Part One:  How I Fell in Love with Llamas
I fell in love with llamas in April of 2005, when I visited Southwest Llama Rescue in Silver City, New Mexico.  I blame it on F. E. Baxter (known to everyone in the llama rescue community as “Baxter”) – she’s the dedicated woman who runs the SWLR sanctuary where I got my first llama kiss.  On a warm April morning, after we’d spent a night at the SWLR llama lodge, I was greeted by a herd of llamas looking in the kitchen window.  Later, Baxter gave me and my husband a blue bucket full of carrots and let us into a paddock full of lovely female llamas.  We were soon surrounded by gentle, hesitant creatures with huge alien eyes, inquiring necks, and prehensile lips. My heart disappeared with the carrots.  

This visit to SWLR was planned; the rapid slide into llama infatuation was not. My husband, Paul, and I had just purchased a 5-acre horse property in Edgewood, New Mexico, and we were considering getting some kind of herd animals to reside in the empty stable.  Horses were the obvious answer, except that neither of us wanted horses: too much work, too expensive. So we talked about goats, pigs, burros, chickens… but nothing clicked until Paul said, “How about llamas?”  As a mountaineering guide who works every summer in Bolivia, Paul had spent a lot of time around llamas.  His Bolivian guides use them as pack animals for mountaineering expeditions, so Paul had herded llamas, walked with llamas, loaded and unloaded llamas.  “I think they’re pretty low maintenance, but we should look into it,” he said, wisely noncommittal.   

Hence our trip to Southwest Llama Rescue in Silver City. A fact-checking trip, we told Baxter.  We weren’t sure if we wanted llamas; we just wanted to find out what having llamas entailed, what we’d be getting into, and whether or not these were the animals for us. Yeah, right: within five minutes after that first llama encounter, I was entertaining a pastoral fantasy in which our own sunny pasture was inhabited by a small herd of fuzzy-lipped llamas greeting me at the gate every morning for carrots and kisses.  Kind of like My Friend Flicka, but with camelids.  Later, on the long drive home, my husband read my utterly transparent mind. “You want llamas, don’t you?” he said.  I gave him my most irresistible, hopeful smile and nodded.  He sighed.  “I should have known this would happen.”

Part Two: My New Llama Life
Okay, here’s the disclaimer:  If you want to believe that I float out to the pasture every morning with my


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coffee and a bucket of carrots, you can stop reading right now.  Heck, after my experience with Baxter’s herd at SWLR, I didn’t want to hear what I’m about to say.  I was a woman in love, dreaming of life with llamas and eagerly anticipating the arrival of my new friends.

And they did arrive, courtesy of Southwest Llama Rescue.  Soon after our visit to Silver City, we learned that SWLR had five yearling males in need of a permanent home; would we be interested in adopting them?  “In for a penny, in for a pound!” I told my husband cheerfully.  Being the indulgent type, he didn’t argue.  In June, longtime llama owners and dedicated llama rescuers Pat and ET Little showed up at our house with five rambunctious young males.

We had problems from day one.  Literally.  Within 24 hours of their arrival, we realized that one of the boys, Padrino, had developed a large lump on his cheek. It was an abscess, which meant that we were one day into llama ownership and had our first emergency.   Living in a horse area, we figured some of the local large animal vets might be willing to take a look at a llama.  Well, we learned that day that lots of vets who work on horses and cattle don’t work on camelids.  Fortunately, one of the local pet vets had some experience with llamas.  We were doubly lucky that he agreed to make a house call because we had no way to take a llama anywhere.  That day, we got a quick lesson in intramuscular injections, a bunch of needles and syringes, and some antibiotic solution.  Two injections a day, the vet said.  Keep it clean, rinse with saline and iodine.  Call me if it doesn’t clear up.   

Have you ever tried to give an skittish male yearling llama a shot?  It’s actually not that difficult, once you’ve done it a few times and when got the proper equipment to catch and restrain a llama.  Of course, I’d never given a shot in my life, and being totally unprepared for llama ownership, we had no catchpen and no restraining chute. To make matters worse, Paul was leaving for his summer guiding season and I’d be the solo llama mamma for the next two months.   Well, I thought, I guess I’ll just do the best I can.

Fortunately for me, Padrino turned out to be the ‘friendly’ llama, a little guy who followed me everywhere and who didn’t mind coming into the tack room with me, where I’d distract him with llama pellets, grab him by the neck, hold him, get the needle into his shoulder, then slap a warm compress onto his face.  It wasn’t graceful, but it got the job done, and Padrino’s abscess disappeared.

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