How to Raise Llamas:  A Beginner’s Guide

WHY GET LLAMAS?

 

Why have any livestock if it’s not your profession? As a child my husband gathered eggs, churned butter, and was chased by bulls. As a father he made sure his children had horses and goats. I grew up on military bases where flowers were grudgingly permitted. I always dreamed of owning a few acres with chickens and some farm animals.

 

At 53 I finally got my acreage. The question became which livestock. I researched small animals (like pigs and chickens), mid-sized animals (like sheep and goats) and larger animals (like horses, Dexter cattle, alpacas, and llamas). I went to livestock auctions and asked questions of buyers and sellers. I subscribed to livestock magazines and read books on how to raise pheasants, guinea hens, and rabbits. I visited small goat farms in my area. I drew up charts comparing species by initial cost, healthcare needs, habitat, feed, lifespan, uses, etc. After doing all the homework, I went and got llamas anyway… because I liked them.

 

Since then, our llamas have cost us thousands of hours and most of our discretionary income. Yet we haven’t regretted them for more than a minute.

ARE LLAMAS LOW MAINTENANCE?

 

My sources said llamas are inexpensive and easy to care for. My sources lied. True, horses eat two to four times what llamas do—you need 5 acres per horse unless you want to get a second job to support their hay addiction. Horses also need grooming, shoeing, training, and frequent veterinary attendance.

 

So do llamas. Llamas need careful brushing unless you’re going to discard their hair, which by the way needs shorn once a year—a job you don’t want to do yourself and will therefore pay $25+ per llama to have done in the conventional manner or $50+ to have done humanely; that is, without staking and trussing. Many llamas need their fighting teeth pulled when several years old. Their nails need trimmed 2 to 4 times per year, depending on the llama. Have you ever tried to cut a llama’s nails singlehandedly? I get one nail done, maybe two, before the llama’s done for the day. It’s not worth the damage to my ego, so I hire a vet to come do all our llamas at one swoop. This costs about $125, or $375 per year.

 

Some owners claim you can put 5 to 7 llamas on an acre. My experience is otherwise. Two or three llamas per acre is more realistic. Not only will they eat down smaller pastures (slower than a horse but just as thoroughly), but they need room to run. They’re llamas—they gotta pronk.

Bandit, father (very probably) of all three

of our crias

WHAT DO LLAMAS EAT?

 

Happily, most of the experts I’ve consulted agree on this:  10% to 20% protein (meaning alfalfa, oats, or legumes) and 80% grass. Pregnant or nursing dams need 30% to 50% protein.

 

In spring and summer, my llamas don’t really require hay as they browse sufficiently. In winter, each llama needs at least a flake (a 6” slice off an 80-pound bale) per day.

 

In most parts of the country you must provide a salt and mineral supplement. Some owners say their animals use salt blocks. Mine use salt licks like they use small dogs— as footballs— so I have to buy a mineral powder from www.stillwaterminerals.com and sprinkle it over their feed. In spring and summer when they’re grazing, I get salt and minerals into

them by feeding treats laced with supplement.

 

Everyone I’ve talked to says prepared pellet food works fine. This winter I’ve fed them pellets at the rate of 1 pound (about 2 cups) per llama per day. I sprinkle the pellets over 1/2 bale of hay in their feed trough. My llamas now prefer pellets to alfalfa. Pellets are comparable in cost to hay unless you grow your own.

 

Llamas are browsers and will experiment with just about everything. I’ve seen them eat wood shavings of the right flavor. They can be acclimated to small pieces of carrots, apples, potatoes (or peelings), even cucumbers and broccoli. They would love to be let loose in your vegetable garden. Mine tend to avoid foods bad for them such as foxglove, ferns, buttercups, cedar, and most ornamental plants, but it’s probably wise to separate them from such hazards.

Libby Lu looking

nonchalant. Note

worn patch

on her nose.

HOW DO YOU TRIM A LLAMA’S NAILS?

 

You don’t.

 

Just kidding.

 

No, I’m serious. You call a vet or experienced farrier.

 

If you insist on doing it yourself, first you build a grooming cage (look up various designs on the web. The simple V-shaped one urged by one catalog does not work). Then you catch a llama using your favorite method. Next you strap her in the cage with a bucket of oats hanging before her. The oats will attract other llamas who will whimper and mourn, distressing her. Finally, you say “Foot, please” and the llama kicks you.

 

If you persist and are lucky, the llama will get tired of kicking you, eventually bend her knee tentatively, and allow you to slowly but firmly rest her leg on your bent leg, take hold of her foot, and clip a hoof or two. There are only 2 nails per foot, thank heaven.

