A handler demonstrates how to move burros, llamas, alpacas, and cattle across rough terrain without chasing them. The key is positioning yourself ahead of the herd, moving slowly, and using the landscape to guide them downhill into pens. The same low-stress techniques work across most livestock species.
Well, there's the burros. Now the problem is getting an approach to get them to come back down, which I ought to be able to do. We're going to have to head back down the hill and take a different route. Watching these burros from above them. You know, as I get closer to them, when they start moving, I'm just gonna stop. I'm not gonna give them any impression that I'm actually chasing them. I'm just gonna let them drift off, and they're gonna hopefully go right on back down the hill to where they came from. They're just walking off real easy. They're not in a hurry. Don't want to do anything to make them get in a hurry either. They get in a hurry on their own with me sitting here, that's no big deal. They're just, they're going the direction more or less I want them to go. Slowly heading down to where we want. It's a half mile away, but I haven't trotted my horse yet, haven't done anything like that. Just keep coming up where I wanna be at in position. Kinda heading the wrong way, but that's no big deal 'cause they're still heading downhill. And they stopped again. Just watching me. I'm gonna sit here and just let them walk off on their own. There they are. I have a hard time seeing in this screen, so I have to apologize for the cruddy cinematography. I mean, they're watching me pretty good. They're sensitive. They're not afraid. They're sensitive. I was right down in there with them the other day, and they were just fine with me being here. Just a day without being in them makes them revert back a little bit. That's why I'm going to be doing this every other day. Okay, I'm just going to take this little dab of alpacas in there with the longhorns that are going in and the burros. They've already made theirself— taken themselves into the pens. Now you'll hear people tell you all the time, well, my cow, you can't do this with my cows. These cattle are in this area, they're wild because it's too rough. They're wild because it's too brushy. They're wild because it's too open. There's always all sorts, and all it boils down to is your animals are going to react to what you are doing, and whatever they're doing, that's That's what you're asking them to do for the most part. As you can see here, we have llamas, alpacas, longhorns, and my burro buddies are right down there. Now I brought those burros in. From the other side of this hill. It's all real rough country. Managed to get around them, down off the side of that hill into this bottom, and they came right on around. And there's my little burrow buddies right there. They're actually kind of— I'm not gonna chase them or anything. I'm just gonna maybe block them up here once or twice. I got a gate open to this other pen up here. They're probably gonna wind up going in there. Hopefully I'm not gonna let them. There you go. There you go. Slow down. See how I'm not chasing them? I'm just kinda Holding them up here a little bit. I'm going to sit them, maybe turn them back up there, let them go through that. Just let them know that I'm not chasing them, I'm not chousing them. Not doing anything to her. That's all I've done all the way down this deal. I'm gonna go ahead and put them in that gate up there. And there's little burro buddies that you can't do anything with horseback. It's just impossible. They were penned last Tuesday and worked with a horse on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday before they were turned out. And I just brought them from these hills back up over here, down around that hill, and up this draw. These animals react to you. And if they go running off, if you don't put yourself in the right position, they're going to keep running. And that's what a person needs to learn to do is, is you have to know exactly when to stop, know your country good enough that you can come up where you think they're going to come out and be ahead of them to get them to turn back, and just take your time and be patient. They all react the same, whether it's burros, Llamas, horses, or cows, or sheep or goats.
