How I always remember Woolly
You need to take care of neutering large male animals around the farm, otherwise be prepared for surprises. We live and learn, and this lesson was learned the hard, dangerous, and life threatening way. A way Jackie and I don’t recommend!
How it started.
We have had llamas since January of 2000. We bought the first one (a gelding) in late January, followed by 2 more (a mother and daughter) 2 weeks later, and a fourth (another gelding) in May of that year. And, if that wasn’t enough, we had the 2 females bred in 2001 to give birth in 2002. A llama’s gestation is long, about 11 and 1/2 months, and we waited very impatiently. It was so exciting when they both gave birth. One cria (term for baby llama) was a female, the other, a male.
With a male cria, it is wise to not handle or love on them too much because when they grow up, they will not respect you and can turn on you (called “berserk”). So we limited our handling to only when necessary. The male cria was named Woolly by my daughter. When Woolly was about 5 months old, his mother died (a whole other story sometime), so he was orphaned. The good thing was, he was eating hay just fine, and the other llama momma watched out for him.
Woolly grew up into a handsome guy.
You are supposed to have llamas neutered at about 18 months from what we read. The problem was, it was the dead of winter then and there is no way we could take him down on the snowmobile, and our vet does NOT come up here in the winter. Plus Marshall had a bout of under-employment during that time, and was scrambling to get
Llamas giving birth
our wireless internet business going. Woolly’s neutering got put off, and off. To make matters worse, the llamas, sheep and goats figured out how to get out of the electric fencing so the fence was down. They all free ranged after that for several months.
In the mean time, Woolly was getting more aggressive. He started coming up and getting in my face, rubbing against me, that sort of thing, that can be misinterpreted as “loving”. After
a while, I caught on that it was aggression, NOT loving, so I tried training him to not get in my personal space. I carried a small cattle prod (little device that emits a slight electrical shock). If he tried to bump me, he’d get shocked. It seemed to help until one day…..
Our area burned in the 1994 Tyee fire, one of the largest, if not THE largest wild fire in Washington state history. There are many seedlings around that were replanted after the fire. Our part time neighbors above us planted quite a few. Of course when the llamas and everyone were “free ranging” during that time, they took a liking to seedlings, particularly the neighbors.
Life Threat
On one particular day, I was out walking and saw everyone munching on some of the neighbor’s seedlings. I walked over to chase them away. Woolly, being an aggressive, un-neutered male, with some females in his herd, perceived this as a threat. So he attacked me. He came racing over, ears back, screeching like I’ve never heard before, teeth bared. He reared up at me and tried to stomp me, and when that didn’t work, he tried knocking me to the ground. Fortunately, the cattle prod was in my coat pocket and was my only line of defense. He continued to run at me, rear up, bump me, try to bite me etc, all the while screeching like a banshee. I could not turn my back from him. He was out to get me. It was VERY scary. Marshall was gone, the kids were little back then and in the house doing school work. No one was around to save me. This battle went on for
My hero, Heidi
about 10 minutes, (it seemed much longer). I was exhausted, staving him off with the little cattle prod which was starting to not make a difference to Woolly.
Enter the Hero
Out of the blue, here comes Heidi, our trusty Australian Shepherd/Great Pyrenees mix. She went after Woolly, attacking and biting his legs, barking and putting herself between us. She distracted Woolly long enough for me to race down the driveway and into the house. Woolly had DEFINITELY crossed the line. I called Marshall and he came home and had to shoot him. There was no choice. We couldn’t have a large, dangerous llama around. I felt bad though. It was our fault he went “berserk” because we couldn’t neuter him when we should have.
Sad relief, lesson learned
Some friends of ours were up visiting 2 days before this happened. They are avid bow hunters and had expressed that day they would like to taste llama some time. I was horrified and said NO WAY. Well, that changed. Marshall called them to see if they wanted to come up and “harvest” Woolly after his date with the gun. They did, although VERY surprised. They got a lot of meat too. We had some of the steaks and they were good, like beef of elk. Woolly did not go to waste.
What kind of lessons have you learned the hard way with your animals or pets? Leave your comments and questions below! (Do it now, while its fresh in your mind.)
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A cattle prod does not communicate the right thing to a (male) llama. Rather than communicating that you are higher in the hierarchy and to be respected, it likely established you as potentially dangerous and a threat. When he started invading your space and bumping you he was simply asking you (testing) where he stood in the pecking order — looking for a response. This is common, especially for males that are typically more overt and willing to assume leadership. From your description you never gave him a clear answer in the language a llama would understand. Had he received one, the misbehavior probably would have ended there. He just needed to know. Instead he was left with ambiguity/inconsistency, lack of trust, and a perception that you were threatening. It sounds like he asked/tested repeatedly but was repeatedly frustrated by what to him appeared as “bizarre” behavior from you. Finally he took charge, greatly accentuated by having access to females to “protect”. Llamas respond to perceived threats with aggression.
I assume the females were impregnanted from this male. Breeding behavior likely established the females as his harem and finally tipped the scale to act aggressively towards any threats to his domain. It’s important for all llama caretakers to be well prepared. Aside from fencing, etc., this includes education regarding llama training and understanding of how they think (which they do a lot of) and what motivates them. Llamas are unique animals and many things one understands about other animals do not apply to llamas.
Scott, thanks for dropping by!
What Jackie didn’t detail was how we did communicate when tested. We’d hold our hand high above our head to be ‘bigger’ make noise and move towards him, often grabbing his back leg. He would retreat in these situations. The main problem was that he was in the ‘open’ with ‘open’ females.
We truly have had a wonderful experience raising llamas. Its funny how many people mis-understand and think they will always spit at you. LOL!
That’s so sad I’m sorry!
Glad you’re okay!
I want to move off the grid and have alpacas soon. Don’t really have the resources.
Hi, I just found your site yesterday and have been reading thru it, very interesting info here, and as a dog lover, I have 4 Shelties…I just wanted to say what a good girl Heidi is for saving Jackie, and beautiful to!
Heidi is the perfect mix in that she’s aggressive enough chasing coyotes off every night, And gentle enough for “herding chicks”.