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The Five Characteristics Of An Alpacas : Instinctive Behaviors

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Alpacas
Alpacas instinctive behaviors consist of five things, the first one is their social structure. Alpacas will sometimes spit at each other for when they need personal space. This is something that is done naturally so if you get near an alpaca that is not comfortable with people you could potentially get spit on. So when working with alpacas be careful and pay attention to not get to close to an alpaca that isn’t comfortable with you around. The next behavior is reproduction, when alpacas mate they often only have on cria, a baby alpaca, in a gestation period of about 11 months. The cria usually weigh about 14-20 pounds. The female alpacas are able to start breeding at 10-18 months of age. While a male can start breeding at 2½ - 3 years of age. Another behavior his mothering. As a cria gets older the mother will reject to feed it. When a cria gets too old for the mother's milk to be enough nourishment and it needs to start eating actual food, this called weaning. You need to be able to notice when it's time to separate the cria from the mother. Another instinctive behavior is feeding, they will eat from a pasture, but the safest and best way to feed an alpaca is through a hay bail, or their food is in a trough so the alpacas will not eat bolts or wire that could have fallen from the fence. The last behavior is communication, alpacas communicate with body language, pay attention to the position of, their ears, tail, head, and neck. If they rotate their ears forward

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