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If you've decided to start breeding alpacas on your farm, then you need to create secure paddocks. If you've never kept alpacas before, then you might not be sure what kind of fencing to use.

While you can simply use sheep or deer fences for these animals, they do behave differently to the livestock you may be used to managing. You may need to make tweaks to fences to make them secure and safe. What do you need to know?

1. Go for Smaller Gaps

While stringing sheep wire between posts generally corrals alpacas effectively, you may need to make the gaps between your wire strands smaller than normal. Your aim here is to prevent the animals from poking their heads through the fence too easily.

Alpacas are curious creatures. They are also pretty determined. So, if an alpaca sees some nice grass on the other side of the fence, it may push its head through the wire to try to get to it.

This could damage the fence. Or, if the alpaca is heavy enough and it hits a weak spot, it could get out of its paddock. Even if this doesn't happen, the animal could get hurt if its head gets trapped and it can't get it out again.

So, smaller gaps are better. If you end up with a herd of stubborn and curious alpacas, a tighter mesh like chicken wire may be in order.

3. Go Down to the Ground

Alpacas aren't small animals, so you may not be worried about them getting under a fence to make an escape. However, you should still make sure to string wire low to the ground.

While most alpacas are happy to stay in their paddock, you may end up with one animal that is an escape artist or that has a desperate need to get through a fence. For example, a male will try anything to get to a female when it is in heat.

If you leave too big of a gap between the ground and your first strand of wire, then one of your alpacas might be able to wriggle under the wire. It's safer to go low here.

3. Avoid Barbed Wire and Electrification

It's not a good idea to use extra measures like barbed or electric wire on alpaca fencing. Alpacas have thick and dense coats. They won't feel the barbs or the electric shock initially. However, if they continue to touch the area, they could end up with nasty cuts and burns.

For more advice on how to contain an alpaca herd, talk to a local rural fencing supplier.