Why a Llama?

If you've been reading my blog for a while you know that i want to start up a small scale therapy farm for special needs families. You also know that we are a family that goes hiking, exploring and camping. Last year Matt presented me with the idea of a pack goat. I thought he was crazy, but reading into it more i was comfortable with the idea and we added our first pack animal to the family. Pippin was like a first child... we had all of these expectations of him, experimented with different strategies, and learned what we liked and did not like about goats and packing along the way. Then Matt mentioned wanting llamas for packing. I thought there is NO way that we are going to go packing with a llama... I'm not comfortable with the goat around the kids half the time, how am i going to be comfortable with an animal that is twice the size of the goat!?!?! As time went on after more research i warmed up to the idea of adding a llama to our farm. Matt had agreed to let me have a cow, the least i could do for him was look into and consider a llama. About a month ago we visited a llama ranch to see some prospective llamas and talk to the owner. I fell in love. Llamas have an inquisitive nature, soft fiber and a certain gentleness and grace about them that is hard to explain. They look into your eyes and you can see their personality.. and they have so much personality! I always heard that llamas are mean and spit... but really any animal can be mean and do things.. and if it came down to being knocked over by a feisty goat with sharp horns or spit on by a llama... i choose being spit on! Anyway, they were just so much more gentle then i expected. Joshua, who is 6 years old and about 65 pounds, was leading this HUGE llama around! I wish i would have taken a picture... it was truly an amazing sight... on top of it Daniel and Elijah where running behind laughing and being very rowdy! From then on I've been doing non-stop research on llamas and looking for one to add to the family.. especially now that Pippin has found a new home. The more research that I've done on llamas I've begun to uncover that they make great therapy animals for autistic children. ding ding ding!!!! score! So we can have a multi purpose animal.. one that packs and also provide animal therapy for my children and potential children for my future therapy farm!!!!! Here is an article that i found that talks about using llamas for therapy with special needs children. It's not to common yet, but it's becoming more popular as llama owners are discovering how well they work with special needs children.
This Saturday we will be taking a trek down to newberg and choose our new llama, we may even be getting two! I'm getting pretty excited and trying to read as much as i can about them.
I just love animals and I'm excited for the opportunity to have an animal that will assist in helping my children connect with the world around them! Not to mention, Joshua has not stopped talking about llamas since he met the llamas for the first time... he cried when we left and didn't take one with us! So there you have it! If you are ever in our area you are more then welcome to come for a visit! We LOVE to share our farm with others!!! And soon we will have a whole mess of animals as our chickens, ducks, turkeys and geese will be coming!

These are the llamas that we will be choosing from on Saturday (the first picture is of when she was a baby, but she is older now).




This is the second llama that we are considering.. she will need a bit more attention because she had a rough winter and didn't gain as much weight as she should have... we're not 100 percent sure on if we will take her also... we need to meet her first!