C. dromedarius, dromedary camel
C. Bactrianus, Bactrian camel
Genus — Lama, South American camelids
Species
L. glama, llama
L. pacos, alpaca
L. guanacoe, guanaco
Genus — Vicugna, South American camelid
Species
V. vicugna or L. Vicugna, vicuña
Suborder — Ruminantia, deer, cattle, antelope, sheep, goat, gazelle
There are photos of the four species on page one of this web site.
Birthing and dog questions
Q. We have an Australian Shepherd, which is a herding dog similar to a Border Collie. If this family dog was introduced to the llamas soon after their arrival on the farm, what could I expect in dog and llama behavior during a llama birth?
A. There are a couple of factors here. A lot depends on the dog itself and how it reacts to the llamas. Our son and daughter-in-law have a Border Collie/Australian Shepherd cross pup and she doesn’t seem to have a herding instinct but I am sure that she could be trained to it. The llamas don’t like strange dogs around so when she comes to visit they all give her a wary eye. The llamas are getting used to her now but at first, if she was following us through a field they would corner her and she would just cower by the fence. Now she is about a year old and she can outrun them. A couple of the llamas would try and stomp her though if they had a chance. One still tries to stomp the cat when he goes by, and he has been around for years.
It may take a while but the llamas get to know the dog or dogs that belong to the farm, but they never trust strange dogs. At night though I can walk through the herd of females with our own dog and pass within a couple of feet of the llamas, who are lying down, and they don’t even stir.
Q. For example, if the llama became isolated from the barn and the rest of the herd due to bad weather or something else , it seems to me the dog’s instinct would be to stay with the mother llama to help protect her during the delivery. So, if the dog did stay at her side, how do you think the mother llama would react, provided she already knew and trusted the dog? This is assuming that people are unable to locate the mother llama or reach her due to the same weather condition until after the birth is complete.
A. It is a big assumption that the dog would stay and protect her. It would have to a very special dog. Our dog would want to be inside the house during the bad weather!
If the weather here looks stormy with threatened rain or snow, and we have a female that is imminent we will keep her in a stall overnight. A little baby can get hypothermia and die if it is born outside in bad weather.
We keep accurate records of when the females are bred and how many days they have gone in previous pregnancies so that we can gauge if we want to keep them inside at night before they deliver. The weather is great here right now, but even last night mom and baby were in the stall as there is a lot of dew overnight. We had ground fog, which is pretty damp, and we don’t want the baby getting too cold.
Q. Would the mother llama allow the dog to clean the sack from the cria’s face at the point that the head and two front feet are out?
A. She would probably attack the dog. The mothers can get very protective about their babies. You have to remember that llamas are “prey” animals and dogs, coyotes, wolves, and cougars are enemies. The llama’s natural instinct is to flee and to protect its flank as that is where they are most vulnerable. A first-time mother would also be very confused when the cria is being born as opposed to a llama that has had a number of babies.
We trust our dog, but when one of the llamas is about to give birth, we shut the dog in the house. We don’t want to take any chances at all. There is no point in tempting the poor dog. We even clean up the bits of sack that we pull off the baby’s face and body so that the dog doesn’t get the taste of it. We don’t even bury the placenta as we don’t want the coyotes to get a taste of it.
Q.
Would she allow the dog to eat the placenta?
A. She couldn’t care less about the placenta, but I wouldn’t think it would be a good idea for the dog to get a taste for it. We always like to check the placenta to make sure that it is all there. Sometimes small bits get broken off as it is coming out and these can cause an infection in the female making re-breeding a problem.
Getting a taste of the placenta might tempt the dog too much when a llama is giving birth, causing it to go after the baby. A placenta, such as the one shown on the right, can weigh twelve or fourteen pounds.
Q. How would she react if the dog began to lick her cria clean after the birth? Favorably, or with anger and spitting?
A. She would probably slash at the dog with her front feet and possibly spit. She is not going to want anything near that baby, I watched a mom with a brand new cria yesterday afternoon with her ears back warning the rest of the llamas away and threatening to spit. There was even a little bit of “spit warning” which is just a dry spit of air. She didn’t want to spit as it tastes awful and she would have to air out her mouth for quite a while afterwards.
Llamas don’t lick their babies and she would probably take a dog licking it the wrong way thinking that the baby was in danger.
