Meet the llamas and share our memories Part II

As mentioned in our last post; the birth of Arwin was revelatory: We were poorly prepared for the challenge of our llamas until this day. Mo was still intact, Mr Dwiggins was the resident guard gelding. Pulling little Arwin from under electric wires and placing her on more level ground was the right move from the human perspective; doing so in front of her father with Dwigs looking on; well, THAT was the hard moment.

In the photo above notice Mr Dwiggins just behind mama ZaMarrah. (as always, click on photo to enlarge, click your back button to return here) He is watching Mo sniff baby Arwin and quietly watching Za's reaction. A good guard, Dwigs is doing nothing at this point; just watching and letting things move along.

In truth, Mo was no threat to newborn Arwin. While some males can be, Mo was young and curious and had nothing but good intentions. Mo was actually licking his girl and humming in a loving llama voice; not that 'oh, my, goodness I'm scared" llama hum and certainly not any deep-throated "I'm about to kick butt" sort of threat.

Still, we had mama ZaMarrah to contend with -she had been terribly abused with her previous human.

Za came to us not only having been abused; she had only weeks before we took her in given birth to her first cria and had had that babe taken from her in a very violent way. While we knew this pregnancy would be important to her, this newborn meant more to her than we could have ever expected.

Although Mo was not threatening her, she did not trust him and alerted profoundly her panic and concern.

We do not have photos of the steps that came next but do remember it well. Mr Dwiggins came from behind ZaMarrah and challenged Mo. Obviously it was not a male domination challenge but a challenge none-the-less. Dwiggins made it clear that he was willing to fight to defend ZaMarrah and to his credit, Mo backed off and walked away.

We picked up the baby Arwin again and led Za to the shelter and -safely beyond Mo and/or Dwig's discord- left them to recover alone in the ewe's new shelter area (Notice the large llama feeder behind Za that was new then but will be abandoned soon after this).

Remember that we had been expecting and waiting for Du Soleil to give birth? This lovely but unexpected birth of Za's girl was a major distraction. We were terribly busy and quite over-the-moon with the lovely little Arwin.

Continuing to work as hard as we had to we soon found ourselves -once again- not paying any attention to time and the day came that a sudden ruckus from sheep and llamas at the ewes' shelter area brought our attention to another amazing moment.

Ah yes, Du Soleil was DUE; yikes! Just hours before I was to leave for son Justin's wedding we found ourselves running to the ewe's temporary run-in shelter and what did we see coming around the side of the building? Little Miss Stuff; born at the exact moment that my first husband's mother died -and was thus named in honor of the lovely woman- newborn Sylvia stumbled into view. Completely healthy, happy and surrounded in all the love that every newborn should be, Sylvia was still wet and driving mama Du Soleil crazy with her independence. Slightly older Arwin was already acting the big sister; a role she has maintained. (Notice our first and smaller enclosed shelter below is without the jugs that you will see in later photos)

Amazing that two such dunces as we should get through two llama births with no real issue at all. It was because of these two llama births however that a different sort of disaster raised its gnarly head.

Although we have no photos of the moment that daddy Mo showed up on the scene for Sylvia's birth, we have the end result that has played itself out for years since.

While not unusual, both ZaMarrah and Du Soleil did not trust Mo's presence and their reaction translated in both events in Dwiggin's trying to protect them. As is true with sheep, llamas move as herds or flocks and are accustomed to having intact males present at birth. Also true is the fact that unlike Shetland sheep who breed seasonally, llamas will willingly breed within weeks of having given birth. Most of the llama experts we spoke with said the hostility we witnessed was probably nothing more than a normal female llama wanting a moment away from the standard llama sire's re breeding behavior and a willing gelding's protection.

Bloody, angry and frightening to sheep and we humans alike, the battle resulted in Mo being immediately removed from the girls' field as were our intact rams -each of whom decided to join into the battle in their own odd way. The segregation of male and female that began that day has continued to this.

The male shelter shown in process below was built entirely because of the battles we saw with the llamas and stories we heard about rams and ewes homed together. Over 1000' from the ewe's pastures, this male only space is as much for the boys as for the girls and certainly for ourselves.

It should be noted that Mo has never accepted this separation and, although years have passed since his castration, he spends most of his days longingly staring over the fence at the ewes' and primary llamas' fields. We have tried re-introducing him to the primary fields, only to witness him terrifying Mr Dwiggins. Since Dwigs, of all the llamas, has always proven to be the outstanding guard in the ewe/lamb field, clearly Mo cannot live with the primary group and lives with the rams instead.

By the end of this winter, 2005, we had finished our boundary fencing, lanes and setup our rotational program. We knew that the small shelter for the ewes would never be sufficient and began purchasing supplies for the larger shelter to come over the summer of 2006.

Our little crias, shown above at two months old in the original front area of the shelter, are only three weeks apart yet quite substantially different in size. This size difference has continued to this day and is more due to the difference in their type than age. Although much debate rages about llama genetics, most breeders would say that Arwin (the white female) is a Classic llama and Sylvia (the brown and white) is a Bolivian llama. The difference between the girls will be much more obvious when they are seen grown and freshly shorn.

Given a reasonable amount of patience, size is rarely a detracting factor in life and nothing could have proven more to the point than the final major building event for our livestock. The large shelter began with the setting of posts and another round of willing work from our sparkling family.

September 2006 was a great month for the work; one moment warm enough for cement, the next cool enough for the torture of hauling rafters.

Alexis willingly pulled on the gear for framing and pitched in to help run the posts and beams for our future shelter (enlarge photo to view her OSHA approved sandals, lol). Over the course of a week all the posts for the new 56' x 64' shelter were set in cement.

Two weeks later the family met again to work a killer weekend in which all the remaining framing and roofing were completed. Son-in-law Jerry, always the willing slave to the hard work of farming, tested our framing by working the metal roofing. Christopher ran interference on the ground, single-handedly managing the 16' sheets of roofing.

Grandson Luke was still a little guy -just a bit over a year old- but always the willing worker, the bigger issue was not what could he do but rather what could mama Kirstin keep him from trying to do! Frustrated to the end, little Luke had to make do with sizing up the sheets of roofing as we marked them for cuts.

As another crazy day closes I'm off to bring in stock.
I promise to finish part III very soon.