Miss Lonely Heart on the Alpaca Farm
Oh, Moira
I'll just start with the punchline. Moira keeps trying to mount Clementine.
We love Moira. She is big, fast, and odd. Yarn made from her white fleece always sells out first. She loves to eat. All good things.
She can also be a bit of a bully and a little awkward. She is our biggest alpaca, and not afraid to throw her weight around to get premium access to hay and treats.
In the first year after they moved to our place, Moira and Miss Firecracker worked out a tenuous friendship. Miss Firecracker was pregnant with Luna and a bit huffy and I think Moira often accidentally made her mad by bumping into her or getting in her way. Moira got spit at a lot and occasionally she just couldn’t take it anymore and charged at Miss Firecracker. A handful of times, they locked necks and got into an alpaca brawl. Eventually, they developed a more peaceful relationship.
Then, last spring, Moira started picking on Clementine.
I looked out the window and saw Moira pinning Clementine down at her neck, pulling on her ears. I ran outside to break them up and as soon as I walked away, Moira did it again. To give Clementine a break, I split the herd in two and put Clementine with her best friend Theodora behind a closed gate in the run by the barn for the afternoon.
This sequence repeated about a month later, but then Moira settled down. We thought she was pregnant and maybe she was just grumpy.
We took Theodora and Moira on a mating trip the previous September to have them bred at our mentor’s ranch. We intended to have an ultrasound done, but Julio was changing jobs, and with the holidays it fell to the wayside. Alpacas often do not need ultrasounds unless you want to confirm a pregnancy or are concerned something might be wrong. Our vet is very busy and we are such a small operation—we just let it drop.
Besides, Theodora was getting huge, making her pregnancy obvious. She has a longer, leaner build than Moira does, and babies grow differently, etc. so we just figured Moira’s pregnancy was less visible.
Our mentor did multiple spit-offs before sending the girls home to us. A spit test is a field pregnancy test that uses the alpaca’s behavior to indicate a pregnancy. If a female alpaca who is not pregnant is put in a pen with a male alpaca, she will likely be receptive to him (or if not, not dramatically opposed). A pregnant female, however, usually will want nothing to do with the male and will run around, spitting at him to get him to go away. Conducting this test is something of an art, but the results are shockingly accurate (like 80-90%), so many farms do not test further to confirm pregnancies. Moira spit away the male with each test. If we had a male alpaca around, we would have continued to repeat the test every week or so.
Fast forward to when the alpacas were shorn at the end of June. Once we saw Moira without her fleece, we started to suspect she was not pregnant. When Theodora gave birth to Eleanor in September and the vet came, we had her check on Moira. The vet said that she could not feel a cria, but they had hidden from her before. We kept an eye on Moira for a few more weeks just in case and then gave up the watch.
So, what happened? Perhaps Moira was never pregnant. Perhaps she was and at some point early on the pregnancy failed. We are not sure, but the latter is my hypothesis.
I think she would like to be pregnant though, because she keeps trying to mount Clementine.
After a handful of times running out to the pasture to shoo her off, I realized that she was getting frisky about once a month, perhaps indicative of her coming into heat.
Our girl Moira seems like she wants to breed. Our farm only has female alpacas, so we will schedule her another conjugal visit and try again. None of our other girls show this behavior, however, so I did some research and found that “promiscuity” in alpacas is not uncommon, and, especially in the absence of male alpacas, females mounting other females is not uncommon either. Still, I do wonder if poor Clementine doesn’t feel a bit sexually harassed.
Anyway, Happy Valentine’s Day, here are some
Alpaca Love Facts
Alpacas show affection by tapping other alpacas with their noses. It’s called bunting.
Female alpacas in particular are sensitive to the feelings of their herdmates and will try to soothe an agitated alpaca with humming noises and nuzzles.
Alpacas ovulate after copulation, which makes them pretty easy to impregnate if the female alpaca is receptive to the male. We know of a lot of surprise babies at other ranches.
When mating, male alpacas make a sound called “orgling.” It is believed to help trigger ovulation.
Alpaca pregnancies last for an average of 50 weeks and are usually single births.
Mama and baby alpacas hum back and forth to each other as part of their bonding.
Alpacas often have best friends within their herds. In our herd, Theodora and Clementine are besties and often sit together in the evening, with Theodora’s cria, Nell, between them.
Poor Moira. Lookin for love in all the wrong places.