Weaning time for our littlest boys

Here at Hideaway Wood Farm we decided to long term wean our cria this year and have been sharing our journey over on our socials.

I thought it would be a good idea to collate our experiences so far here on our farm blog as we often get asked about what we do about weaning and how the mums and babies are getting on.

Update from 25th March 2025

Alpaca cria (babies) are generally weaned at 6 months of age as standard. Their dam (mum) is usually pregnant again by this point and the theory is that she needs to put all of her energy into the in utero cria.

There’s definitely some sense in this. Particularly if the mother has lost a lot of condition. But it is always essential?

It’s normal for a lactating mother to lose condition in the early days of lactation but we support them to build back up through supplemental feed and keep a very close eye on them with monthly body condition scoring (getting our hands on the animals to feel beneath their fleece and recording what we find).

This year we’ve decided to natural term wean. Our mums aren’t pregnant as they’re having a break (and so are we!). Left to their own devices alpaca mothers (just like human mothers) wean their babies at a variety of ages.

It’s very stressful on the cria to be separated from their mothers before both of them are ready and this is widely acknowledged in the alpaca world. It is usually recommended that we keep a close eye on the cria at this point as they’re more susceptible to infections due to the stress.

We spend a lot of time observing our mums and babies and so far we’ve found our mums are incredibly good at saying no to their cria when they’ve had enough. Our cria are coming up to 8 months old and as you’ll see in the last video, they are happy, healthy, enjoying being together and full of energy!

Of course our two boys, Duncan and Deva, may have to be separated before their mums wean them completely but time will tell.

Daisy drinking milk from Billie

Update from 20th May 2025

Back in March as part of our alpaca mothering series we shared an update about natural term weaning our alpaca mums (dams) and babies (cria) instead of separating them at 6 months old as is standard.

Since our last update we’ve had lots of visitors to the farm comment on the beautiful bond our mums and babies have and how they love seeing them still together so we thought we’d share an update now that our cria are 9 months old.

The reason for force weaning at 6 months is that the dam is usually pregnant again by this point and the theory is that she needs to put all of her energy into the in utero cria.

As mothers ourselves we felt it was important to acknowledge the wisdom of mothers and to honour their instincts as well as the bond they have with their babies. They also aren’t pregnant this year, so it was a good year to try this out.

As we’re exploring off the beaten track we are keeping a close eye to make sure everyone is doing ok.

What we’ve noticed:

• The mums are all back in peak condition, even our older mums

• All of the mums are still feeding their babies a couple of times a day, even Ruffian with her HUGE cria Dolores

• The mums are very boundaried and make it very clear when they don’t want to feed

• Dancer has figured out that she can feed from Xena whilst she’s having her breakfast, very smart

• The mums and babies are still very bonded, sometimes they end up on the opposite side of a pen to each other when we’re herding for husbandry tasks and it makes them visibly stressed. I stop my work and take time to reunite the babies with their mums before continuing otherwise it doesn’t go well.

• The mums and babies are often lying together in the field during the day and night.

• They still click to each other in an affectionate way when we’re herding them in.

We’re working on a plan for our two boys, Duncan and Deva currently and keeping a close eye on them to ensure they don’t exhibit any mating behaviours. Nothing so far!

When you come on an alpaca walk with us we always take a meander past the mums and babies paddock and all of the babies come running over to say hello. It’s a real highlight!

Update from July 2025

Our cria are approaching a year old and most are still feeding at least once a day. The mums are in such good condition we've had to reduce the food rations a little and the cria are doing really well too. We've been keeping a close eye on our two little boys, Duncan and Deva and at exactly 10 months old they started practicing mating behaviours. What that equated to in reality was them running around trying to mount the females and being kicked and spat off or the females running away. The boys shouldn't be able to properly use their equipment for some time yet but it was time to start making a plan.

They're not quite ready to be in with the big boys just yet but we don't have another paddock for them at the moment. So we did a trial in a temporary pen which they completely ignored. Oops. So they're now in the rotational grazing paddock across the fence line from our big boys. Thankfully we have a plan for the big boys that we're trialling this week (more on this soon!) so it should work out well in terms of grazing space.

I was a bit nervous about weaning day as I knew I would feel emotional about it but the time had come. So when the boys were 11 months old we herded them in, haltered them and led them into an enclosed part of the paddock. We knew walking away from their mums would be hard, so we chose Vince as 'uncle' and walked him down the hill to meet them. We then herded all of the other females out of the pen and walked Vince in to meet the boys properly for the first time. Then we led Vince out of the pen and Deva fairly happily started following him up the hill. Duncan was much less confident and really didn't want to go. We offered him time and space but eventually Amy came and carried him up the hill bless his heart.

It's not something we want to do but it's essential and I like to remind myself that their wilder ancestors the vicuña live in hareems with one male to a group of females and younger males must leave the group to find their own as soon as they start getting ready to mate.

Once at the top of the hill we returned Vince to his paddock and we introduced the boys to their new home and their new paddock mates Crusoe and Coffee Kola our two littlest year old boys. Coffee Kola isn't quite developmentally ready for walking yet despite receiving the same amount of training sessions as the other boys and Crusoe has always had a hard time with the big boys because he's little and right at the bottom of the pecking order. This will give them both a little time to get bigger, stronger and more confident before rejoining the main herd of boys.

I was so worried about the pining I've heard so much about but there was none! The boys settled in beautifully and were almost instantly enjoying their new grazing, a dust bath and hanging out with their new friends. The mums were upset with me for a day which I found hard but they have also adjusted really well and went back to their usual behaviours the very next day.

When Duncan and Deva are fully halter and lead trained we'll be taking them on some practice walks where they'll get to nose to nose with their mums over the fence line and keep in touch.

Crusoe, Duncan and Deva in their new paddock at afternoon feeding time. Duke poking his head through the fence to get to the feed (we've had to move the trough!)

Carly x