Q. I've heard that the mother llama will hum to the cria. Does she hum during labor and while giving birth, or only after the birth, and what does it sound like?
A. You are in luck. We have a Humm Page which has a variety of llama hums and sounds on it. The mothers will often hum to the babies for quite some time before they are born. Usually during the birth they don’t make much sound but might hum if someone was interfering. Some of them can get very grouchy before the birth. Yesterday’s mom would get quite annoyed at me lifting her tail to check in the past couple of weeks. We keep a pretty close eye on them in the weeks before the due date. This one was ten days early and we have had them twenty days or more ahead of the predicted date.
The crias hum to their mothers very soon after being born and the mothers have a variety of hums depending on what the cria is doing. There is a comforting hum when the cria is nearby and a worried hum if it strays too far.
Training commands
Q. I was wondering if you could help me out with commands to use during my training with my llamas. I am totally llama command illiterate! Does it really matter if I use standard commands that others llama owners use?
A. The actual words don’t make any difference at all, but I think that the tone of voice has a big effect. Most people use “stand” and “stay” in everyday training and something like “load up” for getting into a trailer.
You could make up words if you wanted to but the key would be to be consistent with the word and the tone. The llama couldn’t care less if you said “corn flakes” or “stand” as long as it was the same each time.
The most important thing is the timing of the command so that you don’t praise him with “good boy” while he is still moving around after you have said “stand”.
How much space do they need?
Q. I recently bought a 19-acre farm and was wondering about how much land one should have in order to have llamas. Also, what is the cost from purchasing through a year?
A. The standard answer is that an acre will support for llamas. We only have five acres and have over fifty llamas so we have to feed hay all year around.
Nineteen acres would certainly support a few llamas and if you were to hay a few acres of it you would have enough to feed them all year. A llama usually eats the equivalent of one flake of hay per day which is not very much compared to horses or cows. We also give our animals a little bit of dairy ration (grain) in the evening. They really don’t need it in the summer but this way we can pick up on any that might be off their feed. If they don’t come for grain, they usually are either sick or about to produce a baby.
I guess the answer to your question about the cost for through a year would be in your case, minimal. A bag of dairy ration costs about $5.00 so if you gave one llama a quarter to half a pound of feed a day, it would last for about three months.
If you had to feed them hay though, say at $4.00 per bale, one bale would last about a week. With 19 acres your costs would be the price of getting the hay baled and you can get people to do that by splitting the hay with them.
By the way, if you do get a couple of llamas and put them on your 19 acres, be sure to have some smaller pastures where you can keep them because once they get used to having all that space to run around in, you will have a tough time catching them. When we got our first two llamas we boarded them at a friend’s place on 20 acres. When we would go to work with them, sometimes we couldn’t even find them as they would be at the furthest point behind the trees.
Barbed wire and electric fences
Q. I have a thirty-acre pasture with two bred females and one gelding coming soon. Could I run a hotwire tape a couple of feet inside the barbed wire to be safe? I don’t want to spend thousands if I don’t have to.
A. Llamas learn pretty quickly to respect an electric fence so it should work. You probably wouldn’t have to though as the barbed wire fence should be adequate. Barbed wire is needed for species like cattle who will push on or try to get through a fence, whereas llamas usually respect a fence. As long as they have plenty of feed and water on their side of the fence they will not try to get through it. They may stick their necks through the strands to get the grass on the other side.
With three llamas on thirty acres they should have no need to worry about a fence. I would be tempted to see how they are without a hot wire. The thing is that llamas don’t need barbed wire to keep them in, but it will work. They may get a little wool pulled off by the barbs but that happens with wooden fences as well.
Q. When I take them to the country, I intend on keeping them in a fairly small corral for maybe three or four days, but then walking them around the perimeter of the thirty acres twice a day or so, and then releasing them the fourth day. Does this sound like a good plan?
A. It sounds like a really good plan. I would take it one step further though. I would give them a little grain (we use 14% dairy ration) whether they need it or not, each day while they are in the pen. Then after the fourth day put grain in there for them so that they learn that is where they get fed. Otherwise when they are loose on 30 acres you will never catch them. You might even want to do a bit of cross fencing at some point so that you have a smaller pasture that they feel content in.
