Our New Security: Clarence

Meet Clarence: our new livestock guardian! Clarence is a 5 year old wethered alpaca (that means he is without his reproductive jewels) who came to us from Yarmouth in November.  Although Alpacas aren't generally kept as sheep protectors around here they are used widely throughout Australia and New Zealand (land of the sheep) and from our research we've decided that he would be a wonderful addition to our crazy farm! Living in Nova Scotia means living with coyotes and, although I am most definitely NOT on the "I hate coyotes and want to shoot them all" train, I am also not interested in losing my lambs to them. SO I did what any business owner would do: I hired security!

Alpacas are a member of the South American Camelid species (along with the llama, camel, and vicuna) are are known to be hardy, intelligent and very sociable.  They have strong herd instincts and both males and females are very protective of each other and their young.  The alpaca also bonds well to other animals in their herd (or in our case, flock) and will stand to protect them as well.
They are usually gentle with humans and other animals that are not seen as a threat but they have natural hatred for canines and foxes. They will chase the threat and stomp on them with their front feet, which are padded with large nails rather than hooves, and continue to stomp.

I have heard from many people in the Maritimes say that Alpacas "will run away if they sense a threat" and "are not to be used as guardian animals" but these people obviously have not seen Clarence in action! Within the first week of introducing him to our flock (14 sheep in total at this moment) he had created a bond. When I entered the pen he would get in front of the ewes and call out as if warning them to stay behind him. I brought the dogs with me in the second week to see his reaction.  When he heard Dusty bark he immediately called out, shot his ears back, stood tall and proceeded to walk along the fence line (don't worry, I had the dogs in the car with the windows rolled down for the introduction).

We will be adding a guardian livestock dog to our family in the coming months as a secondary security measure but for now Clarence is living up to his expectations and fits in with our kooky farm wonderfully!

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