Murphy has not had a good day today and it was all my fault.
Murphy and his buddy Merlin have been sharing a paddock with the two weanling Alpacas Prospect and Stephano for several weeks now and the time has come for some paddock movements. We wanted to get all the llamas together so that they could sort out their differences before the trekking season starts off and I wanted to get the five Alpacas who have been sold into another paddock with Prospect and Atlas who now form my entire Show team! All went well, I split the groups out and let the two little llamas into the track, then let the other llamas into join them. I was sure that everything would be OK as they have all had contact over the fence for months with no trouble. Polo and Logan took one look at Murphy and chased him down into the bottom corner of the paddock, pinned him down with Logan (who is usually the most mild mannered Alpaca who is in the llama trekking team) sitting on Murphy's neck and Polo stamping on him. Blackjack was just about to join in when I got to them, they gave up when I shouted at them and let Murphy get up. He was obviously very shaken and I managed to guide him back out of the paddock into a pen where I checked him over, no damage but obviously shocked. He is such a good natured young llamas and didn't bare any grudge towards me and we did have a cuddle.
I don't know why they picked on him when they completely left Merlin alone.
I have now put Merlin and Murphy in the small paddock with Lenny our old llama who will not worry them, I am hoping that he will take Murphy under his wing and we will introduce the others to this group one at a time I think. Lenny usually defends the youngsters but this morning he had taken himself off to the lower paddock and was not around to help them.
Murphy is not quite sure of Lenny and when I left him this evening he was gazing longingly at Prospect and Stephano in their paddock next door, Merlin seem totally unaffected by the whole thing.
It was really shocking to see how violent these usually mld mannered animals could be, the Alpaca group couldn't have been more different............. not sure the older group even noticed the two youngsters arrival, the hay rack had just been filled up after all.
Ah...poor Murphy !! what a traumatic experience. Its really quite strange how, some take it upon themselves to have a dislike with others......it once took me 5 attempts to introduce a young white male alpaca in with the older boys....what a carry on that was..I thought that they would never accept him. What even more strange is that they had tolerated eachother over the fence !......just goes to show how violent these animals can be....and thankfully no harm done.....nothing that a cuddle couldn't sort !......Jayne
ReplyDeleteWith a shout as effective as yours, I hope your bark is worse than your bite! Glad no physical damage was done.
ReplyDelete