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| Report from them that's doing: Cindy Witt, the LLama MMama, writes from Camp Koinonia, Highland Lake, NY, USA I have always been an animal lover, sometimes preferring their company to humans!! I grew up with lots of cats and dogs. When I came to Koinonia in 1993, I offered the job of farm manager. At that time Koinonia had a few sheep, goats, rabbits and a pig. I had never cared for any of these animals, so I learned all I could about those species and found that I enjoyed these animals too. In the spring of 1998, we were offered a pair of llamas. There was a lady that lived near-by who had raised llamas with her husband. He had died a few years before and she decided that she couldn’t care for so many llamas by herself and was looking to sell some or find a few good homes for others. She found out about Koinonia from a friend and offered to give us a pair. I went to meet her and her llamas and was immediately attracted to them! They’re beautiful and unique animals and I thought guests at camp would enjoy meeting them too! She picked out a pair that she thought would do well in our camp setting and brought them over a few weeks later. Their names are Cherokee (brown & 4 years old) and Lakota (white and 8 years old). They were extremely nervous for the first few weeks, but gradually calmed down. Our other farm animals were very curious about their new companions too! The sheep and goats were also used to our routines around the farm and would go in and out of the barn without much trouble, but I knew that the llamas would need time to learn the routines. I got them some lead ropes and first let them learn to be lead around. Next was to learn how to be lead into the corral, run free in there for the day, and allowus to lead them back into the barn for the night. This took a little longer, but eventuallythey got the hang of it. They did escape from the corral a couple of times. The first timewe believe a guest opened the corral gate on purpose and the llamas ran out. It happenedright before I got to the farm for evening chores and I saw them just coming out of thecorral. I got the lead ropes and went after them. Near the farm is a retreat building calledthe Trailbuilding. A High School football team had been there all week for some pre-seasontraining and I asked some of the guys to help me round up the llamas-but theywere afraid of them! So I kept going after the llamas, looking for others to help me catchthem. There were some friends of camp here also for a weekend of pottery making andfiring and they ran over to help me turn the llamas back towards the farm. We spread outbehind them and kept them going back in the right direction. Then the football playersdecided they could help, so we circled around the llamas and I tried to get close enoughto them to put the lead ropes on. I was successful and led them back to the barn. Thesecond escape happened a few months later. Another staff person named Aaron wasdoing chores. As he was leading the llamas out into the corral, something spooked themand Lakota got away from Aaron. He ran to the Trailbuilding and called me. I camedown to the farm, but we couldn’t find her. We started looking near the farm and backdown the dirt road in camp, but didn’t see her. So Aaron took a camp vehicle and drovethrough camp to the back entrance and back around. Meanwhile I walked down the roadto the main entrance of camp looking for Lakota.I got to the road, looked both ways,and saw her running down the road outside of camp! I ran towards her. Aaron had made it through camp and was headed back to the main entrance from the other direction, sowe had her between us on the road. I finally was able to grab the lead rope, which wasstill attached to her halter. Then I was able to lead her back to camp! I was grateful that there was no traffic on the road as we were trying to catch her!Now we’ve had the llamas for two years and I have learned much! If they had been bornand raised here, they would have learned to be used to more people around them andpeople touching them. But they have adapted well, especially Cherokee. When he is onthe lead rope, he will let people pet him on the neck and will sniff them in the face (llama greeting!) I am hoping to train him to carry packs so we can take him with us onhikes around camp. Both llamas were also sheared for the first time this year. That didn’t go to smoothly…they did not like it! We hired a man to do it for us. He hassheared our sheep before and said one time that he has sheared llamas too. We tied themup for him, but next time we need to immobilize them better. They kept kicking out withtheir legs and wouldn’t stand still! But now we have lots of beautiful, soft wool fromthem. I am in the process of learning to spin on a spinning wheel and hope to createsomething from all that wool (both sheep and llama)! I have greatly enjoyed learning about llamas and having the chance to care for them! |
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