Hands On Care

Hands on care is the care you personally provide for your alpacas. Halter training is a large part of that care.

Alpacas are social animals and need to live in a herd. Alpacas are also prey animals and will run if they feel threatened in any way. If one alpaca runs, they will all run.

In order to provide good hands on care a catch pen is essential. Catch pens are described in the land section of this website. It is impossible to work with your alpaca if you cannot catch him/her.

Once you have your alpaca in your catch pen you need to grab him/her. An alpaca is grabbed by getting a hold of their neck. The head can then be pulled around your body while keeping the animals' body close to you.

An alpaca does not like to be petted on the head unless they know you. It is best to stoke the neck and back at first. Catch your alpaca and gently touch him/her while speaking in a calm voice.

Do this several times until your alpaca is comfortable standing still with you. Reward your animal for his/her good behavior with a small treat.

Halter Training

Alpaca halters can be purchsed locally at farm and ranch stores or on line at Alpaca or Llama specialty stores. As your alpaca is a nose breather it is important that you have a good fit that is not too tight. Check manufacturer recommendations for details.

Once your alpaca has a halter and lead rope are on you have made the first big step with his/her training. When getting ready to take that first step with your animal it is important to be standing beside him/her in line with their front shoulder. It is almost impossible to stand in front of your alpaca and pull them the way you want them to go. They won't move.

Keep a tight hold of the lead rope 2 to 4 inches below where it connects to the halter. As you step forward provide a gentle but firm pull on the lead rope. Your alpaca should step forward also. If he/she does not easily move forward attempt to walk in a circle. Push into their body making them take a step.

Keep working in circles until your alpaca will walk forward with you. If you have a stubborn alpaca it is sometimes helpful to have another person walk behind the animal. This will make him/her nervous and anxious to move.

An alpaca is a smart animal and will learn how to walk with you in a reasonable period of time. The key is to practice, practice, practice.

Socialize

Socialization begins after your alpaca is at ease walking with you. Recruit family members and/or friends and have them practice walking with you and your alpaca.

If a stranger wants to pet your alpaca, hold him/her still and firm while standing to the side as if you are going for a walk. Have the person approach on the open side away from you. Tell them to pet the neck and back only. Also instruct other people to stay away from the hind legs to keep them from getting kicked.

If you plan on presenting your male stud in a show it is important that you train him to stand still while a stranger walks around both of you. The judge at the show will want to check to see that this is an intact male. Practice touching your male around his genitals so that the judge is not kicked during the exam.

Being able to walk with your alpaca to various areas on your farm is essential. We shear our animals, trim their toenails and teeth, and administer immunizations in our shop. We halter them in the catch pen and walk them to the shop and right in. Alpacas will walk right into your house if they are halter trained.

Include others in your daily hands on care. Our grandchildren assist with chores when visiting. Our alpacas are used to seeing them. Our grandchildren are able to play in the alpaca pastures witout any concern for their safety.

Toe Trimming

To lay your alpaca down safely it is important to control their head. While one person holds the head securely with the halter and lead rope the other gently pulls the alpacas' legs out from under them while slowly lowering them to the ground.

Control of the head is key throughout the entire process. An alpaca will stay on the ground with good head control and light body pressure.

Your alpacas' toenails need to be trimmed on a regular basis. We have found that our white alpacas with white toenails need to be trimmed every other month. Our black and brown animals with dark nails need trimming only every 3 - 4 months.

Commercial nail trimmers may be purchased at your local farm store or on line. Clip the nails in an even line level with the bottom of the pad.

You may find that the toenail area may bleed after being trimmed. This is especially so if the nail was much too long before trimming. Bleeding is usually not serious and will stop on its own within 30 minutes to 1 hour.

Good hands on care includes close monitoring of your animals. If bleeding does not stop on its own a product called "blood stop" can be applied to the toenail. This can be found at any farm/ranch store as it is generally used on many diffent domestic livestock.

Teeth Trimming

As an alpaca eats it's bottom teeth meet the hard palate on the top. The grinding action of feeding usually keeps the front teeth in line and worn down.

Occasionally you may have an alpaca with bottom teeth that do not meet the hard top palate as they should. This may be genetic or as the result of some damage to the mouth. The front teeth grow and when they do not meet the top palate as they should it becomes difficult for your animal to feed.

Male alpacas develop a canine tooth behind the front teeth. These are called "fighting teeth". Male alpacas will use these teeth to fight with other alpacas and may seriously wound each other especially in the genital area.

We check and trim teeth once a year when we shear our alpacas. After we have shorn, trimmed toenails, provided immunizations, and still have them on the shearing table is the time to trim teeth.

We insert a small piece of PVC pipe in the alpacas's mouth. This allows the alpaca to bite down on the pipe and keeps their mouth open enougt to work safely.

We first check for a proper bite. We place a line with a black marker on the front teeth where we need to trim.

There are commercial teeth trimmers available for purchase at any Alpaca/Llama store. We choose to use what is called an "OB" wire. This can be purchsed at any feed or ranch store. It is a wire with a set of handles.

The wire is placed in the alpacas mouth behind the teeth where you have marked. The wire is pulled back and forth in a swaing motion until the teeth are cut through. We then use a fine file to smooth off any rough edges. The process takes only a few minutes to complete.

We then check for any fighting teeth. These are trimmed in the same manner as the front teeth but at the gum line.

Shearing

Shearing not only provides you with fantastic fleece, it is also important for your animals health.

An unshorn alpaca will become too hot in the summer months and may suffer heat exhaustion.

Shearing also protects the animal in maintaining good skin condition.

Unshorn alpacas may experience a tangle of hair under their tails thus blocking their ability to stool. They can become impacted as a result.

Complete instructions on how to shear as well as what tools are necessary can be found in the fleece setion of our website under Shearing.

Transportation

We have a small horse trailer that works well for our needs. The first animals we transported home we brought in a box that we built to fit in the back of our pickup. We made holes for air and a simple door.

An alpaca will "kush" or lay down as soon as a vehicle is in motion. This makes them very easy to move in any type of vehicle. A halter trained animal is generally easy to load in any vehicle.

We took delivery on a male alpaca that the owner brought to us in the back of his pickup which was covered with a topper. I have heard of others transporting alpacas in the back of a Van or SUV!

The biggest key to providing good hands on care for your alpacas is that the more you work with them, the better your animals will work with you.

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