Desensitizing |
 |
| Owning quality alpacas and just keeping them on the farm to be bred and sold is fine. However until the world is aware that you have these wonderful creatures, people will not be beating a path to your door to buy. Do not forget the olde adage "Nothing happens until somebody sells something" An integral part of the alpaca ownership is the ability to take your alpacas out and display them for other people to see and this will not be possible without training to the halter and leash. | |
| Special Caution. - What follows are instructions based upon the assumption that there was no trauma at birth and subsequent bottle feeding to the point where familiarizing had occurred at the cria stage. Failure to note this may be harmful to your health especially if we are talking about a male alpaca | One of the most difficult things to come to terms with in controlling alpacas is our tendency to grab and restrain them and then our desire to stroke them. This is the last thing that an alpaca wants. I have found that one way to over come this problem is careful attention at the weanling stage. A few simple steps can get us through this... |
|
1) Observe activity in the meadow closely. When mum starts to be annoyed by too much time at the snack bar and the weanling is truly into eating grass as well, separate the weanling in a large pen - preferably 50' x 50' no climb fenced or larger with a corner gate. |
| 2) Make sure mum and the rest of the herd are in an adjacent pen so that they can 'walk the line'.The weanling will become upset and gallivant around in frustration. A couple of hours of this should be enough. | |
| 3) Stand quietly at the gate on the outside of the pen. Chances are the herd will congregate near you. What does the grabber want with our weanling? | |
| 4) Go into the pen with the weanling closing the gate behind you. The weanling will want to be at the gate close to the herd. | |
| 5) Circle round the weanling so it can get to the gate. Slow and calm is the key, no sudden movements. | |
| 6) Close in on the weanling with arms extended and lower the arms as you get closer. come up on one side of the weanling and gently lean against it so that it is restrained between you and the gate. | |
| 7) Gently lay the palm of your hand on the sweet spot on the back over the forelegs and give a gentle - light - massage. Talking in quiet tones will help. | |
| 8) Bring the other arm around the neck so that the weanling is completely restrained. Massaging can now continue up the neck, ever so slowly, to the ears and eventually the lower jaw...Remember slow and easy, slow and easy. The key is in remaining calm so that this is communicated to the weanling. | |
Ten minutes should be long enough for this session. Then add other weanlings to the pen so that the weaning can continue about its business in a less stressful mode. What we have accomplished is conning the weanling into acceptance of being touched and the start of desensitizing so that the beast can be haltered... | |
Clicker Training - Variations |
I found that the initial point of getting an alpaca to come up and
be attentive was best acheived by a variation of the Logans' "Clicker
and Reward Training". A chair, a small container of Llama Chews that rattles and some patience are the soul ingredients at this stage. |
| Make yourself comfortable and have no other alpacas around to distract. This means even in view at long range... they have deceptively GOOD eye sight. | |
| 1) Rattle the bin to get the alpacas attention. Again, it helps if the student is hungry... The alpaca should show cautious interest. | |
| 2) Take 3 chews out of the bin and have them in your open hand palm uppermost. - Do NOT waggle fingers, they are a grabber red flag... | |
| 3) If your alpaca has any trust at all it will take the food. | |
| 4) Repeat this procedure 10 - 12 times... | |
| 5) Next at the instant the alpaca touches your hand to gobble down the Chews say "GLIP" - chances are they will visibly flinch!! | |
| I say this as it is something easily enunnciated and saves having to hunt for and coordinate with the other hand using a clicker...and it works! | |
| Again, a skittish alpaca will be startled the first couple of times but they soon get past this. Repetition is the key until a conditioned state has been acheived and they will reach to touch your hand for the chews. | |
| I say touch your hand but beware of pushiness, as what we are intent on acheiving is an action where for an action they get a reward only and that is ALL we are intent on | |
The Wand |
|
Haltering |
|
| Haltering - this can really be a pain and will seriously alienate these creatures if we do not go about it in the right way. I have found that a good book and a chair in the pen along with you nervous weanling is a good starting point. Other tools of a more explicit nature are a very small bowl of feed and a halter, and the natural curiosity of the alpaca being trained. | |
| It will help if the alpaca is hungry, timing is everything | |
| This latter element will ONLY surface when we read the book! The best type of halter I have used is the type with a crossover chin strap, point being that one can adjust the nose loop to the maximum which allows the weanling to poke its nose through the halter to get at the feed bowl... Now read some book and totally ignore the trainee. | |
| The weanling will pace for a while but curiosity kicks in...What does 'The grabber' want? Bear in mind up to now the weanlings' only experience of you - or any homosapiens for that matter - from birth up to this point is being grabbed for a fondle of that wonderful fleece or an injection or some other invasion of its space! | |
