Accidental Escape Artist

We are occasionally asked if the alpacas ever escape.  

Alpacas typically don't challenge their barriers or look for opportunities to escape; so it may take some time before an alpaca realizes there's an open gate, barn door or fence break.

Then there are those occasions where no gate or door was left open that leave us wondering, "How did they do that?!"

Ace finds himself outside of the paddock

Recently, we discovered little Ace on the outside of the fence eager to return to his herd.

We knew that all gates and doors were secure so it was baffling how he managed to get on the other side of the fence.

Thankfully, our cameras monitor their activities and captured how this little Houdini performed his mysterious trick.

The humorous part is that he had no idea that he did it.

Here's what happened:

This time of year, while the grass is growing outside of their paddock, the alpacas are eager to reach it to graze and often they are poking their noses through the fence panel to reach those tasty, fresh blades.

On this particular day, one of the adult alpacas (Pepper) was leaning against the panel gates that are chained together, pressing the gates outward as she stretched to reach the new grass, and Ace saw an opportunity to reach a patch of grass under the extended gates.  

As he grazed, he laid down on the ground so that he could extend his neck further under the gates to reach the tasty blades of grass.

While he did this, Pepper moved on, taking her body weight off the chained gates causing them to sway back to their normal position.

When  Ace stood up, he was on the other side of the gates and continued to graze, unaware that he was now outside the fence.

The cameras notified us that activity was happening outside, we investigated and quickly acted.

Me walking down the hill to help Ace rejoin the herd​

Ace is back inside the paddock and heading over to the herd.

I calmly walked into the backyard and started talking to Ace --  if I ran or showed any sign of nervousness, Ace would read my body language and also become nervous.

When Ace saw me and heard my voice, as I opened the gate panels for him, he eagerly came to me and re-entered the paddock to reunite with his herd.

He looked at me and hummed as he re-entered the paddock - I think that was a "thank you."