However, let us backtrack to last weekend. Last Sunday morning we went and picked up the llama we dubbed "Tina Claire." Ok, let's back track some more. The day after we got the alpacas we emailed our good friend Judy of Perfect Peace Alpacas and asked her to keep on the look out for a female llama. We needed an experienced herd guardian to protect our herd from wild dogs, coyotes, and other undesirable animals. By Wednesday, she had passed on the name of an experienced girl llama who has been protecting a herd of Dwarf Nigerian Goats. So Sunday morning we headed off to Martinsville, VA to meet our newest addition. In fact, there seems to be another new addition on the way, as she seems to be pregnant. We loaded her into the trailer and off we went home. As soon as we opened the door she hopped off the trailer and in with the new herd. She blended right in, with no need to establish herself in the pecking order.
So what about names? Well I thought it would be amusing to name her "Tina" after Napoleon Dynamite. That movie is entertaining, and one of the few in which a casserole is chucked at a llama to eat. Oh, and our llama looks just like her. If you haven't seen it yet, you need to. Click on the link: Napoleon Dynamite feeding Tina. In addition, upon telling my students about "Tina," one student insisted the new addition should be named after her too; hence the name "Tina Claire."
We are working on halter breaking her more, since she was mostly a herd guardian. She was not shorn this year due to being pregnant, but she will be shorn next April. We are hoping that she will have her cria by then, we are not sure when is due. She is very sweet and very protective of her herd. We could not ask for a better guardian for our small alpaca herd.
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