Best wishes of the season to all llama folk in New Zealand. Enjoy your holiday and time with family and travel safely. And don’t forget to take a supply of carrots down to your llamas on Xmas Day.
Many thanks to all those who contributed to the Christchurch Show, the llamas were underrepresented in a number of classes, noticeably all yearling classes but generally also in female llama and definitely in suri classes. On the other hand, male llama, gelding and performance classes were a good contest.
Anyone who thinks it is not worth the effort to compete their llamas at the Show is dead wrong! Of course, it is a great opportunity to socialise with other llama folk but you also get to see how other people care and groom their animals, handle them in competition and most of all to see how your own llamas shape up next to others. You can learn a great deal about your llama’s fleece and conformation from the show. And it makes an exciting change of routine for your llamas.,
But you have to WANT to do this. No amount of work and effort by others will entice you to attend if you don’t want to.
I am waiting to see if anyone comes forward to Convene next year’s show. If not then it will certainly be the end of a 20-year contribution to the show by llamas. I think that would be quite sad.
For those of you who are still breeding their llamas, we wish you a successful birthing season. And to everyone, we wish a successful shearing season. For those who need to shear their llamas, remember to leave 2-3 cm of fleece on the animal to protect it from the summer heat, evening chill, wind and rain etc. If you shear yourself or hire a shearer, get them to fit a raiser to their shears so they do not take the fleece down to the skin. They won’t like to do that because they will need to slow down and take more care, BUT your llamas will certainly thank you for it.
As always, we encourage you to let us know if you encounter any difficulties with your llamas, have experiences to share or photos/stories that need to be displayed
Best regards
Keith