Brilliant news, Pluto has finally started to eat the hard feed!!! We had virtually given up trying to encourage him on the basis that he was weaned back in November and has been doing okay up to now (although we still really wanted him to have a little). Physically he is as tall as Mars although last time we felt him, he did feel a tad thinner and so a bit of hard feed should address that. We have no idea why he has now started. We have been giving the alpacas hard feed all winter and yet yesterday Pluto came over with the three older ones, just stuck his head in a feed bucket and began munching.
Jack did rather carefully point out (between clenched teeth) that this was the same feed she had tried putting in his mouth on several occasions and that he had always tried to spit out, but she just got that look, that 'alpaca' look that says 'I know what I like and thanks very much, but I’ll just do my own thing now...'!!
Mars continues to hang back, albeit a bit bemused as his brother tucks in with the older ones but we expect he will cotton on soon too. That may mean he stops taking milk from Venus which will be a good thing. He doesn't feed from her often now but he could actually stop altogether and so give Venus a break!! The two boys are very similar to look at and aside from Pluto's small brown spot on his left flank, often the only way we can tell them apart is by walking up to them, because the one who moves away first will be Mars (being shyer!).
We love having the alpacas, We had wondered a while back about only having three or four. We really never intended to have six but we feel we couldn’t split them up now and they are in fact, our easiest livestock to manage and so no real bother!