CameliDynamics

As a farm we're always trying to improve the way we're doing things.

We've been introducing natural methods of taking care of our herd and as a part of that we've been learning about a handling technique referred to as CameliDynamics and trialling it out on some of our most troublesome girls.

There's an amazing woman called Marty McGee Bennett who has worked with South American camelids (llamas and alpacas in terms of domesticated species, originating from vicuñas and guanacos in terms of their wilder cousins) for over thirty years. In her words it is, 'a collection of methods that represent the most positive least intrusive techniques for training and managing camelids'.

It's truly beautiful work. It's all about understanding their behaviour and why they react in certain ways and part of the approach requires us to pay a lot of attention to our own body language, movements and behaviours too. It requires complete presence. The idea is that we move from the traditional method of cornering, grabbing and restraining to allowing the animal their escape route, slowly desensitising them to our proximity and helping them to remain in balance whilst we work with them. Marty explains that alpacas and llamas are generally much more fearful of being grabbed and restrained than they are of the husbandry work we need to do. When we stop doing those things, the theory is they learn to stand calmly in balance whilst we work instead of trying to buck us off and escape.

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It's been incredibly supportive of our husbandry work, it's a much calmer experience for the animals and for us too.​

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The crossovers between yoga, meditation and CameliDynamics are huge. Presence, breath, body awareness, awareness of environment... This is a big part of what we focus on during our Alpaca Yoga and Being with the Alpacas meditation sessions.