Earlier this summer I came in from the barn and told everyone, “I just saw the sweetest thing that I have ever seen on this farm!”
“I saw the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen yesterday!” my husband Steve said.
We had both seen the same thing. Our macho herdsire, Magnum, kissing his daughter, Molly.
Magnum is the Mac Daddy
It is not unusual for a dam (momma alpaca) and cria to nibble and “kiss” at each others mouths. They nuzzle, touch noses, and love on each other. The males are kept in separate pens. They don’t usually interact with cria.
Magnum is housed in a run in the main barn between two pens of females. He can flirt with the girls in the next pen. He generally gets to breed with most of them when they are open so he holds court in the middle of the barn, and when everybody is bred he is the happy king of his castle. (He can tell when they are open and gets frisky to try to get to the girls to breed them.)
Magnum has a few offspring in the pens adjacent to his. We have seen him “talking” to his little sons over the fence, and we imagine him telling them about life, teaching them the ropes. But we have not been sure if he knew they are his offspring, or if he thought they were just cria, or if he thought he was such a stud that every cria was his!
Then we saw him with Molly. Molly is a Magnum daughter who is close to breeding age and size. She is big enough that Magnum would normally have figured out that she wasn’t pregnant, and would be orgling (alpaca mating noise designed to make the females weak in the knees) and jumping up on the panels that separated them. But he wasn’t doing this at all. He was kissing Molly. On the mouth. Sweet as a mother and new baby!
I first noticed it one morning as the alpacas were being brought into the barn. As soon as Molly came into her stall that adjoins Magnum, she went up to him and gave him a kiss. It was cute. But they stayed that way, just kissing on each other, nibbling, and touching noses. Before you think this is gross, let me tell you – this was NOT a sexual thing. I know our boy Magnum. He was NOT courting this girl. When he does that – it’s pretty obvious. He was gently loving her.
Freaking out at the extreme cuteness, I ran to get Jeremy, our farm manager, to borrow his phone to take pictures. “Oh yeah,” he said, “They were doing that yesterday.” Well they had stopped by the time I found a camera. I was disappointed that I wouldn’t be able to capture the moment.
When Steve said that he had seen the same thing as well, I was determined to capture it. These photos were taken on my phone over a 10 minute time frame where Magnum was completely, totally in love with his little girl.
These moments were so intimate, and their affection so strong, that it was a privilege to be able to witness (and record) them. Magnum is one of the most intelligent animals I have ever had the joy of knowing. I don’t doubt anymore that he knows his offspring. If I can recognize the resemblance, I am certain he can as well. Perhaps there is some sort of biological thing happening as well that allows him to know his cria. Whatever it is, we are so blessed to have this incredibly complex and wonderful male be a part of our lives.
What have you seen animals do that surprised you? What displays of animal emotion have touched your life?
That is just so special! I love it that they recognize their own children. Sometimes even humans don’t do that!
My mother and I visited a bunch of alpaca farms earlier this summer, and had such an amazing time. They really are the cutest animals, and so soft!
.-= SheilaG´s last blog ..The Ultimate Gift =-.
We have 2 cats, Mila who is very sweet and affectionate, and Greta, who is rather grumpy and won’t have much to do with any person besides my husband.
One day when my son was about 1 month old, we had him in a little seat in the living room, while we looked at videos on a laptop. We played a video of kittens crying, and both cats came wandering into the living room looking around curiously. Thinking this was pretty funny, we played the video again. Mila came up to us, figuring out that’s where the sound was coming from. Greta went over to my son, and sniffed at him, as if to make sure he was all right! We were amazed that such a grumpy old cat would identify our son as a “kitten” and check on him when she heard crying noises.
Tender moments are so wonderful on the farm and when our boys give their children sweet kisses, it’s just one more reason to love what we do. I’m so glad you got to experience it.
Have heard several stories from Suzanne @ Sunburst Alpacas to substantiate this. Several times alpacas have been sold and maybe 2 years later came back for a breeding and went straight over to their mother or vice versa. Even a couple of cria who played together while young were reunited and you could tell they recognized each otherby their actions. I bring my Yorkie, Ginger to see the alpacas when there is an open house and Velvet, a black male, always comes over to the fence to sniff her. You would think he would spit, but she is not a yappy dog and does not bark around them. Of course the females just move away from her being protective of their cria. Also, just yesterday a kid who’s grandma lives 2 doors down from me was in my yard playing with the outside cats and he started making kitten noises. They were very realistic. Ginger got so agitated looking around to see where the kitten was. It was really funny. The only other time I heard her do that was when we had a kitten that the mother would not feed and it was yowling and Ginger got all worked up looking and acting very concerned while I was trying to feed it.
Dear Katy,
I love your site! So informative and interesting!
We had a daughter of one of our foundation girls return for breeding after being gone for a year and a half. Avalon and her daughter Warm Rain ran to see each other over the fence and nuzzeled and clucked, it was a beautiful, tender moment like your herdsire and his daughter! After 12 years of observing them they still make me go “Ahhh” Thanks fo ryour site! Nancy
Nancy,
Thank you so much! Can’t tell you how much that means to me. And I know what you mean. It’s amazing that after all this time, they can still astound us with their magic. It is an unending fountain of “Ahhh”s, isn’t it? That’s why we can’t imagine doing anything else, isn’t it? The tenderness is sooo poignant…
I’ve melted into a puddle onto the floor…lol