She is adorable and her name is Annie. She is an alpaca. She travels in an estate car bought especially for her according to The Telegraph newspaper. The journey to becoming a pet and companion animal started, unsurprisingly, when she was rejected by her mother and had to be bottle-fed every two hours by her owner, Dannie Burns. Annie sleeps on the porch to their home but she used to sleep with the three dogs and two cats but there was a little bit of trouble and so an adjustment was made.
And she won’t mix with a herd of 75 alpacas and clearly prefers to mix with humans and cats and dogs. She is pregnant and expecting her own baby. Mr Burns is unsure how she will perform as a mother.
During the bottle-feeding she was in Mr Burns’s home for six months. She was fed every two hours. At that time, she was eating “everything” he said including indigestible items such as ribbons, toy soldiers and other bits of plastic. And she swallowed them. He said that she is a nightmare!
The problem clearly is that alpacas are just not domesticated to the human lifestyle. That’s why she can’t differentiate between toy soldiers and a decent bit of food.
During Christmas she stole profiteroles and lettuce. Mr Burns hopes that she will go back to the herd when she has her baby. But at the moment she hides when she sees other alpacas.
He bought the estate car because he felt that she needed to come with him everywhere. He leaves the back door open and she jumps into the back of the vehicle.
Annie is the same size as a St. Bernard shepherd dog and lives on a diet of oats, barley, grains and anything else that she can scavenge. Mr Burns’ grain bill last year was £30,000! Although that covers the entire herd. It looks as though that Mr Burns is an alpaca farmer. He expects to pay £36,000 for grain this year because the price has gone up due to the Ukraine war. The grain used to come from Ukraine.
At the moment Annie lives like any other family pet and wanders around the home doing what she wants. Like any good domestic cat, she looks out of the window as if she is looking at alpaca television at the herd beyond. Only Mr Burns said: “She’s got a superiority complex over other alpacas. She runs about with the dogs, and learned to open door handles with her mouth”. That sounds like some cats too.
I did a bit of research on whether alpacas can be domesticated! Well, they can as we can see in Mr Burns’ story but I wondered what the general opinion was. They are described as “adorable, docile and soft”.
They are considered to be prize pets around the world. Alpacas are domesticated vicuñas. They are related to llamas which themselves are domesticated guanacos.
Google tells me that alpacas make very good pets “if they are treated well and the owners are realistic in their expectations”. If they are well socialised as youngsters, they will be quieter when they are adults.
They tolerate being petted but don’t particularly like it. Although they might like it from a favourite person. It depends upon how well socialised they are.
It is believed that alpacas were first domesticated in the humid Puna region of Peru during the early to mid-Holocene period. They get on well with dogs provided they are socialised to them and vice versa. Dogs need to be socialised to alpacas and thereby trained to protect them and not chase them. And alpacas need to be trained not to run from dogs or attack them.
The experts say that alpacas need “firm but gentle leadership”. They are described as being compliant but not obedient. And once they know what you want them to do, they will do it.
