Warning – Low Flying Alpacas!
Just when you think you know all your alpacas are capable of, one of them has to take things a step further and surprise you!
Yesterday morning was a lovely morning, we had a good rain overnight and as we worked on the chores the skies were still cloudy and the temperature a little on the cool side. As we fed the girls I noticed our horses Savannah and Sabre come galloping in from their pasture heading for their shelter, a sure sign that we were about to have some more rain (our two horses are spoilt rotten and don’t believe that they should suffer the indignity of getting wet in the rain)
I dashed inside and got waterproof coats for Ric and myself, being half way through feeding the girls we couldn’t stop and wait for the rain to pass and knew we would have to continue the chores.
As soon as we could we let the girls out of their feeding pens so that they could seek shelter and munch on some hay. We then set about putting out fresh water and scooping the poop.
One of the last things to be done was putting out the beet pulp shreds. A few of the girls were still hanging around the feeding pens waiting for the shreds to appear and were happy when they saw me headed their way with the beet pulp shred bucket.
As it was still raining we had put all of the hay in the hay feeders within the girl’s shelters in an effort to help keep them dry. Our large shelter had a lake in front of it due to the rain so I went around to the far side of the shelter where there is some higher ground and access to the shelter without wading through the lake of water. I put some shreds out in the shelter but still had some left so headed back around the side of the shelter to take the remaining shreds over to one of the feeding trays at the other side of the pasture. And then it happened; as I walked along the side of the shelter I suddenly became aware of something flying over my left shoulder. The flying object was large, quiet, fast, fawn and full fleeced – it was our alpaca Cinnamon who had just jumped completely over me!
Cinnamon certainly loves her beet pulp shreds and is quite a playful alpaca even in her current pregnant state, but I would never have expected her to even think about trying to jump over me. All I can say is that I never heard her coming and she managed to clear me without even brushing a foot on me. I’m 5’7” so Cinnamon’s jump was quite a feat for a pregnant alpaca!
Apart from Cinnamon scaring the living daylights out of me as she flew over my shoulder, I was quite in awe of what she had just done. I have never thought of my alpacas as high jump candidates, but now I am wondering just how high they can jump when they feel like it. I just hope that the llamas don’t get any ideas from Cinnamon!
