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Rural North Devon is home to this happy herd of breeding female Llamas
Who's the Daddy?
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Bazzyll, a delightful, mild-mannered stud Llama, bred from Ordellamas sire, Prince Charles ( so named on account of his big ears ) and Ordellamas dam Georgina. | New to Watertown Llamas is Roseland Talisman. "Tali" is a fine young stud male, bred by Paul Rose. |  |
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Tali is just 2 years old, very laid back, but looking forward to his new career. Underneath his Lanuda fleece, Tali is a spotted Llama, and the optimistic hope is that he will sire some spotty cria especially when he breeds with some of Watertown Llamas lovely spotted females
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The breeding females are from a wide and varied gene pool which includes Roseland and Ashdown Llamas. Llamas are Camelids, along with camels, alpacas, guanacos and vicunas. A Ccara is the most usual type of llama to be found in the UK, having a relatively short fleece. A Tampuli llama is more heavily fleeced, such as the Tapada llama, while a really woolly Tampuli llama is known as a Lanuda. In the case of a suri llama the fleece hangs in curls or ringlets. Llama fleece can be gathered either by combing or by shearing, and makes a fine warm wool for hand-spinning. Llamas come in many colours, so while the llama wool can be dyed, the natural colours already on offer give plenty of variety.
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Watertown Llamas are trained and handled using Marty McGee-Bennetts Camelidynamics methods and all our llamas are registered with the British Llama Society. A llama is quite likely to live for fifteen to twenty years, so buying a llama is not to be undertaken lightly. Details of llamas for sale in the UK can be found on the British Llama Society web site, and in the British Llama Societys directory of llama breeders. Watertown Llamas are sometimes available to buy and for further information please look on our own llamas for sale page.
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The Watertown herd is a colourful mix of different characters and big personalities, in a variety of shapes, sizes and fleece types. Every llama is an individual, which is just another one of the wonderful things about llamas!
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LLamas only came into my life 3.5 years ago, so I am just a novice but I have now found the animal that I've been looking for all my life. In at the deep end with 10 untrained and neglected llamas, I was hungry for knowledge and grateful for the benefit of other peoples experience to help make up my shortfalls. I soon found the "llama industry" to be a friendly helpful close-knit community of like-minded people, namely llama-lovers! The original intention was to provide good homes for these animals and although some have gone onto pastures new, I still have 6 from the original group. Since then I have expanded my little herd to include Roseland, Ashdown and Ordellamas and over the years, 19 cria have been born. My understanding and skills have grown too, but I am even keener to keep learning now than ever before. The help and information is out there, to be used in conjunction with hands-on experience of course! It can get a little confusing because neither llamas nor people are an exact science. In the same way that we as humans vary enormously in our child raising methods and principals, so you will find different views on raising llamas, even from the moment of first breath from the cria, there is controversy! (Google "imprinting camelids" and you'll see what I mean!) Many of the leading llama breeders in the UK have been about their business 10 times as long as I have and so I hope I have not inadvertently laid down any llama laws in this web site, or made any dogmatic statements. Perhaps the most useful thing I can say is that llamas are very individual and what works for one may not go down so well with another, so whatever your method, if it isn't working, modify or change it. Respect the fact that a llama is a herd animal and whilst you may do much to improve the quality of his life, you will never be the most important thing in it!
