guard alpaca

[goatboy1973]

will an alpaca guard like a llama?

Alpacas are not a guardian animal...#1 they aren't big enough to be a guardian and #2 they don't have the guardian instincts that llamas do. The success of a good guardian llama is 3 fold. First off their shear size is a deterrent to predators. Secondly, their innate hatred for the canid species and other predators make them unafraid of predators. Lastly, if raising a llama up with the livestock they are expected to guard, they will want to guard their fellow livestock. Alpacas are just wired a little different...they aren't miniature llamas.

 

[MuldrowHomeFarm]

Well, I want to revive this thread with this info. My Alpacas do not like my dog. Sihu, pronounced "She Who", tried to stomp the pudding out of him today and turned to kick him without hesitation. He is a calm boy so he knew to retreat to the truck. She did not run, she stayed to fight. She is 18 yrs old. She LOVES our 2 yr old Grandson and was actually trying to protect him from the dog, so she thought.....I found this very interesting.

 

[misfitmorgan]

Our lead herd queen goat tries to protect me from my own dogs all the time. Our Ewe's will try to protect me too from our own dogs during lambing season. Interesting the paca was doing it too.

 

[MuldrowHomeFarm]

Even more interesting to me was how she slammed her front feet down, twice, in rapid succession and thwn spun around to kick, all while eyeing the baby to make sure he was clear of her moves. I was amazed.

 

[misfitmorgan]

We used to have guard llamas....they are impressive. We watched our male chase off a group of coyotes by moon light. By chase off i mean jumped the fence and chased them away from his sheep and goats. A different night DH walked outside, moonless night and the male llama came charging at him because he heard a "predator" in the dark. Downside was that when it came time to pull off lambs you had to watch the llamas, they hated when the babies cried and would try to guard the babies from you. We never lost a single sheep or goat to a predator while we had them. The year after lost our llama we had 2 kids and a lamb vanish.