Breaking out, breaking in…it’s a po-TAY-to, po-TAH-to sort of thing to alpacas. As long as they are getting somewhere they are not supposed to be, they are happy. A few days ago, Mom found most of the girls in this space, between the boy’s paddock and the horse’s paddock.
Lined up nose to tail, single file and unable to turn around, were Mikayla, Brittany, Marseille, and Tulip. Boogie and Heidi, the horses, stared at them from one side of the fence, while the boys were lined up in a gallery on the other side. Everyone looked at Mom as she arrived. I’m guessing Heidi was wearing her “Ooohh what’s Mom gonna do now?” face, while the girls casually pretended they weren’t standing in a no-go zone.
All the alpacas take turns destroying any and all temporary fencing around the ranch. They’d been working on the fence that keeps them out of this narrow chute for awhile. Sometimes, a tiny bit of hay gets blown in there, but really, it’s all about the challenge.
Mom just yelled, “I’m too busy to deal with this now,” and went about her chores, keeping an eye on the trouble makers. After a few false starts, Tulip figured out how to back out. Marsielle couldn’t, and began to hum. But Aunty Brittany came to the rescue, firmly planting her butt in Marsy’s face and backing out, pushing the younger alpaca as she went. Mikayla, who’d led them all in there in the first place, calmly followed.
Because, of course, she meant to do that.
Cliff House Alpacas 
They don’t look like they could be naughty. They always look so cute.
I know. They look cute even when they are at their naughtiest.
So – the great escape was planned all along! We had an unplanned escape with one of our adopted range horses. We were cleaning the water tank, scooping poop, etc when I saw the “old lady” on the outside of the corral! I remained calm and talked her back in – with horse candy being given to the OTHER horse, of course………………
Ha! Nothing like a bit of jealousy to get a food motivated animal somewhere! Remaining calm is of course the first and most important trick. Hope this cold weather hasn’t been too hard on you and the range horses. Miserable temperatures, to be sure.
Monday was -24 ………………lets just say that the horses had frozen eyelashes, whiskers, etc. Today it was 16 when I got up – nice to have a 40 degree heat wave!!
Holy alpacas that’s cold! I couldn’t do it. We were in the 40s yesterday. Positively balmy!