Llamas

Our farm is now home to two beautiful llamas! Grace and Cinderella are foster llamas through Southeast Llama Rescue. We don’t know much about their history or why they entered the rescue program, but they are beautiful girls and so far are sweet, curious and calm. John and Cordelia, the adoption coordinators for Kentucky, delivered the girls today and gave me a basic lesson on llama care. They will be staying in the barn for a few days while we get to know them before being released into the pasture with the sheep.

Currently we are only fostering Grace and Cindy and they are still available for adoption. We may decide to adopt one or both of them but by starting out as foster parents we’ll have the opportunity to get to know them and see how they interact with the flock before committing to keeping them forever.

Cinderella (Cindy)

Dark brown, aprox 250 lb- Born May 2006, 6 years old

Previous foster owner described her as “trained to word commands- Foot, Halter On, Halter Off, Walk, Step, Back, Whoa. Doesn’t like chutes. Leads well”

So far Cindy seems very shy. Our goal with her will be to get her to trust people more. She is a kicker and very sensitive to being touched on her back half – even lightly touching her back leg or hip causes her to kick out fiercely. Once she is more comfortable with us we will work on desensitizing her to being touched by handling and grooming her frequently.

Grace

Suri fiber type, Fawn, aprox 225lb but she should be about 300lb, born 2004 (we think), 8 years old

Previous foster owner described her as ” very smart! (too smart?) To halter/catch: corner her, go slow and talk quiet. she is very curious and loves her food! Is often the lead llama. Knows she can kush (lay down) to end her walk and will be difficult to get up, again- she is very smart!”

Grace is confident for a llama and very food oriented which makes her easier to handle than Cindy. Our primary goal with Grace is to put some weight on her– she is way too skinny right now! We’ve been warned that she has a bit of an attitude so we’ll be keeping an eye on that and making sure she doesn’t develop any bad behavior.

The girls had a busy day today and were understandably a bit wary when we first got them unloaded. They are starting to settle in, though, and are already nibbling treats out of our hands. Grace clearly prefers to eat out of a feed scoop or bucket but you can trick her into eating from your hand be quickly putting your hand in front of the scoop while she is focused on inhaling her food. Its hard to tell if Cindy is too scared to come up to us for long enough to eat much or simply isn’t as food motivated as Grace. Cindy has nibbled a few treats out of my hand but is easily startled away. Tomorrow if it isn’t raining we are going to put their halters back on and take them for a walk around the pasture to let them begin to get acquainted with their new home and meet the flock. We will probably keep them locked in the barn for a few days, though, until we have their trust enough to be able to catch them again once we release them!