Breeding:

Why do you breed llamas? See the biggest reason, below.

You've got to love 'em!

    We have made every effort to produce the finest llamas available.  Our studs are the most intelligent and useable males we know. Our crias, especially after weaning, are the most friendly and trainable you will find. Our wish is to place our "kids" in the best homes, with the best care, and we feel that disposition is what will give them that lifetime of friendly duty.

We love llamas enough to want a lot of them around.  Especially the crias. Watching them run, play in our pastures is a heart warming experience.  An experience that once seen longs to be seen again.  

     Our goals in breeding are headed by function. Llamas must work well with humans readily. Their main purpose being, in our eyes, the pack animal. So first, we breed for the strong, willing, athletic and well conformed animal. Beyond that, we see that llamas can produce fine fleeces of useable fiber. We do shear our animals, and find that when heavy wool is in the bag, it leaves a pack animal there after all.

We use only controlled hand breeding methods as opposed to pasture breeding methods. We find that otherwise, too many negative results are possible. The most obvious of which being that the breeder does not know the correct length of gestation. Our studs are of the finest stock available, with an emphasis on correct construction and especially temperament.

Fiber: also see Marlice's fiber-arts pages.

    Llamas in general, have a dual fiber coat. The outer "guard-hair" is course, and may compose as much as 25% of the fiber. The undercoat is usually composed of very fine crimpy (very tight waves) fiber, sometimes called "alpaca". Most llamas, as the type described above, shed a lot of their undercoat each year, and require shearing every two, or even every three years. Some llamas don’t shed at all, and these usually have less guard hair, and more undercoat. These llamas are usually called "wooly" llamas. They may require shearing yearly.

      A lot is being said about fiber in the llama community these days. We think that fiber is a great by-product of owning llamas. Fiber alone is not a good reason to own a llama, however. It’s much easier to just buy the fiber. It is readily available at a reasonable price. Our breeding program requires straight, strong, athletic, willing, and intelligent animals. Then it's great if they have some fiber, and it's OK if they don't.

Beautiful normal llama lock structure of Touch the Earth Legado M (Touch the Earth Silver Lining x LW Tigress) See him at: Young Males

Today, the big bucks are going for the animals with the rope-lock, or pencil lock (suri alpaca) type fiber. The "suri" llama fiber animal is an unusual appearance in the llama world, and because of this, has become the FAD delight.

Touch the Earth Tambour's ropey locks are just what have brought the top prices at the auctions. As much as three times the money for the "suri" type. Interesting, because the fiber itself is very low in crimp, is more difficult to spin, and usually is blended with other fiber having more crimp to make it easier to spin and giving the yarn more loft. This crimpless fiber likes to make a lustrous fine yarn with no stretch, that is good for making flat, even shiny fabrics (woven), such as you might see used for slacks or a suit coat.

Here, Tambour has just won Reserve Grand Champion at the National Western Stock Show 2002.

Llama fiber can range from "next to your skin" soft, to quite rough and scratchy. It is all useful, however. The guard-hair can be mostly, and easily, removed from the sheared fleece. Giving you two raw materials, guard-hair and fluff. Both can be used to produce endless items. A few of our llamas have fiber as fine as the best alpaca (Huacaya), no guard-hair apparent at all, lots of crimp. They pick up all the debris in the field, not much grass here, to speak of. The animals with guard hair always look clean, but have the coarse element to their fleece, that needs to be removed to make a decent product.

All sheared-from-the-animal fleeces have to be judged on a per-animal basis, no matter what kind of animal it comes from. Hence, some llama fiber IS "alpaca".

 

 

Some Informative & Friendly Llama Llinks:

Usenet Newsgroup: alt.animals.llama http://groups.google.com/groups?q=group%3Aalt.animals.llama&btnG=Search&meta=site%3Dgroups

A free advertising/posting camelid service: http://www.llamas-alpacas.com/

Click & Reward training Website: http://members.aol.com/Snowridge1/index.click.html

Rocky Mountain Regional Breeder's Association: Rocky Mountain Llama & Alpaca Association: http://www.rmla.com

American Llama & Alpaca Show Association ALSA: http://www.llama.org/alsa/

An excellent all-around llama/alpaca reference site: http://www.llamapaedia.com/

Another excellent llama reference http://www.purdyvet.com/pracnut.html

Good Llama link to local ranches: http://www.thellamaranch.com/ranches.html