Introducing Katydid the new llama

With so much happening around here, it's taken me a while to formally introduce Katydid to everyone. She is the big brown llama in the picture. She's four years old and will be Dolce's girlfriend. (He's the brown and white one.) The Amish say that horses are better than tractors because they can replace themselves. Well, we are completely sold on llamas as guard animals. We just wish we had more of them since we have multiple pastures that need guarding. So, we decided to get a female llama to help us out with that.

Katydid has had three cria in the past, and we're hoping she'll have five or six here. We could easily use eight llamas, since I like them to work in pairs. And Merlin and Sterling are 12 and 14, so they won't be around forever since llamas tend to live about 15 to 20 years. A llama pregnancy lasts 11 months, and they usually just have a single baby.

So, our grand plan for Katydid was that we would breed her to Dolce in June, so she'd have her baby next May when it was warm outside. We put Katydid in a pasture next to Dolce and Tuscany, so she'd have company. Well, she wasn't happy about being left here by her breeders. She stood at the gate for days looking out at the driveway. She wouldn't even go into the shelter when it was raining. Then after five days, I looked out the window one morning, and she was in the pasture with the boys. She must have jumped the fence since it was completely unharmed. So, I guess we'll be having our first cria next April.