First Ardnamurchan-Born Llama

From Les Humphreys:

Pictured is a newborn female cria (llama calf), 36 hours old. We believe this to be the first baby llama born in Ardnamurchan.  Gestation is 355 days or more with a single cria born during daylight hours, twins being very rare. We know of only one set of twins successfully reared.

Here is the calf with her mother, Heather. Our two llamas are five year old Flora, a "Ccara" with a short to medium length coat, and three year old Heather, a "Tampuli ", which is more heavily woolled, with a coat extending down the legs.  Their fibre consists of a double fleece - an outer guard hair and a fine soft undercoat. The undercoat can be used to make wonderful garments, while the guard hairs can be used for making bags and rugs etc.  The fleece comes in many natural colours from white to black with a range browns and greys in between.

Llamas are members of the South American camelid family and were domesticated from the Guanaco some 5000 years ago.  Camelids include Camels, Llamas, Alpaca, Guanaco and the Vicuna. They all evolved in North America 50 - 60 million years ago. Around 10,000 years ago the camel family line crossed over to Asia while the remaining camelid family moved down to South America. The Inca empire was dependent upon the llama and alpaca for food, fuel, clothing, transport of goods and religious ceremonies. All lamoids were the property of the government and production of domestic species was rigidly controlled. The fibre from vicunas was for royal usage only.

Do llamas spit?  They are able to spit and do sometimes use this as a pecking order or defence mechanism within the herd. It is rare however for a correctly reared llama to spit at humans unless frightened or placed under great stress.

Many thanks to Les for the story and top two photos, and to Sue Cameron for the third photo.