Sunday, March 6, 2022 Question of the day: What do you call a male alpaca? Well we call them the boys. It seems many years ago the alpaca world tried to get us to use the word “macho” but it just didn’t stick. We have the studs who are used for breeding, the geldings who because of a “certain procedure” cannot be used for breeding and then there are retired studs, and all other categories of male alpacas. I like my boys to live peacefully together and we don’t have separate areas for any of them. I’ve heard “Oh but my stud will kill the other boys!” Then maybe he shouldn’t be a stud? <insert dramatic music> If they are that unruly they will become a gelding here and we will thank them for their fleece each year. We love all our boys and are grateful that they all get along.
Photo of the Day: Boys, will you please all gather on the hill for a photo? thanks! 
Sunny
Lol! Your captions tickle me. A handsome group of boys right there!
Linda
Thanks Sunny!
Jill Jackson
Is that little Rocky on the far right? Or are they still in a separate pen? LOVE the picture.
Linda
Our ‘little” Rocky is the big white boy in front. His brother Remy was the really tiny one but they’ve all been together for quite a while now. Rocky and Remy are best friends and I think Remy is hiding behind Rocky in the photo. On the far right is our oldest boy Bull, retired stud and sweet old man.
Lana
I never could call them machos. It just didn’t fit. Just like you, we call them ‘the boys’ . We have two pens of them just because of the spaces we have available and each little group gets along fine. Your boys all look great!!
Linda
Thanks Lana. I think one of the big reasons that “macho” didn’t stick was that the female counterpart was “hembra” and no one cared for that much at all.
Do you remember Dr. Walter Bravo? Very famous vet from Peru who specialized in alpaca reproduction. Anyway, he was working at BYU for a while and he came to our farm several times while he was in Utah and he asked me why I had separate pastures for some of the boys. Well, some were big bullies and some were sweet smaller guys and I thought that was the way to keep peace. He told me to put them all together and they’d eventually be happier and work out their differences. So I did and they did and it’s been that way ever since. (that was 20 years ago when I listened to vets better than I do now. lol ) I’m not sure if I’d do it that way again if pastures were easier to manage but it’s definitely a challenge for me when we have to have two groups.
Lana
Yes, a lot of things depend on your farm’s particular set up. All our boys are intact, but they always got along ok. However we found one group picked on our real old guy, so he had to be penned separately, right next to the rest of the bunch. In the pasture during summertime, he’d keep himself separate, but I’d watch like a hawk to make sure he got safely back into his pen. Last summer he decided he liked staying in his pen eating hay!