What is Wrong with Some People?

Taco & Rico. 2 alpacas who got handed the short end of the stick in the caretaker department. I first heard about them when the abattoir was called to come and shoot them because the current owner no longer wanted them. A woman I’ll call “Mildred” got wind of what was happening and contacted us to help her to relocate them, a gesture we naively assumed would be in their best interest.

Taco and Rico were intact males, approximately 6 or 7 years old. They were being kept on a small lot of deforested land and when we got there, they had no water, no pellets and nothing but a big pile of moldy hay to eat. Perhaps she was hoping they would make her life easy and just die of starvation. They hadn’t been sheared for the last 2 years because the owner ‘just got too busy’ to get to it. They were matted and dirty with toenails that hadn’t been clipped for a very long time. Their leariness of people was quickly explained as we watched the owner attempt to corral them by screaming their names and wave a giant walking stick in the air. They were by far the wildest, crazy-ass alpacas I have ever witnessed.

Mildred runs a backyard animal rescue organization, dealing mostly with cats and dogs but also the occasional goat or pot-bellied pig. She admitted to knowing nothing about alpacas but was confident she could find a suitable home for them. In the meantime they could stay at her farm – she had a small fenced pasture they could stay in temporarily.

After we treated these poor fellas for mites and parasites, did their toenails and got them to Mildred’s place, I gave her the vet’s contact with the explanation about how intact males often fight by ripping each others testicles to shreds with their fighting teeth. I gave her the shearers name and number, explaining that these 2 alpacas were way beyond what Cathy and I were capable of handling and advised Mildred to book the shearer now, for as early in the spring as possible so they don’t suffer in the heat. Tell her to bring help. I told her where to buy Marty McGee’s book (for handling and training techniques) and where to get halters, wands and lead ropes. I suggested building a small catch pen into the pasture to allow her to work with them. We gave her advice about hay and Cathy even brought her a bag of alpaca pellets to get her started. We told her to call us anytime with questions or concerns and that we would be more than happy to have her (or any prospective owners) visit our own farms anytime to bend our ears and/or observe. I gave her the contact details for the Vancouver Island Llama and Alpaca Club, if she needed help finding a new home.

Mildred did not offer to reimburse us for the gas to get up island to pick these alpacas up. She did not ask how much the pellets or the deworming medication was. The first contact I had from Mildred was 1/2 year later, at the end of (a very hot) June. She wanted to borrow our shears because ‘it was so hot out’ and they’d decided to shear the alpacas themselves ‘tomorrow’ on the advice of a guy they’d met in England. (I said no and hate to picture what that shearing might have involved for those poor animals.)

The next contact I  had from Mildred was just last Wednesday. They’d sold their farm and were moving Friday – “Could you come and pick up the girls and move them to 2 different farms I’ve found for them?  “Well, no, they don’t have any other alpacas but the one farm has a llama. “Why am I separating them? Well, because they fight all the time. “No, I didn’t get them gelded. The guy in England said I didn’t have to. ”

I can’t post the fancy description I had for this woman once I got off the phone. The thought of these 2 poor animals fighting constantly for an entire year when it was totally unnecessary makes me crazy. The abuse they endured at the hands of their original, intentionally cruel owner was bad enough but the ignorance and lack of effort to provide an acceptable level of care for these animals from a woman claiming to be an animal advocate is shocking. The plan to separate them AND to send them to live alone might as well be a death sentence for these sweet animals. (Alpacas are a herd animal and get incredibly stressed when not with other alpacas, even for short periods of time.) This tidbit of information is a google-click away, had she cared to inquire. What is wrong with some people? The only word I am left with to describe Mildred and her operation is DANGEROUS.

It took Cathy and I a couple of phone calls to find a farm willing to take them both. We picked them up from Mildred’s, took them to the vet to be gelded and dewormed, did their teeth and toenails and had them to their new home that afternoon. The new responsible owners report that Taco & Rico have been happily accepted into the herd and that not only are they no longer fighting with each other, but are in fact, stuck to each other like glue.

Taco & Rico. May all your future days be peaceful.