Philippe Lavoie/Wikimedia
Sure, you know alpacas are cute, with their big doe eyes, long lashes, and soft coats. But here are 10 things we bet you didn't know about our favorite South American camelids.
1) There are only two breeds,
the huacaya (wuh-kai-ya), which has fluffy hair akin to a teddy bear,
and the suri (pronounced like Katie Holmes’ daughter’s name), with long
wavy hair that hangs off its body.
2) Like their cousins the llamas, alpacas spit when angry or annoyed. Faith Perkins, who owns Quarry Ridge Farm
in Salem, New York, where she and her husband, Herb, have a herd of 25
huacayas, says the animals usually reserve this activity for each other
when quarreling over food, but may let one fly in your direction if you
happen to be giving them shots or trimming their nails.
3) Alpacas have soft pads on their feet, which don’t churn up the ground like a cow or horse’s hooves do.
4) When alpaca eat grass, they snip
off the top of the plant unlike some other animals that pull the grass
up by the root when eating. (Which is why they have a reputation for
being good lawnmowers.)
5) They “cush” when seated, meaning they fold their legs under their body making them easy to transport in a smaller vehicle.
6) Alpacas’ tails are used to express
feelings to each other. If they’re bothered by something they will
twitch it back and forth. If an animal is being submissive it will raise
its tail over its body and crouch down.
7) The animals have interesting
pooping habits. “In the middle of the barn we have a box that looks
almost like a kitty litter box but not as deep. They do all their
business there,” says Perkins, who adds the behavior is “a throwback to
their days in the high desert down in South America,” which allowed a
stud to more easily determine which group of females was ready for
breeding. The male would sniff out whether any of the ladies had high
estrogen levels cluing him in on which group to check out for receptive
females.
8) Mothers almost always have their
babies in the morning. Perkins says this is also related to life in the
high desert in South America where temperatures are very cold at night.
By having their babies in the morning, the little ones will have the
whole day to dry off, begin walking around, and nursing from the mother
before the temperatures begin to drop.
9) Females have an 11-month gestation
period and about 90 percent of the time don’t need help in the delivery
of the babies. “They just go into labor and deliver the baby within an
hour,” says Perkins.
10) Alpacas love to sunbathe. “You’ll
come home and all the alpacas will be laying out in the field. They lie
down on their sides, stretch out and soak up that sun,” says Perkins.
She admits “it’s pretty scary if you don’t know what they’re doing”
since they kind of look like they’ve dropped dead.
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