a sign that he couldn't breath through his nose. Without the ability to breath thru his nose, Lancelot would suffocate if he tried to nurse.

Our Vet called the CSU Vet hospital and spoke to several Vets there including the well respected Camelid Vet, Dr. LaRue Johnson. They all were in agreement that surgery was not an option with this deformity. They could go in and create holes, but, the holes would not grow with the alpaca. Our only options were to let Lancelot continue to struggle to breath, and watch him starve to death, or to put him down.

We wanted confirmation ... peace of mind that Yes this is really what's going on with him, and not just some weird blockage that could be fixed with a suction cup in the right places, etc. So we took Lancelot to the office and had an Xray (actually several) done of his head. Yes, the XRay's confirmed our Vet's Diagnosis.

We decided to bring Lancelot back to his mother and euthanize him in the pasture, where he could be with his mother and herd mates while he died. Unfortunately, Lancelot starting suffocating on our trip back from the office, and we decided it best to euthanize him then. We then laid his body in the pasture, and let Alex and the others out into the pasture. Alex went to him immediately and sniffed him everywhere. Each of the other alpacas approached him and sniffed him too. Then they all walked away and started grazing. Alex stayed with him for a few minutes, then started grazing and walking away.

We removed the body, tucked him up into a ball, bagged him, and then froze him. He will be donated to Dr. LaRue Johnson for further research, and/or neo-natal classes.

Unfortunately, we did not get any pictures of him. We did get a blood sample, which we will use to register him, and record his death and deformity. This will hopefully help in further research of this deformity.

Fischer's Sir Lancelot
21Aug2004 12:20 p.m. - 21Aug2004 4:00 p.m.

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