Living with Llamas

I cannot believe it has been a whole month since our llamas arrived! In March we became an official SELR adoptive home. In April, our local SELR coordinator notified us of three available llamas in our area. We went for a meet and greet. And the next week they were here!

It has been a smooth transition for them (and us). It's always a bit of a gamble when you add new critters to the farm but these guys just made themselves right at home.

Miss S. is a camera hound

For the first three days, they hummed. Humming is a sign of "llama worry." But after day four the humming was just occasional and by the end of the week, they stopped humming completely. None ever developed the "llama worry wrinkles" under their eyes really stressed llamas get.

Ms. C says "Worry? Why? Got food?"

The neighbor's horses who share a fence line worried a lot though. The first day they spent the better part the morning and afternoon running in tandem toward the common fence line, then making a right wheel and racing off toward their barn. Once they had ample distance, they would stop, snort loudly, and stamp their hooves. They did this consistently for about two days.

WHAT IS THAT!!!!!

RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!

Because you see, to a horse this is what a llama looks like:

But after day two, the neighbor's horses stopped running away in fear and by the end of the week, they were grazing within just feet of the llamas.

Our horses share a fence line with the llamas too but never seemed to bat anything other than a curious eye at them. I know my girls well enough to know "as long as they are up there and we are down here, we're cool with it." By fall however, I would like for everyone to graze together.

Mr. O keeping a watchful eye

Because these llamas are awesome guardian animals. They are alert, curious, and always aware of their surroundings. They are now familiar with our farm dogs and cats, but if any unfamiliar animal shows up in their pasture- they're on it! Except if it is raining. Then you can forget about it. Because llamas HATE rain!

Who me? I'm not going out there! There's water falling from the sky!