Another Voice

13 September 2008

First the housing market collapsed. Now I fear the trade in llamas will be next

A few will still be breeding for profit, no doubt. Some will be farmers who want guard-llamas for their sheep and lambs — llamas really do drive away dogs and foxes. One or two will run llama-trekking ventures, urban zoos, and the like. There will even be a few golf-course owners who want a grass-cropper or cart-puller with chamois-leather feet, and no hooves to wreck the turf; and the bored or ultra-patient may keep a camelid to pluck or shear, selling the laboriously spun wool for more than it costs to import it from Bolivia.

But the core will be — or should be — the kind of small country landowner who doesn’t want to be a farmer, needs a grazer that will mostly fend for itself, knows that horses and ponies are picky grazers and won’t touch nettles and thistles, that goats don’t respect fences and hedges, and who ends up asking a neighbouring farmer to put a few sheep into his or her fields, just to keep the pasture cropped. Sir or madam, llamas are for you.

Ellie left this afternoon. She made a hell of a racket kicking around in the horse box, and her mother, Imp, was distressed to see her daughter carted away. But Ellie’s not going far — to pleasant pastures by Carsington reservoir — and, since a month ago, Imp has had the patter of tinier camelid feet to keep her busy. Ghost (white face) was born on 8 August. And I have told her mother that every llama is precious, though almost worthless. It’s the sort of paradox a llama understands.

Matthew Parris is a columnist on the Times.

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Berry Carter

October 31st, 2008 9:28am Report this comment

Oh Dear Matthew
Alpaca ownership maybe but llama ownership was never about making money. Llama ownership has nothing to do with stocks and shares and mortgage stress in Wall Street or anywhere else. When people ask me "how do you make money with llamas?" as they have done repeatedly for twenty five years my answer never varies. "You have made your money" I say "and you are seeking something to do with it. The llama is a work of art, a four legged work of art that not only is good to look at but priceless to know.

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