 

UPDATE:  The recession has struck and I am having to learn to trim nails myself. Our two females are cooperative and usually I can do one or two feet on Yana and Jack-Jack by tethering them at head and around the belly to a heavy cattle gate. Bandit, Morty and Muqiyta are too strong; I need someone to hold their legs still.

Facts of Life with Llamas

(This is one person’s experience… proceed with judgment)

Yana (Quechua for “Blackie”) was our second cria. Because of his dark eyes and face, our camera couldn’t seem to capture a good image of him,

so I wrote this poem. It’s in tanka, or extended haiku, form.

 

                      SNAPSHOTS OF YANA

                               Born June 25, 2007

 

So soon after birth

he smiles through downy lashes

and soft llama eyes.

 

Small black form, chest out,

ears up in the evening light,

taking in his world.

 

He learns his lessons

mimicking the others’ moves—

wisdom from the womb.

 

He kicks up his heels,

runs breakneck across the field,

joyous at the day.

 

Kushing, suddenly

he leaps behind his mother—

big truck bellows by.

He pronks! straight up! too

young! to pronk! and yet! he pronks!

a phenomenon—

 

Nips his brother’s rump

then hides behind his mother—

already a rogue!

 

Peers up at Bandit,

lord of the field, who bends and

touches Yana’s nose.

 

He joins the courtly

llama march, filing singly,

kingly, to the barn.

 

Legs like a giraffe’s—

neck that sprouts an inch a day—

too soon he’ll be grown.

 

 

 

Yana doing his blue mule

impersonation

Llama facts, Beginners guide to llamas, the llama, raising llamas, why have llamas, guard llama, llama information, llama breeding, what do you do with llamas, cria, caring for llamas, which livestock, do llamas spit, what do llamas eat, how to catch a llama, trimming llama nails, how much do llamas cost, can I get just one llama, llama poetry, llama myths

WHY GET LLAMAS?

ARE LLAMAS LOW MAINTENANCE?

WHAT DO LLAMAS COST COMPARED TO ALPACAS?

SHOULD I GET MORE THAN ONE LLAMA?

WHAT DO YOU DO WITH LLAMAS?

WON’T LLAMAS SPIT AT ME?

WHAT DO LLAMAS EAT?

HOW DO I HARNESS MY LLAMA?

HOW DO I TRIM A LLAMA’S NAILS?

SNAPSHOTS OF YANA

MYTHS ABOUT LLAMAS

© 2011— by Rebecca Bartholomew / Uintah Springs Press.

Last updated 6/5/2011

HOW MUCH DO LLAMAS COST AND CAN I GET JUST ONE?

 

In hard times, you see llamas offered for free in the want ads. It takes a good deal of knowhow and capital to make llama ranching a paying proposition (I wonder if anyone really does). Llamas live 20 years or so, sometimes outlasting their owners. Moreover, the llama temperament is not for everyone and casual owners can burn out. I wish I had started with older, more sedate animals of the kind you can sometimes acquire for next to nothing.

 

On the other hand, learning along with our adolescents has been a priceless adventure. Just-weaned males with a pedigree start at $300 and run to $1,500, depending on type of fiber (traditional, suri, and now you hear of silkies). Females cost about twice that. Thus acquiring llamas is affordable compared to alpacas. The real cost is in preparing their habitat:  pasture, fence, water, shelter.

 

Please don’t get just one. Llamas are exquisitely sensitive and pack oriented. Even the studs want to chill with the herd. But then getting one of any animal is unkind unless you are in a position to make yourself its family.

Muqiyta

being silly

WHAT DO YOU DO WITH LLAMAS?

You love them, of course. You can use their fiber for spinning, weaving, and felting; teach them to pull a cart; breed them and sell the crias; go mountain packing (a main reason they were domesticated); use them as guard dogs; or put them out to pasture and watch them pronk in the evening light. Some ranchers even eat llama meat as is done in Peru. With my husband disabled and no grandchildren nearby, I’ve pretty much chosen to keep my animals as big, expensive pets.

 

Yet our llama pets mow and fertilize our front yard, clear our pasture, keep our neighbor’s acreage free of brambles, and exercise our dog. Another neighbor brings his backhoe and harvests their manure for his compost heap. “Llama beans” are unusually rich in nitrogen and age quicker than cow droppings. I’ve even found you can use fresh llama beans as fertilizer if you apply them sparingly.

