If it had been a lonely hearts ad, the classified ad Lawrence Huffman ran in the Clinton Daily Democrat would have read: LFL ISO MMML, for short or long-term relationship. Must like children.
What the ad, which ran for several weeks last summer, did say: Wanted to buy or rent, a male llama to breed six female llamas. Please call 660-656-3560.
Nobody did.
“I never did find a male,” Lawrence said. “I may have to sell them if my pond dries up.”
A Vietnam veteran, Lawrence has kept llamas for 30 years on his 80-plus acre farm north of Leeton. He’s also had a variety of exotic species on the farm, he said, along with cattle and horses.
Farmers in the area use llamas for guard animals for the sheep, but Lawrence got his for pasture maintenance. Llamas are browsers, like deer, he said, and will walk along and take a bite of this, a bite of that. They really like to eat tree leaves, and use their long necks, which are nearly as long as their backs, to reach any leaves they can chomp, creating a level canopy.
“They work for me,” he said “Llamas eat the weeds the cattle don’t. They keep sprouts in control. I’ve only mowed the place once in 30 years.”
“I also like the look of them.”
Lawrence no longer lives in the house on the farm near Leeton, but in Centerview, between Warrensburg and Holden. Because he isn’t out in the field anymore, he hasn’t named his llamas, who his son takes care of.
Lawrence said he had an old male llama he named Spot, who was white with a brown spot on its head. Lawrence dubbed Spot’s mate Cleopatra. Llamas live about 15 years, he said, or at least that’s how old Spot and Cleopatra were when they died. He raised their offspring, called cria, which is “baby” in Spanish. The cria were all “hembra” (female), he said. So to fill out the herd, Lawrence bought a couple more females and a stud, or macho (male).
The problem: the macho he bought was mean, not only to the hombre and its male cria, but also to the other livestock.
“He was mean to the cattle,” Lawrence said. “I had a 2,000-pound bull he run off and he killed a blind bull calf— run him to death. And I had a cow he drove into the pond.
“I sold him.”
The fact that there seems to be more alpacas in the area than llamas makes his effort to find them a mate harder, he said. Llamas and alpacas are both Lamoids, so can mate, and are domesticated members of the Camelid family. How to tell them apart: llamas are large animals, as tall as a horse, with tall, upright ears. Alpacas are smaller with short, pointed ears that protrude from their heads at an angle, like antennae. Lamoids include vicunas and guanacos, which are wild animals.
Some llamas, especially males, can develop aggressive tendencies. Lawrence said his macho exhibited llama rage aimed at other male llamas. Females are nice, he said, and rarely spit unless annoyed. Llamas are sure-footed and hardy in harsh climates, and are smart, social animals bred from guanacos as pack animals —a 250-pound llama can carry a load almost half its weight up to 20 miles a day.
Llamas have a softer side, and are also used as therapy animals in nursing homes and hospitals. Like giraffes, they can hum, something hembra do while nuzzling their cria.
Some people shear their llamas for the wool, Lawrence said, but he’s never done it — his llamas aren’t very wooly. Shorn every two years, llamas yield wool that has been used in textiles for six millennia, the coarse outer fiber for rugs and rope, and the undercoat, which has a finer texture, for garments.
Lawrence also once had large, long-necked birds —emus and ostriches —on his farm, but he thinks they became the target of neighborhood youth. His Jacob sheep, the kind with four horns, were history after they ate the bark off of one of the biggest apple trees in his orchard, killing it.
Lawrence is more philosophical about the possibility that the pond on the farm might dry up. As he says, that’s Missouri. He has lived in Missouri all his life, he said, other than when he was in the military, when he was sent to Texas. He didn’t like the state because the climate was the same most of the year.
“It was drab,” he said. “I like Missouri because the weather is always changing. You never know what’s coming.”
He’s already sold off some of his cattle, he said, and if the rain doesn’t arrive, the rest of the livestock, including the llamas, will go. If the pond does survive, he’ll continue to hope that someone out there has a male llama that he can buy, or at least rent for two or three months.
“Then they can have their male llama back,” Lawrence said.
Even if the pond dries up, Lawrence may want to rethink selling the herd. National Llama Day is Dec. 9, and has been celebrated in Canada since 1932, the year a drought in Manitoba wiped out sheep and other livestock.
But not the llamas.
