My nephew Jacob came and I got him busy putting up fencing to make a new pasture for me.  It came out great and after pondering and walking the pasture time and again, I finally decided on a configuration to give me the most flexibility.  I can easily move alpacas from one pasture to the other and let them enjoy the bigger pastures during the day and have a safe spot to come in at night.  The boys finally can get out of their smaller pasture and enjoy a larger one during the day and are they ever happy about that.  But they’ve been good boys coming in at night for their pellets.  It’s so nice to just call out “Dinner!” and they come running.  My new pasture also allowed me to wean two of my cria.  They were ready even if they complained they weren’t for a few days.  Aria managed to sneak back in with her momma one day but I found where she found a weak spot and fixed that up.  Moms and babies seem to have adjusted now and they rarely even hum at each other anymore.

Weaning is a great time to socialize the cria and set the bond so I’ve been giving them lots of treats and hand feeding them at times.  I now have “helpers” while I fix their pellet dinners.  Sacagawea is looking over my shoulder to watch and hurry me along.  She leaps out of the barn with joy when I’m ready to to serve their dinners.

Tonight was the first evening that was pleasant and warm enough to sit on my bench and watch the sunset while the alpacas finished their dinners.  It was so beautiful out and just a joy to sit there watching my alpacas.

Last weekend, Hum Sweet Hum attended the Southwest Regional Alpaca Show located in Phoenix, Arizona.  What a fun time.  I entered Hum Sweet Hum’s Serenade and AHSH Minuet.  They got to experience their first trailer ride and went with their buddies in Alpacas At Windy Hills trailer.  We got through the vet check just fine and I got handed a nice little orange slip from the vet that we had the go ahead to be in the show.  The next step was going through the color check to make sure they were in the right category and event.  We were in line waiting our turn for color check and I was gabbing with the gal next to me when suddenly, Serenade reached over and grabbed the orange piece of paper from my hand and started to eat it!  I quickly got it out of her mouth but it was a bit mangled and gummed on.  The gal checking us in saw the whole thing and was laughing hysterically at us.  It was pretty funny.  We got ourselves finally passed the color check hurdle and I took my mangled orange slip to the final stop.  I told the guy, “Sorry, my alpaca ate it!” as I handed him the mangled, torn, and slobbered on paper.

Although they were slightly different colors, they combined the light and medium browns into one class.  So my two wound up competing with each other.  I grabbed someone to help me show one of my girls.  Cindy Harris took Serenade and I took Minuet.  Serenade was judged first.  She’s a big girl at about 120 pound already at 9 months which impressed the judge to no end.  She couldn’t get over how big Serenade was.  She came over and judged Minuet who wasn’t happy at all about going through that judging business.  She did her best impersonation of a Flying Wallenda at one point doing nearly a 360 turn without her feet touching the ground.  I managed to control her long enough for the judge to do what she needed to do at least.

And the winner is….. Serenade!  She took home the blue ribbon and Minuet took second!  That was my first first place and I think my feet didn’t hit the ground for some time.  I was walking on cloud nine.  What a thrill.  Now I can’t wait to get them to more shows and see how they do in those.  But this show will always be remembered as the one I got my first blue ribbon for Hum Sweet Hum.

Alpacas at Hum Sweet Hum along with Canzelle Alpacas, Home Again Alpacas, East End Alpacas and Pacific Breeze Alpacas are hosting an invaluable Seminar with special guest speaker David Barboza.  Please check out the flyer below for more information and come join us on March 28th, 2009 at the beautiful Canzelle ranch in Carpinteria, California.

I will be teaching another alpaca handling and training workshop Feb 7, 2009.  I’ll be including a section on clicker training your alpaca and showing how positive reinforcement techniques work well in socializing and training your alpacas.  I’ve heard how some folks say they don’t have time with all the chores and ranch business they need to do but I’ll show how all it takes is carrying a pouch filled with grain around with you every time you go into a pasture and what a difference it makes.  We’re seeing that the animals trained using these methods sell faster and folks are enjoying them more as animals actually enjoy seeing us.  They don’t run away but run to us.  All this adds up to saving time when we do need to handle them.  Takes much less time and less energy so the 5 minutes you take to work with your animal regularly will save you lots of time in the end and have a more marketable animal to boot.

If you find yourself in the area or would like a workshop at your ranch, please contact me to schedule one.  It’s a great workshop for first time alpaca owners or to get potential buyers to come to your ranch.  Combine marketing your animals and have a fun workshop!

Check out the February workshop details to be held at Alpacas at Windy Hill at http://www.alpacalink.com/trainingworkshop.html

Last month I was treated with the birth of two babies born 4 days apart.  Having to agist, I don’t always get to see babies being born but these two mom’s gave me the best early Christmas present and let me witness the births of their babies.  Dulcie and Misty Morning gave birth to two boys.  I named the first one Mowgli.  For some reason, his personality just seemed to fit that character for Rudyard Kipling’s the Jungle Book.  Mowglie’s been tons of fun to watch.  He comes over to give me sniffs and likes to tug on my top.

