Audrey Llama, this year's beautiful young female cria, is an absolute delight. She is friendly and loves hugs and rubs. She still chortles, a sound that the babies make, which sounds like bubbling humming at the same time. When she sees me, she tends to come over for a snuggle and a chat. Her mother, Lucy, to the right of her, has regained her health, after a long fight with mineral deficiency, worms and mites over the winter. Karin, with her butt to the camera, is a friendly girl too, and the under dog of the trio. Lucy is the boss and when they are feeding, sends Karin away. Llamas like to have their own places to feed and do not like to share. Whereas sheep will tend to stick their heads into a bale of hay and crowd one another, llamas want to be separate, as you can see by the way they are feeding in the picture. Even the baby will now feed away from her mother.
Llamas can be raised with sheep, but do not avail themselves of minerals as much as they should. I have begun to add a little salt and some dried molasses to the mineral mix for the llamas. I need to make some feed baskets that are high enough so the sheep cannot reach them so the llamas are happy. Right now, they will wait until the sheep are done eating before they feed, but by then, the tasty morsels are all but gone. Llamas can do well on poor forage, as long as it has a variety of weeds and leaves and not just grass, which is not their first choice, being browsers, like deer.
They have been a wonderful addition to the farm. I would recommend llamas for anyone looking to add a quiet, pretty animal. Their fibre can be shorn and spun or felted too, so they do provide some value and llama meat, though a bit bland, is very fine eating, not that I am eating my girls. Llamas breed once a year because gestation is nearly a year. The females do not go into heat, but rather the act of breeding stimulates ovulation. Once bred they will fight a male off. There is no longer a male on the farm, but they can interbreed with Alpacas, and there are two males here. They are kept a long distance from the llamas in the hopes that they do not jump the fence and breed my girls. The resulting animal is a hurarizio, a small version with a cute face, but they are frowned on by alpaca and llama breeders, both.
Llamas can be raised with sheep, but do not avail themselves of minerals as much as they should. I have begun to add a little salt and some dried molasses to the mineral mix for the llamas. I need to make some feed baskets that are high enough so the sheep cannot reach them so the llamas are happy. Right now, they will wait until the sheep are done eating before they feed, but by then, the tasty morsels are all but gone. Llamas can do well on poor forage, as long as it has a variety of weeds and leaves and not just grass, which is not their first choice, being browsers, like deer.
They have been a wonderful addition to the farm. I would recommend llamas for anyone looking to add a quiet, pretty animal. Their fibre can be shorn and spun or felted too, so they do provide some value and llama meat, though a bit bland, is very fine eating, not that I am eating my girls. Llamas breed once a year because gestation is nearly a year. The females do not go into heat, but rather the act of breeding stimulates ovulation. Once bred they will fight a male off. There is no longer a male on the farm, but they can interbreed with Alpacas, and there are two males here. They are kept a long distance from the llamas in the hopes that they do not jump the fence and breed my girls. The resulting animal is a hurarizio, a small version with a cute face, but they are frowned on by alpaca and llama breeders, both.
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