Lliving the llife with llamas (and alpacas)

Animals make for fine pets, fair business

Jim Harris has rabbit pellets in his hand, which means he has the full attention of Josie, Thai, Rosie and Peppermint Patty.

"Otherwise, they'll kind of check things out and take off," he said, watching them get closer, all the better to reach for the food.

Llamas are like that.

Josie, Thai, Rosie, Peppermint Patty and five others comprise the llamas owned by the Serenity Llama Company, owned by Harris and his wife, Merrily, located at 402 Karl Road.

A few blocks away, on Potato Hill Road, Bob Arnold holds out a bowl of cob for his pet alpacas.

"Give Bernie some," he scolds those that are more assertive in their desire for food. "Hey. Hey. Let Bobbin have some."

And alpacas are kind of like that.

Unlike the Harrises, Arnold and his wife, Connie, do not keep the alpacas for business purposes, but rather for pets.

"We've had ours three years," Arnold said.

The Arnolds make frequent trips to Oregon, and would often visit a lady who owns an alpaca ranch. After talking with her for a number of years, the Arnolds decided to get some pet-quality alpacas from her.

"I didn't want to mow my pasture, and I thought they'd eat it," Arnold said with a smile. "They do eat some of it, but I still have to mow. We thought they were cute."

The Arnolds also got a couple alpacas from Washington State University, which acquired a herd that were donated for medical procedure purposes.

"They adopted the animals out afterwards, so two of ours came from the WSU Vet School, and the other three came from the ranch in Oregon," Arnold explained.

The alpacas are Sweaterboy (so named because the sweater-like appearance of his coloration), Bernina or "Bernie" (named for the Bernina sewing machines sold in the Arnolds' business, Columbia Basin Quiltworks), Tuku, Bucket and Bobbin.

The Harrises weren't always in the llama business, Jim said.

"We got started (because) we had the land, and we needed to do something to keep the grass down," he said. "We tried sheep and we didn't like that, and we had horses in here for a while …"

The Harrises got interested in llamas after seeing them at a sale.

"We decided we'd raise llamas for sale, to actually go into breeding," he said. "That's pretty much what we do, is raise them to sell babies, is our main goal here."

The business didn't raise or sell any babies this year because the llama market went soft, Jim said.

"They were an exotic animal, and they went from exotic to, they just got enough of them," he said. "When we bought some of them, we paid $2700 (for one). You can still get llamas and still pay high prices for them, but you can buy llamas cheap too. And if you can buy stuff cheap, then it depends on what you want. The difference between a show llama and a regular llama is the care."

For the most part, the Harrises are more interested in raising regular llamas, they say.

"We're garden variety people; our llamas aren't show llamas, they're not llamas that a whole bunch of people are going to pay a whole lot of money for," Jim said. "We didn't intend on raising llamas that are real expensive. We use our llamas, we sell them for 4-H projects, for families, for packing…"

Llamas can also be used to protect sheep, Merrily Harris said.

"A guard llama; it keeps the coyotes back," she said. "We've had a coyote go along (outside the fence) and these guys don't run from it; they are hanging over the fence and they're right with him all the way down."

Some llamas are sold for meat, Jim said, but it's not as accepted in the immediate area. The ones the Harrises raise are used more for the purposes already mentioned.

While the five alpacas are kept primarily as pets, Arnold said that they get fiber from the wool shorn annually.

"If you've ever had any alpaca sweaters or anything like that, it's a very fine quality, very soft wool," he said. "This year's shearing, we're going to have processed as soon as we find a reasonable processor, and made into yarn."

Some of that can be used on projects in Columbia Basin Quiltworks, he said.

The llama wool goes to people in Spokane that process it, Jim said.

"There's getting to be more and more (demand), but around here, it's not," he said. "We found a lady in Spokane that processes it now. We gave her the wool."

The farm has had as many as 18 llamas, he said.

"We're kicking back a little because of the market," he said. "We don't have a lot of people saying, 'Hey, we want to have a baby next year.' It takes 11 months to have a baby, and then they need to be with the mama for six months."

Llamas and alpacas are sheared annually and require clipped toenails every six months to a year, depending on how fast they grow, annual shots and worming, and feeding of a mineral supplement.

"Other than that, that's the basic health care part of it," Jim said. "Maintenance wise, they just take care of themselves. When we leave, we have people come by to check on them, make sure no one's hung up in a fence. Most of the time, even if one of them gets out, they won't leave. They'll just hang around the fence."

"They won't jump the fence and run," Merrily said. "They're really herd-oriented and they want to be together."

Arnold said that alpacas will tend to use one specific part of the yard for lavatory purposes. Consequently, it requires Arnold to pick up after them weekly, he said, or else that area will spread out.

"Other than that, they don't require a lot," Arnold said. "They're nice friendly animals and easy care. You have to have two of them. They don't go as loners. They make good pasture ornaments."

Llamas may spit as a defense mechanism if they are scared, Merrily said, but they won't just walk up to a person and let the saliva fly, as society has been led to believe.

"They're very calming animals," she said. "In fact, for that reason, people use them for therapy. I've heard of where they might go to a school with a special education class or an autistic child, they might have a llama around it and the child will speak that has never spoken before."

The same holds true for some people in nursing homes, she said.

"There's something about being around a llama; I don't know why, but it causes the person to come out and start speaking," she said. "And then when one of (the llamas) is having a baby … they'll all stand around and it's like they're supervising it. That's how I know, if one of them's in labor, I can tell for sure that the baby's coming."

The Harris grandchildren have been known to play in the pasture alongside the llama without a problem, Merrily said, adding that they are a good animal for children to learn how to train for 4-H projects and in the fair.

"They're very gentle," she said. "They're a very good family animal."

The alpacas garner the most attention from passers-by on Potato Hill Road.

"We have a lot of people; last night a carload of people stopped out here and were looking at them," Arnold said with a laugh. "Since we just had them sheared, they looked really woolly, and then all of a sudden — somebody told me 'It looks like you have a bunch of miniature giraffes out there.'"