Four days after Mowgli was born, my most recent alpaca acquisition gave birth to a baby boy too.  Misty Morning is a lovely gray alpaca.  I’ve been wanting a gray but I was trying to be so good about not buying anymore alpacas until I sell one.  But the carrot got dangled under my nose and it was too good of a deal to walk away from so I bought her.  I named this boy Baloo after the bear from Jungle Book.  I figured that was a good theme for the week of having babies.  Both names seem to fit their personalities perfectly.  Baloo came out wanting to enjoy life and play.  Poor mom was run ragged and had a hard time passing her placenta as Baloo kept checking out his new environment.  She’s a very protective mom so she wouldn’t let him out of her sight.  He stands out in the herd with his beautiful gray fiber and markings.  I’m so excited with both boys who are heading to shows as soon as they’re old enough.  Baloo’s fiber is dense and crimped to the skin, soft and gray!  Yahoo!  Mowgli may turn into a light rose gray.  He looks beige but when he was first born, we saw that rose pink fiber so maybe after his first shearing it will come out.  Time will tell.  But he’s got that burbery density so think he could have a shot in the show ring too.

The best part of my two little guy is that they’re best pals.  So fun to watch them play and boy do they get into mischief.  I’m forever seeing them being scolded by a mom that they’re tormenting.  They’re never far from each other too.  We alpaca breeders have to wait a long time for those babies but boy when they come, they fill you up with lots of smiles and laughs. 

Most alpacas don’t like to be touched.  If they see your hand raising to touch them, they move away.  So, how does one clicker train a weanling alpaca to get use to being touched?  I discovered the following method by accident.  I was trying to gain the trust of an adult female alpaca, Serena, who had a male cria, Arctic Blast, by her side.  Arctic Blast didn’t share his mother’s fear of humans and loved the grain I used as treats.  He quickly took it from my hand.  While I was getting Serena used to me, I worked with Arctic Blast.  She didn’t seem to mind that he was near me as long as she didn’t have to come near me.  So while I tried to coax her to come over too to get some grain, Arctic Blast made out like a bandit.  I sat on the ground to make myself as least threatening to Serena.  I sprinkled some grain in a trough used to feed them their grain hoping that would encourage Serena to come a little closer to me.  Artic Blast gobbled up what I placed in the trough.  I noticed that he would come and touch me as he leaned over to get every little nibble.  The lightbulb went off in my head that I could click his touching me when he reached for the crumble.  So I set it up so that he would have to touch me with his body more and more depending on where I placed the grain.  Soon I had it so I could reach out with my hand and touch him.  He had gotten use to the touching of him as something that wasn’t scary and even pleasurable as he got a nice treat for it.  Soon I was touching him on his legs, toes and even his ears with little or no backing away.  What was even more amazing from my “accidental” lesson, was that it only took a few clicks before he got use to me touching him in different places.   People assume things that seem so insurmountable of a training issue is going to take a lot of time.  However, the beauty of clicker training is that it often takes only a few clicks and the animal gets it. 

With this new batch of weanlings, I’m using the method I learned from Arctic Blast.  While I’m getting them used to the clicker and learning to trust me, I’ve been sprinkling the grain around me as I sit on the ground.  I start out at arms length for the ones that are more fearful still.  Once they start eating the grain, I start to sprinkle the grain a little closer to me and I even sprinkle a little on my pants and shoes in case some feel brave enough to take it off of me.  Soon they’re having to touch me to get some of the grain.  I will hold my hands still but place them near the grain so that the alpacas have to touch me to get to the grain.  The first time they touch me, they may jump but they almost always come back after a few moments and after the second or third time of touching me, they realize nothing unpleasant has happened so they don’t shy away.  After they’re fairly comfortable with the “incidental” touching, I move my hand ever so slowly to touch them as lightly as I can, their neck or leg, which ever is closest as not to cause them to jump again.  I click and let them eat.  If they’re eating from my hand, with the hand holding the clicker, I touch their body or leg as the alpaca is eating from my other hand.  It takes a little coordination but I click the moment I touch them as they’re eating.  It’s best if it all happens simultaneously at first.  Once they’re used to that, then you can start touching and then feed.  Make sure you always click when you touch and they stay still as that is the behavior you want.     

I have found that the most effective time to clicker train my alpacas has been immediately after they’ve been weaned.  I try and spend time with the weanlings the first few days following their separation from their mothers.  They are so eager to be nurtured that they respond more quickly and readily during that period.  If they don’t take grain or carrots from my hand, then I will sprinkle a little on the ground around my feet and click while they eat from the ground.  If it isn’t too wet or muddy, I’ll sit on the ground to be as non-threatening as I can too.  I also make a small make-shift pen if there isn’t one in the corral so I can separate the babies from larger alpacas.  The larger ones tend to be more bossy and not let the littler ones get grain from me otherwise.  This seems to work well.  Panels for making a quick pen are an invaluable tool.  I have noticed that the weanlings that I clicker trained right away, have bonded with me and maintained that bond even after becoming pregnant.  They have less fear of humans too.  I suspect the reason for that is that they haven’t had as many of the negative associations with humans yet.  I believe it’s really important to provide as much of a positive association with myself or humans as possible right away.  They will tolerate being caught for vet checks, toe nail clippings and other maintenance handling much more easily and still retain the bond.  They can be mad as all get out while I perform those maintenance chores on them but the second I take them back to their corral and release them, they tend to come right up to me wanting a treat.   The adult alpacas that I have clicker trained still bond with me but I have found that it takes a bit more patience to get to the same point as I easily get with the weanlings.  So if you have any weanlings, go get your clicker and become the walking treat person! 

 There were 120 crias born at Alpaca at Windy Hill in 2007 so I’m looking forward to filling up my blog with my experiences and lessons learned.