our alpacas: UFC fight night!

I’ve said before that animal behavior has always been fascinating to me, and I got an eyeful of some new behavior a few days ago when we saw our first full-fledged, knock-down, drag-out fight between the boys. No one was hurt and it appeared to simply be a display of posturing on a dramatic scale, fortunately, and it was actually quite fascinating to see. The question it raised for us, though, is this: how do you tell who “won”, if there is such a thing?
We had a bunch of people over for Matt’s birthday and his mom and my sister had just come out with me to give some feed to the boys. Cinnamon mows through his handfuls of feed so quickly that he spills more pellets than he actually eats, and every time now he’s taken to cleaning up his mess for several minutes after we’re done, hoovering up pellets from the barn floor or the pasture (wherever we’ve managed to feed them).

Silverton rarely helps out with this but today apparently he decided to chip in and began picking up pellets next to Cinnamon, who apparently saw this as encroaching on his rightful ownership to the dregs of feed. Then Cinnamon did something we haven’t seen him actually do before: he made an attempt to mount Silverton.
Naturally you can bet that Silverton took a little bit of umbrage to this. So he turned around and, in a gesture that clearly said, “dude, I do not swing that way and I’d be happy if you kept your advances to yourself” began to growl and wrestle with him. This escalated into full-on up-on-hind-legs body slams against each other, neck wrapping, you name it, with corresponding sound effects the likes of which we’d not heard yet. All of us out there stopped and watched, not really sure how serious it was.
It went on for less than a minute but was definitely the most aggressive behavior I’d witnessed in the boys. I was mildly concerned but also knew that, from Don and Jody’s past advice, boys will be boys and frequently they’ll wrestle, posture, shove, and generally act like teenage boys with something to prove. And it usually ends pretty quickly — the only times you have to worry are when you see torn or bleeding ears, in which case the fighting alpacas (now if that doesn’t sound like a great name for a high school football team I don’t know what does) need to be separated for some cooling off and their fighting teeth obviously need some checking.
Despite my mild concern one thing made me laugh, and that was Benz’s reaction to this whole thing. He had absolutely nothing to do with the argument but he half-heartedly joined in with a couple of weak body slams, kind of moving in and out of the fight as if he didn’t know whose side he should be on or if he should even be on a side at all, but somehow felt obligated to join in. Benz is clearly a lover, not a fighter.
The whole thing was over in less than a minute. Silverton and Cinnamon stood side by side with their mouths open (after fighting alpacas mouths will frequently be slightly open and sometimes they’ll appear to be frothing a bit), with Silverton ahead of Cinnamon. After a few seconds all three boys began walking to the corner of the pasture by the road with Silverton in the lead and Cinnamon and Benz so close behind him and to his side that I wondered if they were kind of pushing him into the corner, which is where he eventually went, or if they were just following his lead really closely for some reason. And then, as if it never happened, they all cushed in their favorite spots under the tree next to each other, and that was that.
When you own dogs and cats it’s usually pretty easy to tell who “wins” a domination fight. With cats it’s the one who flips the other one, WWE-style, on its back and pins it down. (When Pico was just a small kitten and Sam was a fully-grown adult, Sam thoroughly enjoyed luring Pico in for what seemed like an easy fight, taunting him by exposing her stomach, only to grab him, flip him, and pin him down. Unfortunately for her he seems to love this game…except that now he has five pounds on her, is taller and stronger, and still thinks he’s a kitten and that it’s his turn to flip Sam over and show her whose boss.)
But Matt and I don’t know all the ins and outs of alpaca behavior yet and wondered who won this fight, if there really is such a thing. The dynamics of the boys’ relationship didn’t change: Silverton and Cinnamon seem to vie for leadership a little bit but they rarely fight at all, and Silverton seems like the “real” herd leader most of the time. Did Siverton successfully tell Cinnamon that he’s still the boss? Did Cinnamon actually knock Silverton down a little in the pecking order? How many matches are there in the regular season? Is there a playoff? And more importantly, who has a licensing deal with the sportswear companies? The answers to these questions are pretty crucial as we’re hoping we can enter the winning alpaca into Brock Lesnar’s division, because that jerk needs a real takedown. Seriously.
So there’s your question, alpaca owner-readers. What exactly happened? Was it just a whole lotta posturing amounting to nothing?
In non-fighting events the boys continue to provide hilarious, cute, and sweet moments. Silverton seems to really be warming up to us, especially me (since I’m the one who’s home right now and tend to go out and do the pasturely duties). While doing fly trap maintenance the other day he cushed just a few feet from me, something he’s never done before. Up to this point he’s usually pretty watchful of me, being sure to stay several arm’s lengths away from me. On Sunday I cleaned the pasture and with the sun shining the boys all fell over into Dead Alpaca Pose (lying in the sun on their side, looking for all the world like they’d fallen over dead of a heart attack…except for the flicking ears above the grass). I had to maneuver around them with the wheelbarrow and Silverton barely blinked at me even though I could practically have stepped on him. While all the boys are equally cute and sweet, there’s something that’s especially nice about watching Silverton — with his one blind eye, who’s always the one being a gentleman off to the side, politely waiting his turn, being a little shy — start to warm up more.
Even Cinnamon with his willful nature can be sweet and cute. Today I dumped out their water and as soon as I turned on the hose to refill it Cinnamon and Benz were practically on top of me, obviously wanting a belly bath. I turned on the hose for them and they were so close to me that I actually got a bit of a belly bath as well. Cinnamon suddenly cushed right there on the spot, so close to me that he was literally nearly on my feet. It was such a shock to see him do this that I almost thought for a moment that he was sick or something was wrong with him. But then, as if realizing that he’s not supposed to be that comfortable with me, he suddenly got up and moved a couple of feet back.
Benz and Cinnamon now tag-team me when bringing out their hay. They know now that it comes from the room in the back of the barn, and when they see me go in they crowd the door so that when I come out I have no choice but to let them pull hay out of my hands as I’m carrying it to their feeders.
Over the past few days I’ve spent some time out at the table working on fiber preparation, and each time the boys migrate up to the fence nearby, cush, and just seem to enjoy hanging out a few feet away from me, sometimes sunning themselves, sometimes just watching me work while they chew their cud. It’s pretty sweet.