Alpaca, Friend or Foe?

Most everyone has heard of Camels & Llamas, but many folks have still never heard of Alpaca and Vicuna which are the other 2 members of the Camelid family.

Alpaca stand upright and some people are afraid of them because they heard that they spit like Llamas.

Years ago when I met my first alpaca so I thought, I tried to feed it some dandelion greens and it spit right in my eye! Well I had never heard of Alpaca either and had to go see one. It turns out that it was really a guard Llama that spit in my eye. Alpaca & Llama spit only scares a few folks, But I can tell you from experience (after wiping spit from my face and eyes) that after you experience the vile vomit inducing smell of this spit and the acid burning spit in your eye, you will never want to experience this again. In fact I had to buy some of these Alpaca, and when someone is spitting I am ducking, looking the other way, or running, or hiding under my alpaca hat!

Alpaca don't normally spit at people. Alpaca spit usually in 2 cases. over a dispute over food, is where most spitting contests commence. When a female (Dam) alpaca doesn't want to make a baby (cria) with a Male (Sire) Alpaca (because she is already with child (cria). Gestation in Alpacas is very near 12 months. What is very interesting is that effectively a Alpaca Dam is always in "heat", unless she is pregnant. Within days of becoming pregnant a Dam will know she is pregnant. After the Dam knows she is pregnant she will not be friends with the Sire, in fact she will spit all over him.

What could be worse for a male than wanting to do it with his true love, the same true love that he did it with a few days ago, suddenly is no longer his friend and worse yet is spitting all over his face and anywhere else she can hit him. Needless to say, when she is spitting they don't do it. So for all you men out there, if your wife starts spitting at you, you better get a pregnancy test!

Alpaca are friendly animals with big beautiful eyes that allow them to see 270 degress around them. Alpaca feel the ground for vibration, it is almost impossible to sneak up on them.

So consider the alpaca your friend (unlike how you should consider your friendly banker), and not your foe. Unless of course you are trying to steal their alpaca food, or worse yet which I forgot to mention their baby (cria).