Alpacas are native to elevations of 14,000 feet or more. Staying warm is their biggest concern hence the luxurious thick warm fleece they grow and we harvest. In other words they are cold weather animals, not warm.
Here in NY we are having a rather warm weather spell with temps in the 80-90s and high humidity. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to schedule my shearer until June 1st which means 3 more weeks of alpacas in full fleece in hot temps! I can only imagine how miserable they must be. As their caretaker I have to do the best I can to keep them cool.
The best way to keep an alpaca cool is with water. Hosing down their legs and bellies gives them much reprieve and then they sit in front of the high velocity fans and air out. One problem for me though, I have a full time job Monday through Friday! I’m not able to go out every few hours and cool them off, instead I have to find away to hose them off without actually physically being there.
Thankfully alpacas seem to naturally love playing in water. If anyone sees me dragging a hose around the alpacas come running and line up at the fence for a spray. The question is, if there’s a hosing station will they come over and spray themselves off and if they do will the dominant ones hog the spot light. There’s only one way to find out, try it.
My solution to the problem was to set up sprinklers on a timer set at chest height so the alpacas could walk through it and cool themselves off. Here are photos of the products I used thanks to a quick trip to Home Depot.
I “broke” the cheap sprinklers so they didn’t oscillate anymore and set them at a fixed height so the alpacas could get their legs and bellies wet and not their backs. I have the timer set to 3 minutes of sprinkle time every 4 hours (6am 10am 2pm 6pm). I’m thinking of upping it to 5 minutes so they have more time to get to it before it turns off.
I was worried that the alpacas A) wouldn’t want to walk into the sprinkler and B) wouldn’t know when it turned on so they could cool off. My concerns were both unfounded. The alpacas loved the idea of the sprinklers and the wide range the sprinkler put out allowed even the timid ones to take part. Also, when the sprinkler turns on the trapped air spits and sputters much like the sound of a garden hose and they all come running. Actually while I’m writing this the 10am sprinkler just turned on and I just watched all my girls run from grazing out in the pasture to the sprinkler. It they definitely know it’s on :o)