They would also need some shelter so that could be incorporated into your pen.
What is their spit like?
Q. What does llama spit look like, feel like and smell like? Since it comes from the stomach I wonder if it is like human vomit. If not, is it thick like poorly mixed oatmeal, or sticky or lumpy or is it smooth like mustard. Do you see partially digested food in it? Does it smell as bad as a dozen skunks? How much force is in the projection? How much volume is spit?
A. Llama spit is a very over-rated problem that people often immediately associate with llamas. It is just chewed up grass. It is brought up when they chew their cud and it depends on how long it has been chewed and whether it is partly digested.
Usually spitting is to establish dominance in a herd and most often will occur over food. A llama may spit at another llama, indicating “Stay away, this is my feed bucket!” and in that case it is usually a mouthful of grain or whatever it may be eating at that time. In this case there is no smell, just a spray of dry grain.
Often they will use body language and threaten to spit, with their head up and ears back, as a warning. The next step is a "dry" spit which is just an exhalation of air.
If you want to see what the texture is, imagine if you put some grass in a blender for a few seconds, with a little bit of water. Throw a little bit on the wall and you would have a pretty good idea of what it looks like. If you would like to see what it looks like, have a look at our Barn Art page page. This a page that shows some of the paintings on the walls of our barns. Some of the paintings get covered with bits of spit eventually if they are near a feeder or near a ring where we tie the llamas when we are giving the oral worming medication. There is a link on the opening page to a “green spit” photo.
As far as the smell, it is hard to describe but it is nowhere near the smell of a skunk. The smell is not pleasant, but it is no big deal and it washes off easily. What does it smell like? Try our new
Scratch and Sniff page.
The llamas do not like to spit and use it only as a last resort as it must taste awful because after a couple have had a spitting match you will see them with their mouths hanging open for about an hour to air their mouths and get the taste out.
Ivana, in the photo on the left, had just chased a couple of the younger girls out of the shelter and had the two feeders all to herself until Socorra came along, spat at her and took over the feeders. Ivana has gotten splattered on the side of her face and is airing her mouth out as the hay won’t taste very good for a while now.
As far as volume, there is usually not a lot as they can only have so much in their mouth at a time. It will travel for five or six feet fairly accurately. It is usually wet enough to stick and you will often see a youngster with little green bits of spit spattered on its head and neck. In that case, they are teaching the youngster who is boss and that they don’t wish to be bugged.
We had one female who turned into a real spitter when she was being boarded on another farm. One day she was molting her fibre so I decided to brush her. She started spitting immediately so I took a small towel and tucked it into her halter so it hung down over her mouth. She spat for a solid hour and I just smiled and talked nicely to her as I brushed her. She was a bit miffed and the towel was pretty juicy and green as after a while the spit was mostly liquid. She is now with us on the farm here and doesn’t spit at all. A lot of it is getting them to trust you. She has no reason to spit as she is treated nicely.
She has been here a few years now and has not spit until she was shorn recently. We soon learned that she hadn’t forgotten how to spit! We have a couple of video clips of a llama spitting and a page with still pictures showing the stages of a llama spit.
Many years ago I bought a female at an auction and later when I went into the pen to see what I had bought she spat at me. I figured that she was just protecting the baby that was with her so I went to the washroom and wiped off my face and went back. She spat again. The seller came by then and said that he always carried a piece of plywood in the barn as a shield as she always spat. That was wonderful news.
We had her in quarantine for a couple of months and whenever we had to do something which was usually invasive such as drawing blood or doing ultrasounds she would spit profusely. It was very difficult to catch her as she would spit as soon as you got anywhere near her. She was awful and we called her Bitch Cassidy. Over the years though, she learned to trust us and one day she had a bad cut on her eyelid.
We called the vet and he gave her a shot of anesthetic in the eyelid and then sewed it up. Then he gave her a shot of antibiotics. You could hear the cud gurgling up and when he was finished she walked out of the barn and spat out the cud into the field.
We had to treat her every day for about three weeks and we would have to lift up the eyelid and squeeze some ointment under it. After the first couple of times she would be lying in the barn and wouldn’t even bother to get up and we didn’t even have to put a halter on her. She had turned into a real sweetheart.
In short, spitting is nothing to be concerned about.
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