RIP Jasper
December 6th 2007 21:17
Jasper was a little fancy alpaca born 11 May 2001 from our girl Sabrina. His dad was Jamaica.
We sold Jasper 16 December 2001 with another youngster, ‘Johnny come early’, at an alpaca wether sale. (‘Johnny come early’ was a premmie, born at 305 days gestation, the average is 342 days.)
His owners phoned to tell us that Jasper had died on 23 November 07.
They had shorn the two boys and noticed that Jasper was looking a bit poorly, but sadly he went down hill quickly and died a couple of days later. The cause is unknown.
Alpacas are stoic creatures, they won’t let on that anything is wrong, often until it’s too late to do anything. This is a survival instinct for prey animals. Weak or sick animals become an easy meal for predators so they hide any signs of illness. Unless you watch your alpacas really closely and get very familiar with their behaviour, you won’t notice that they’re even sick.
Even if you do know your alpacas well, it’s often just a very subtle change in their behaviour that gives them away, such as an alpaca spending more time than usual sitting down, humming a bit more, too easy to handle. Or even seeing an animal who is normally very herd oriented, a short distance away from the main herd may be a sign.
A loss in condition is an obvious sign that something’s amiss, but with fleece animals, unless they’ve just been shorn, or you round them up to feel, you can’t tell they’re losing weight. They can go down so fast that it can happen in-between your routine checks.
I hope that Johnny is coping without his little mate. They were friends from birth, so he’d be feeling pretty lonely wondering where Jasper’s gone. Hopefully he’ll have a new friend to hang around with soon. Some alpacas can get used to living by themselves, but as herd animals they much prefer to have the company of other alpacas.
RIP Jasper.
We sold Jasper 16 December 2001 with another youngster, ‘Johnny come early’, at an alpaca wether sale. (‘Johnny come early’ was a premmie, born at 305 days gestation, the average is 342 days.)
His owners phoned to tell us that Jasper had died on 23 November 07.
Jasper
They had shorn the two boys and noticed that Jasper was looking a bit poorly, but sadly he went down hill quickly and died a couple of days later. The cause is unknown.
Alpacas are stoic creatures, they won’t let on that anything is wrong, often until it’s too late to do anything. This is a survival instinct for prey animals. Weak or sick animals become an easy meal for predators so they hide any signs of illness. Unless you watch your alpacas really closely and get very familiar with their behaviour, you won’t notice that they’re even sick.
Even if you do know your alpacas well, it’s often just a very subtle change in their behaviour that gives them away, such as an alpaca spending more time than usual sitting down, humming a bit more, too easy to handle. Or even seeing an animal who is normally very herd oriented, a short distance away from the main herd may be a sign.
A loss in condition is an obvious sign that something’s amiss, but with fleece animals, unless they’ve just been shorn, or you round them up to feel, you can’t tell they’re losing weight. They can go down so fast that it can happen in-between your routine checks.
I hope that Johnny is coping without his little mate. They were friends from birth, so he’d be feeling pretty lonely wondering where Jasper’s gone. Hopefully he’ll have a new friend to hang around with soon. Some alpacas can get used to living by themselves, but as herd animals they much prefer to have the company of other alpacas.
Johnny & Jasper
RIP Jasper.
| 81 |
| Vote |
Comment by katyzzz
Photography Tips
MS Paint Art
Comment by Rosemary
Alpaca Notes - Tasmania
Comment by Krystal
feelings
Comment by JoH
I trust Jasper will get a fitting farewell?
Comment by Rosemary
Alpaca Notes - Tasmania
I feel sorry for his little mate Johnny, more than anything, specially as it was just the two of them.