Naming and Feeding Time

The first week we had Danny life was only concerned with two things: what were we going to call him and what were we going to feed him.

We spent the first week trying out different names every day and seeing how they fit. Everyone got into the act - he was Fred or George or Titan or Pavlov - nothing seemed to really fit. We settled on Danny for a couple reasons: we wanted a strong name that he would be able to learn to recognize, we don't have a Danny on the ranch, and someone thought he looked a little bit like the character Danny in Grease (played by John Travolta). Okay, that was the real reason we settled on Danny. But it really seems to fit him!

Since we've never had an orphan llama before we've been kind of reading and phoning friends and figuring things out as we go along. Because we also have a herd of sheep, we had an emergency supply of lamb milk on hand (It's dried, like powder milk and you add water to it). So we made up a batch of lamb milk and tried him on that. He hated the first bottle and wouldn't swallow it so that it just dribbled down his chin!

We made the second bottle hotter, figuring that llamas have some of the highest body temperatures of all livestock, so maybe they like their milk a little hotter as well. It worked! He started drinking out of the bottle. It took a couple feedings for him to get used to using a rubber nipple, but he adjusted fairly quickly. We also like to use Dasani water bottles for our feeding bottles. They are a good size and most of all, the livestock nipples fit the tops really well! They also stand up to repeated use and a variety of temperatures really well, so we are not having to replace them frequently. Just wash, rinse and reuse.

This picture is of my mom feeding Danny. He's a couple weeks old in this picture and obviously has the whole drinking from a bottle down pat. He has his own nest at night, but during the day we encourage him to hang out with us. A couple things that are important to remember when feeding llamas is that they need to have their heads almost all the way up - she actually doesn't have his head far enough back in this photo. This is a very natural position for them when they are drinking from their mother and because of the neck and stomach this position makes sure that what they are eating goes down without causing any difficulties.

Danny's First Days with Us

Danny first came into the world on a somewhat cold and snowy winter day - December 26, 2007 in the Cariboo region of British Columbia. Danny is a grey and white male llama. We found him the day after he had been born. We were driving the small tractor around doing chores when I looked over at the field where our female llamas are and noticed what I first thought was small deer crossing the field. After really looking at it I realized it was a baby llama! We were very surprised because we weren't expecting any babies during the winter. We had received some more female llamas a few months before to add to our herd and had been told that they weren't pregnant, but obviously one of them was.

When we went into the field to check him out he was very obviously with the horses and not with the llamas. In fact, it looked like my quarterhorse gelding was protecting him and one of our Standardbred mares was anxiously looking on. When we tried to reunite him with the llama herd the mare circled the llamas whickering anxiously for him - just as if he was her foal. We think that he was probably born in the afternoon - evening of December 26, the horses took up with him the morning of the 27th and then we found him in the afternoon.

We spent the afternoon trying to figure out who his mother was, but no female claimed him, so we took him in with us. This was very odd behaviour for the females and not one we have ever encountered before. In fact, they are generally so protective of their babies that we can't even get close until their six months old! We weren't even sure if we would be able to keep him alive but here he is a month later and he continues to do well! He sure is a fighter. So this is going to be his story.