Llamas and alpacas do not get along.

What a ruckus! We passed the Fall Equinox and someone turned on the wind. Welcome to Fall. And, the animals are being crazy. Llamas jumping fences...

We had our three gelded male llamas separated from the two females, who are in with the goats. We added the male alpaca to the females and the goats. All was good...until Taylor jumped the fence into the male llama yard. She spent the night there just fine, while we tried to figure out what to do, or how we were going to get her back in with the goats without letting them all out. The goats are a little crazy too. They try to shove their way past when you open the gate.

So, we were milking the goats this morning when a real ruckus broke out in the llama barn. Alfonso had jumped the fence, apparently to defend the honor of Taylor, the female llama, and was now fighting the black llama Vader. Luckily, all of them have their fighting teeth removed, but still, the llama probably outweighs the alpaca by a hundred pounds, or more.

Vader and Alfonso

We rushed to break them up, but as I was yelling, clapping and creating my own ruckus, while debating running for a hose to spray them, Richard managed to frighten them enough to get them apart. None of them want to be touched by human hands, and they avoid us to no end (unless they are haltered and tied). He caught Alfonso and tied him up. Thankfully he still had his halter on, which I have been meaning to take off.

We finished milking the goats. Alfonso got loose on the outside of the yard, where he was tied, and he kept running back and forth, humming, mad, because Vader had jumped the fence and was now in the goat yard with Patty, the other female. Richard tied Alfonso to the car.

Meanwhile we let all the goats into the llama barn, got the other two male llamas back out to pasture, and herded the female llama, Taylor, back into the goat yard. Richard fortified the short chain link fence they have been jumping, added two lines of electric tape on top, just a visual, but it should deter them because of the height.

I chased llamas for a while, trying to get Vader corralled. No luck. I enticed him into the chicken yard with a bowl of grain, and we got him back out to the pasture with the other llama boys.

The goats were herded back into their yard and we put Alfonso back in with the girls. Everyone was back to normal, with  the males all talking snotty to each other over the fences.

What a morning. And this afternoon, the wind still blows...

Herd of goats