 I first fell in love with llamas in 1976, from a library book I was reading at the time. I remember it was a mystery but can't recall the title or name of the author. It took place in the Smokey Mountains of East Tennessee, the state of my birth. The description of the llama farm, the soft, quiet gentleness of the llamas and their ability to know when something was not right in their world made me a fan of llamas immediately. I started researching and found out right off the bat I couldn't afford one llama let alone a herd. At that time they were selling for $100,000.00 to $150,000.00!
Fast forward to 1983, we moved from Colorado back to the land of our birth. Owned and operated a couple of businesses, sold out and found this old farm in the country that had just gone up for sale. I fell in love with the old place and the land called to my soul. In the summer of 1995 my mother and dad were visiting and I happened to mention this old farm would be perfect for llamas. I had never mentioned to anyone my longing for llamas before. Do you know how sometimes things just fall into place? My Christmas present from mother and dad that year was a registered male llama! They brought him all the way from North Carolina to West Tennessee.
Needless to say the sight of that beautiful white llama brought the tears flowing. When I looked into his big beautiful black eyes it was love at first sight. As llamas are sociable animals we bought a goat to keep him company until we could find the right female. "Wally" and the goat were great pals, eating together, chasing each other, sleeping together. The goat "Emma" used Wally for a mountain. When he was in the cushed position Emma would stand on his back, he didn't seem to mind at all.
We finally found "Tereasa's Little Cutie", "Terry" for short, for Wally's mate. Oh how she could flirt! It was amazing how she acted like a teenager, which she was, being too young to breed yet. But she sure wanted to be bred! She would hold her head up so high, sashay over to "Wally" and cluck. Or prong around the pasture then sashay and cluck. It was so cute to watch.
My daughter and son-in-law soon brought two more females to our farm, now they were in the llama business too. Both were already bred and soon we had a little white surprise on the ground one Tuesday. "Smoke Hole Valley TiTi's Tuesday Surprise", which of course we shortened to "Tuesday". She was a bundle of joy and could get the rest of the llamas playing and pronging around the pasture.
Since I was raising and training Tuesday I decided I wanted to show her in a llama show. I trained with her everyday, taught her to halter, walk with me, stop, go backwards, climb steps and even brought her into the house. She was such a good llama and learned so fast, as most llamas do. Tuesday and I did very well in our first show ring. She won 4th place out of 14! Not bad for a first time.
We soon bought more females for Wally's harem and started having crias (baby llamas) by the pair. Llamas are induced ovulators and carry their babies for eleven and a half months so we bred for Spring or Fall crias, and always bred for a pair. It is so much fun watching two crias playing together, neck wrestling, biting each others ankles and running races. I have lot of stories to tell about the 30 llamas we ended up with.
What a joy they are to be around. Llamas make wonderful pets and give back so much love. They are so gentle and quiet except when they see another animal that shouldn't be in their pasture or around the house. They give an alarm call and watch until the other animal is gone, alarming quite often.
You will find llama people different. All we've known are very nice and gentle people who love animals, but llamas especially.
JB Moore
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