A right old ding dong!

Over the weekend we moved our llamas around.

Firstly though, it is over a month since my last blog and that is just not good enough, other work commitments seem to have taken over to the extent that blogging was very low down the list of priorities, and so my apologies, those commitments seem to be behind me now, so time to start blogging again in earnest.

Our llamas are normally in 3 groups, the girls, the mums & babies and the boys.

Once the babies become teenagers (well around a year old in llama years) it is time to start integrating them with the older llamas. Last year we had two cria (name for baby llamas), a boy and a girl and we deal with each a little differently.

Mum Tallara and her daughter Guinevere were the easiest pair as they went straight out to join the girls, they integrated very quickly and settled into the bigger group with no problem.

Mum Clara and her son Gallahad were a little different. Gallahad would not be allowed to join the girls for obvious reasons (he was getting to be a big boy now and we didn't want any accidental cria turning up) and so we brought down first Wilbur & then Buster to join the pair of them. Wilbur had a week by himself and then Buster joined for another week or so before it was time to take mum out and for her to rejoin the girls.

She was treated like a long lost friend and she settled into the girl group very quickly.

We therefore had three groups still, two lots of boys and the girls, so what to do with the three big boys.

Our stud boys had both had "the operation" a while ago, and although they were living together (that is Nazca & Llancellot, there was an uneasy truce in the field. Llancellot is a very head shy llama and would be no good as a walking llama (our walking llamas are all well trained to have a halter and to be walked down our country lanes with paying guests) and so it was decided that we would let him join the girl group as they also did not do any walking.

So, Nazca & his older brother Cusco, both of whom are old hands at walking were to be brought down to join the other boys, and once they were together the girls would be moved as a whole group to join Llancellot. The plan being that our llamas would be in two groups going forward - our working, walking boys and the girls with Llancellot.

So, Cusco & Nazca were haltered and walked down the lane to meet the three boys Wilbur, Buster and young Gallahad. Well, that's when the right old ding dong started.

Nazca took a dislike to Wilbur (they have never really been mates but they have tolerated each other in the past) and beat him up, no damage done although Cusco got a fat lip for his pains in trying to split the fight up.

Buster, bless him took Gallahad off to a corner of the field and kept well away from the action.

So, Nazca couldn't stay with Wilbur.

As I said earlier both Llancellot and Nazca had an uneasy truce, so we thought (somewhat naively) we would put them back together, but of course Llancellot was surrounded by girls, oh whoops, and I mean a big whoops. Although both boys had been castrated they both knew what it was like to be a stud and so only one could be in with the girls - luckily no damage was done but seeing two full blooded males screaming at each other in the field was a scary sight, unfortunately we didn't have time to take any pictures or videos as we had to split them up!

Nazca, being the one that could be haltered and walked, was surprisingly easily persuaded to leave the scene, and was put into the field vacated by the girl llamas which is where he still is and sharing it with our young lambs.

So, he is on his own for a short while, or it could be a long while. We are sort of hoping he might take to being a guardian to the lambs, five of which are going to be long term grass mowers. He can still see the other llamas, and appears very calm in his environment.

We will keep a careful eye on him, and make sure that he does get plenty of attention - a job for me will be to walk him a little on his own, and maybe we may, just may put a couple of girls in with him to keep him company, but which ones.

Plenty to think about!