Weaning Alpaca and Llama Cria
Whose Baby Is This, Anyway?

Page 3

Those we have weaned ourselves seemed to flounder and appear much less confident in themselves. They often struggle for their place in the herd receiving far more "spit lessons". During this struggle, they tend to run to mom more often with their tail thrown over their back. Should they try to nurse, mom often appears confused - a yes-no, maybe, I'm not quite sure - response. Sometimes, even after a long separation, mom will give in and nursing resumes. It seems to make sense. Those mothers have never made the personal decision nor established the boundaries of nursing with their baby, we did! We have been astonished by the ramifications of the moms establishing time frames and boundaries with their babies versus us imposing our timing and boundaries.

A Case In Point

In the first few years of our returning the weaning process to the mothers, we witnessed a birth situation here, which forever sealed our commitment to allowing our moms to do the weaning when at all possible. Corona had just given birth to her third baby. Baby #1, which WE had weaned and Baby #2, which SHE had weaned, were two of the first at the scene. As Corona stood over her struggling newborn, both Baby #1 and Baby #2 decided to check out the milk situation. Baby #2 (mother had weaned - now a yearling) was immediately and severely reprimanded and told in no uncertain terms that they were through with that. Surprisingly, Baby #1 (now a two year old which WE had weaned) was allowed to begin nursing until suddenly it was as if Corona thought "wait a minute", stood uncertain for a brief moment, sniffed her newborn and then simply moved away from Baby #2. This event lent great support to our supposition that the decisions and boundaries drawn by mom and baby are much more clear and definite than those drawn by humans between a mom and her baby. This would appear to be another significant reason for the low success rate in complete weaning even when we have separated them for three months or longer. Combine this with our attempt to wean at a significantly younger age than is done, on average, by the moms themselves, and it begins to make sense why it is that we humans have such a difficult time getting "our" weaning program to stick.

To the left are three generations. Diamond Lil is in the center. In this photo she was 20 years old! In the front is her 5 ½ month old son, Full Tilt Boogie, who Lil weaned shortly after this photo. Bringing up the rear is her 2 year old daughter, Chili Lilli.

Exceptions To Every Rule

Though this arrangement has worked extremely well at our farm, we have a fiduciary responsibility to the health and welfare of our llamas and alpacas. It is important to keep ourselves from getting stuck in thinking, "ALL our moms wean ALL their babies EVERY year by themselves". Not true. Some years they all do, but not always. Circumstances such as health, sex of babies, pasture arrangement and so on can play a significant role and these situations can change from year to year. It is possible, although somewhat rare, for a precocious little 6 month old male to attempt to breed and even impregnate any open female in his pasture.

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