Part Three:  What Made It Work?
Given how badly things were going that first summer, you might be wondering why I didn’t just throw in the towel, call SWLR, and surrender my animals.  Part of it is dogged stubbornness, but I also wanted to see where my llamas would take me. That day, as I sat on a bale of hay and wept in the tack room, I realized that I had a golden opportunity to pick myself up by my bootstraps and learn from my experience.  I was facing what my sister, a high school principal, refers to euphemistically as a ‘teachable moment,’ and my lesson was one of responsibility.  If my fantasy wasn’t working out because I hadn’t prepared appropriately, that was my fault, not the animals’ fault.  As a responsible owner, the onus was on me to seek the information and resources I needed make this situation work.

So I dried my tears and got on the Internet.  Baxter had pointed me to a couple of llama listservs, but I hadn’t paid much attention to them.  Now, I started pinging people with questions about llama behavior and training. I quickly discovered that most llama owners are happy to give advice and assistance to newbies like me.  Rather than cry alone in my tack room, I developed an email and phone list of people who can commiserate with my frustration and give me tips on how to handle a particular problem before it develops into a full-blown crisis. 

I also began educating myself about the nuances of llama psychology.  I joined Rocky Mountain Llama Association and took advantage of their library program, which loans videos on training and handling through the mail, and started learning about the quirks of herd animals.  I bought books, watched videos, and tried new techniques with my animals.  I was particularly interested in Jim and Amy Logan’s clicker training method.  Based on the well-established principles of operant conditioning, it’s a very gentle and highly effective way of desensitizing your animals so they get used to your presence and handling.

So I decided to try clicker training.  I ordered some clickers and dug out a couple of old Frisbees, which I’d drop on the ground in front of the llamas’ feet.  When one came near a Frisbee, I’d click my clicker and drop a treat in it. Lo and behold, it worked!  Pretty soon, I could hold a Frisbee in my hand and they’d lean in and touch it.  It wasn’t long before their llama noses were following me, my Frisbee, and my clicker all over the pasture. Soon we were into the training pens, where we did the touch-click-reward cycle hundreds of times.  I knew things were clicking (so to speak) when I saw that my smart boy Ramah had developed the very cute habit of standing at the pasture gate with the Frisbee in his mouth, staring at the house and waiting for me to come play the clicker game.   

Paul and I tackled some more basic infrastructure problems, too.  For one thing, we realized that “barn plus pasture does not equal llama home.”   We needed a lot more equipment:  mangers, storage areas, a well-designed catch pen and training area, and a sturdy restraining chute for medical treatments. Paul built a chute where we can restrain the animals for medical treatments, nail clipping, and shearing.  He got creative with the other stuff: when he isn’t out in the wilderness, he manages a ski area, where he gets lots and lots of old skis and snowboard parts from the rental fleets they retire.  These recycle into great building materials, so we’ve now got a hay storage platform, a fenced-off storage area with a nice gate, a halter rack, and couple of mangers, all made out of old skis and snowboard parts.

We also did the healthcare homework we should have done before we got our animals.  I called around and interviewed several vets over the phone, and chose a local vet, Jim Fallen, who has studied, works with, owns, and loves llamas.  When I brought our boys down to be gelded this summer, he taught me how to do a shot properly, helped with teeth and toenails, and let me stick around to do the shearing in his yard while the boys were recovering from their anesthetic.  Even though he’s 50 miles away, he gives excellent medical advice over the phone.  

Lastly, to my great relief, we can now move our llamas.  We invested $600 in a trailer hitch for our truck and, until we buy our own trailer, we have a deal with our very kind horse-owning neighbors: they lend us their spare stock trailer, and we dog sit for them when they’re out of town.  

Next

Part Four: Lessons Learned
So would I do it again, knowing what I know now?  Yes, I probably would – but we were darned naïve about what we were getting into, and way too impulsive about our decision. Here’s what I wish someone had told me before I dove headfirst into herd management:

BE REALISTIC.  If your experience with animals is limited to your average dog, cat, or bird, and you’re expecting llamas to provide a friendly introduction to the wonderful world of large animal care, think again.  Yes, they are easier than a lot of large herd animals: they have simple dietary needs, they’re remarkably hardy, and they always poop in the same place – nice for pasture cleanup.  But llamas aren’t maintenance free, and they have quirks that make them completely different from more domesticated companions.

TEACH YOURSELF. Join a regional llama association.  Get on the internet and lurk on llama listservs. Buy books – llama books are good; so are books about animal training in general.  Go to shows, meet with llama owners, visit their farms.  Decide which operations you like best and ask the owners if they’d be willing to mentor you.  Spend some time helping them out with their herd, maybe doing health management and some training.  They’ll appreciate the help, and you’ll get a much better sense of what you’re about to get into.

EQUIPMENT. Talk to other llama owners and ask them what their most important equipment and facilities are.  I can tell you mine: cattle panels, halters and leads, a flat-bottomed poop scoop, clickers and the Frisbee.  Invest in those things and get familiar with them before you try them out on your animals.  For example, when we bought our first set of nail nippers, we practiced on our dogs before we went near the llamas.  

MONEY.  Llamas are inexpensive, compared to horses and other large animals, but that doesn’t mean they’re free. Your animals will need feed, gear, vet care, medications, and dietary supplements, among other things.  For four animals, costs for our first year of llama ownership, including vet bills, adoption fees, consulting with trainers, feed, weed eradication for our pastures, medications, books, association fees, pet sitters, and basic equipment, was somewhere around eight thousand dollars – and that doesn’t include time off work to meet with vets and trainers. 

TIME. If your life is already full of work, family, travel, or other commitments, like mine still is, get ready for llamas to challenge your time management skills.  Be prepared to carve out an hour per, minimum, for training, feeding, poop removal, and general care. Not only does structured training and interaction time make for well-mannered, properly socialized animals, but hour or so you spend in the pasture every day will make you familiar with your animals’ habits and mannerisms so that you’ll be able to tell immediately if something is wrong. 

EMERGENCIES. As hardy as llamas are, they aren’t invincible.  Get a good first aid kit, build a restraining chute, and get your llamas accustomed to moving in and out of it. Since ours arrived a year ago, I’ve dealt with an abscessed cheek, a ripped ear, a sore ankle, a cut lip, three gelding surgeries, and a very acid stomach that required dosing with Tagamet and Vitamin B – in addition to the routine toenails, deworming, shots and shearing.  Your animals will need your help, probably sooner rather than later, and you have to be ready to give it to them.  

FIND A GREAT VET. Good llama vets are few and far between. Take the time to locate and screen possible vets and pick one you like.  Program his or her numbers into your phone.  Make sure you have a way of getting the animals to the vet, or getting the vet to your place.

Part Five: Epilogue
As I write this, the boys are wandering through our front yard, which is a 3-acre pasture filled with green grass, juniper trees, and rabbits.  This is their reward for good behavior during our hour of school, though it’s a reward for me, too.  Watching them look at their reflections in the windows, investigate the lawn furniture, bury their faces in the juniper branches, pull the petals off the sunflowers, and chase each other around the house is a delicious treat after a long day.   In fact, things are going so well that we’re about to take in a fifth llama, Coyote, a three-year old male who was recently rescued from a life of complete neglect at a horse farm.  He’s quite shy of people and is going to need a lot of desensitization before he’s handle-able. I think I’ll buy him his very own special Frisbee.