Llama Drama

“No Manu stop chasing the llamas!” I cry as my boots hit the forest floor, chasing after a South African bulldog that apparently has a problem with llama procreation. These past few weeks have been jam-packed with all the llama drama; everything from the aforementioned dog chases and llama fights, to lots of spitting and wrangling. For me though, it’s been great. Being around llamas was one of the parts of the trip that I looked forward to the most. I think they are really interesting animals and their connection to humans is fascinating to me. That is why I would like to take some time to share some knowledge about the camelids of South America!

South American camelids can be broken into a few categories, firstly wild and domesticated. The wild species of camelid are the vicuña (Vicugna vicugna; right), which is known for having the softest and most expensive w

ool in the world, and the guanaco (Llama guanicoe; left) which comes from the Quechua word “huanaco” (one of the indigenous languages of the Andes). On the domesticated side, we have the alpaca (Vicugna pacos; bottom left) and the llama (Llama glama; bottom right) <<< *stifled giggle*.

All of these animals are indigenous to the Andes, their natural territory spreading across Peru, Chile, Argentina, and Ecuador; though now of course the alpaca and llama are bred all over the globe. All modern species of camelid are descended from the extinct species Camelops, which originated in North America and whose descendants crossed the Bering Strait Land Bridge into Asia and the Middle East. That’s right, llamas are in the same family as camels!

We will focus primarily on llamas here since that is what we have worked with, but let’s take a minute to talk about alpacas.There are two types of alpaca, the Huacaya and the Suri, which are the domesticated forms of the vicuña. The alpaca in general is famous for its fine wool, but the two breeds of alpaca have different types of wool. The wool of the Huacaya is curly, stretchy and dense, making it similar to sheep wool. The Suri wool is long, straight, and smooth, thus it is closer in feel to cashmere.

Though llamas also have great wool, which with a little processing can have the same texture as alpaca wool, alpaca wool is generally more popular. Alpaca and llama wool comes in a variety of colors, ranging from black to brown to grey to white. The animals themselves are a variety of colors but the wool also takes both natural and synthetic dye very easily.

Now, the farm Allie and I are working on here in Argentina, La Comarca de Jarillal, has fourteen llamas, two adult male llamas and one juvenile male, while ten are adult females with one juvenile female. Coming into this working experience, I had this idealistic daydream that the llamas would be super friendly and we would frolic through the fields together. That unfortunately was not the case as the llamas are generally all afraid of us and one female in particular really likes to spit on you if you make eye contact. I have been spit on three or four times so far, mostly in the face which isn’t pleasant since the spit is more like projectile vomit, but that, my friends, is life with llamas.

We have only been here a few weeks, but even so, we have quickly been able to identify each llama’s unique personality. A few notable mentions are of course the mean chronic spitter (who actually charged at Allie yesterday), the large rebellious female, Tatana, who likes to lead the female baby astray, the constantly confused pregnant female, and the frantic whining black male. One cannot forget big brown mama llama, the smartest of the bunch. She mothers the small white male and until recently refused to enter the corral, aptly named Guantanamo Llama. It took two gauchos with lassos and Antonio, our host father, chasing her through the forest for thirty minutes to finally get her in with the other llamas. She spat, ran, bucked, and charged, but eventually the humans won the day. Consequently, Mama Llama has been on lockdown since last Friday.

Otherwise, llama drama has been fairly mild. A typical day of llama care involves keeping the males separated so they don’t fight, and keeping the mama llama locked up so we don’t have to chase her again. We let the other llamas out to graze in the forest and the pastures, then herd them back into the corral before dusk for them to sleep.

We didn’t arrive early enough to be present for the llama shearing. Missed it by a few weeks actually, BUT, we still get to work with the wool! There are around nine large garbage bags of wool in the shed waiting to be processed. The traditional processing is done by hand: the coarse long hairs of the llama wool need to be pulled out of the rest of the wool, leaving behind the short, fluffy hairs. Leaving the long hairs makes the final product really itchy. Last Tuesday, Antonio took us to a nice woman who hand spins wool into yarn in her backyard in order to make hand-woven clothes. We got a crash course in spinning the wool...and did a terrible job. Our yarn is technically still usable, but it’s super chunky. We hope to get better in time though!

Hope you enjoyed your llama crash course! All in all, working with the llamas has been a wonderful experience. I’ve enjoyed spending time with them and learning all their different quirks. Though my dream to ride a llama into the sunset has been shattered, (a 200 pound llama can only carry 80 pounds of weight), llamas remain one of my favorite animals. Maybe one day I will own a few, maybe even an alpaca or two!

References:

Honey, J.G., Harrison, J.A., Prothero, D.R., Stevens, M.S., 1998. (Chapter 30) Camelidae. In: Janis, C.M., Scott, K.M., Jacobs, L.J. (Eds.), Evolution of Tertiary Mammals of North America. Cambridge University Press, pp. 439e462.