 

If the recession gets much worse, we may have to butcher one or two of our herd, which seems to me kinder than adopting them out. (Llamas take at least 6 months to fully adapt to a new home.) In the meantime, if they feel like it they run to me when they see me coming. A couple of them let me massage their necks. I keep intending to wash and card their fiber and felt it into floor mats but so far haven’t gotten around to it. I’m too busy repairing fences, mucking the barn, and trading labor for hay.

 

 

 

 

Yana communing with Santa Claus

HOW TO CATCH A LLAMA

 

Our breeder, a local doctor, hired ranch hands to work daily with his herd of 20-plus. Thus our yearlings came already accustomed to “Stand, please” and “Foot, please” while they were harnessed, groomed, or clipped. They had also been trained to walk into a horse trailer although only Libby Lu did it happily. Unwisely, I did not receive parallel acculturation. I’d had no experience with large animals and didn’t seek startup training— a big mistake. So our adoptees turned wild and lived wild in our pasture 2 months before I caught them all and removed their harnesses. By that time Libby Lu’s harness had worn a permanent bald spot on her nose.

 

 

Here are strategies I tried while figuring out how to catch and halter my llamas:

 

 

¨ Waved long wands to guide them into the barn.

¨ Enlisted visiting sons, friends, and neighbors to chase them around the pasture until cornered, grab one or another, and hold onto it for dear life while somebody put a harness on its snout.

¨ Used same poor souls to help me corral llamas using a long roll of flexible orange plastic snow fencing.

¨ Made a funnel-shaped corral out of wire fence fabric, guiding llamas into the mouth of said funnel and trapping them one at a time in the narrow end.

 

None of these techniques worked except to give us exercise. Finally I hit upon a method that worked and continues to work, ‘though it is never effortless:  I taught my llamas to love me.

 

In other words, I bribed them with treats. They now consider me Mrs. Santa Claus, giver of all good things.

 

The trouble is llamas, while browsers, are cautious eaters and quite individualistic in their tastes. Which means taking a few days to offer a treat free choice until some develop a taste for it and will come to the barn when they see it brought in its familiar container. Of all the treats offered them, molasses rolled oats is my llamas’ favorite [update: they now prefer pressed alfalfa pellets to rolled oats]. The females especially love oats, and if they come to the barn the males will follow.

 

Another thing they love is alfalfa. We have a daily ritual in which I line the bottom of their trough with several flakes of grass (seven if it’s winter time—one per llama), and sprinkle all this with their pellets plus a daily dose of salts and minerals (adding dewormer if needed). This gets everyone in the barn and I can grab and work with any animal I wish.

 

           Two years after adopting llamas, I came across some videos on how to catch and train them. Mine is a perfectly good method, but another, quicker one is to install a small (10 foot by 10 foot) corral within the corral. Lure all the llamas into the larger paddock, then use wands to guide a single llama into the smaller pen. It’s relatively easy to catch a llama in a confined area. Bobra Goldsmith, John Mallon, and Marty McGee have made some good videos on training techniques.

 

Sample life in Idaho’s

 

Snake River country 

                       here→

 

 

 

 

Our matriarch Libby Lu. We’ve turned most of our front yard into a pasture, which accomplishes several purposes:  the llamas mow and fertilize it for us, it gives them a better vantage of stray pitbulls, and our neighbors get to see more of their shenanigans.

MYTHS ABOUT LLAMAS

 

 

Llamas don’t need much water.  Maybe not compared to most livestock, but they require a constant, clean supply.

 

Llamas are perfect guard animals.  At a year old, our llamas (numbering four at the time) were attacked by a pack of roving dogs. (The county dogcatcher claimed it was coyote orphans, but we and our farmer-neighbors didn’t believe him.)  A single llama is poor protection against wild dogs or a lone cougar or bear. Our herd no doubt did damage to the attackers, but Xilonen’s hindquarters were so badly ripped we almost put her down, and several other llamas needed stitches.

 

Llamas are standoffish.  The jury’s still out on this one. It’s true most llamas, if you go to pet them, will back away. But if you move slowly and surreptitiously, the same llama will sneak up on you, sniff your hair and face, maybe even kiss you and carry off your hat. They are gentle as well as shy. I tamed my llamas by lying on a blanket in their pasture and letting them check me out at will. They never stepped on me or threatened me in any way.

 

Llamas can’t be trained.  Smarter owners than I train their llamas all the time:  to pack, to cart, to walk obstacle courses, to stand for grooming, trimming and vet care, to ride in the back of a van or pickup, whatever. It helps to work with them while they’re young. Training takes time, constancy… and remembering the way to a llama’s heart is through the feed trough.

 

 

 

 

 

Five of our seven posing

in banana ear mode