Llama, llama, duck.

[oloriel]

We've got llamas in our backyard.

No, seriously! We've now got llamas in our backyard. The lady to whom we've let the horse paddock because we don't have a use for it, is now using it for her llamas. Her horses grew too fat on the lush green grass of our horse paddock, so they're not allowed to go their on their own. The obvious solution to this problem is, apparently, llamas.

This doesn't actually come as the surprise I'm pretending it is, because she asked us in advance. It's a ten-year lease, of which 7 years are over next Easter, and in order to put llamas on the paddock, she had to renew the entire fence. Horses you can keep in check with some sticks and a bit of wire (well, more or less), but you need something more substantial for llamas. The sort of fence you need for llamas costs quite a bit of money, which she wasn't going to invest if we planned on not renewing her lease in three years' time. (We were sort of planning to maybe use the paddock ourselves, but she and her husband - a plumber - are not only really pleasant people, but also saved our butts repeatedly when we had problems with our heating in the past, up to and including welding a broken pipe shut on an outside wall, five meters up on a ladder, in the middle of a blizzard. On a Sunday. So we really want to keep them.) I've been sort of dreaming out loud about Mangalica pigs, but we currently don't have the resources to think about that. So we OK'd the llama fence. Actually, we were looking forward to the substantial fence, because hikers keep using the paddock for shortcuts. Our tenants from hell even deactivated the old electric fence - while the horses were in the paddock! - in order to drag building materials for their illegal hut into the forest, rather than carring it around. They're gone, but it's still satisfying to see a fence where that sort of shit won't be possible anymore. Good fences... etc.

The llamas are very good-natured, which llamas apparently tend to be, and these four are especially good-natured because they're trained as therapy llamas. Their workplace went bankrupt and horse paddock lady, who runs a sort of private shelter and pet hotel, took them in. And now they're living, more or less, in our backyard.





It's absurdly funny how happy Jörg is about them. I mean, everybody seems to love llamas, but he's over the moon. Seems to run in the family. When his American cousin was visiting us back when we'd just bought the house, he said that if he had a paddock like that, he'd keep llamas. Felix also finds them really interesting and wants to visit them three times a day. Of course, this may have to do with the fact that I often say "Let's not have a drama, my little llama" when he threatens to throw a tantrum.

It's also hilarious to watch passers-by. The first one we saw was the lady who lives down in the mill. She came driving down the hill and hit the brakes when she saw the llamas, stopping with her tires squealing, just to make sure she'd seen correctly. All horses are completely confused so all riders are forced to stop by the fence until the horses have wrapped their mind around the llamas' presence. "Alien animal on paddock. Danger? Enemy? Not sure. Deer? Goat? Horse? Friend? Not hostile. OK. Moving on." Hikers, bikers, people who walk their dogs, everybody is puzzled first, and then delighted. Llamas! The most awesome thing ever! Here!

Apparently, you can shear llamas and use their wool, just like with alpakas. (Actually one of the llamas might be an alpaka. Not that I know anything about llamas, or alpakas for that matter.) I wonder whether I'll get a chance to try that next summer?

Comments

[silver-trails.livejournal.com]

The ones in the pic are all llamas, I think. They come from my country. Alpacas are smaller and with fine wool. Let me see, llamas are taller, can only carry 30 kilos, and spit if you bother them. They are good natured, though. So are alpacas. :)

Oh, you can eat llama meat, but it's mostly dried with salt in the highlands. It's called charqui. I have never eaten it. What I didn't know until I went to Cusco was that alpaca meat is very good. :)

Alpaca: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_lD4MtV3wyjA/TLCevkMQM2I/AAAAAAAAA4A/NG0ZyR6rRZE/s1600/zodiac+alpaca+dante.jpg

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Hah! Connected by llamas! You get wild ones, I get tame ones. (You win. ;))

Yes, the white one is smaller than the others. But of course I have no clue whether it's just younger, or a different sex, or a different breed, or whatever! But its hair is, as you can see, nowhere as floofy and long as in that picture! Though maybe it's been shorn in summer and the coat hasn't yet grown back. Observe my complete cluelessness.

I would expect their meat to taste sort of like goat. I know they're technically camels, but I've never eaten camel, so I wouldn't know what those taste like! ;)

[silver-trails.livejournal.com]

I've never eaten goat or camel, just alpaca and it weas very good.

Llamas and Alpacas were tamed long ago by the native people from my country. They go free in the andes, but they are tame. I don't live in the andes, but I have seen a few in the zoo here, and in a few places. The wild one is the Vicuña, with the finest wool:

http://www.taylorllamas.com/vGCface1.jpg

They are taken care of by peasants and only captured to shear their wool and then left free. There is another kind of these animals that lives south from Peru and even in northern Argentina, the Guanaco:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/Guanacos,_Parque_Nacional_Torres_del_Paine,_Chile3.jpg

Bigger tan a llama and still wild, I think.

So now you have all the info. :)

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Awwww, the vicuña are so pretty, and they look so alert!

Thank you!

[silver-trails.livejournal.com]

They are very pretty! Big eyes! =)