LLAMA At Inverclyde Farm Gives Birth

AN Inverclyde farm has welcomed a new addition to its unusual herd of llamas.

A baby llama — known as a cria — was born at Chrisswell Farm, Greenock on Tuesday evening.

Innes Nelson of the farm said: “Crias are born with little rubbery elf shoes covering their hooves so that they do not damage the mum before and during the birth. They are also covered in a papery cling film type layer to stop the wind from chilling them too much after they are born in their native home in the Andes.

“Within minutes, this cria was on his feet and feeding from his mum Celeste. We have still to give him a name.”

“With the new addition we now have six llamas. We got them to try diversifying into something other than cattle and sheep. “It has been great gaining experience of keeping them and they are so much more intelligent than sheep!”

Innes added: “The end product is the young llamas that are born on the farm, as they are related to the adults we will have to sell them to new homes. However we hope to buy one or two new unrelated female llamas later this year.

“Llamas can also be clipped for their fibre, however this is a specialist job and causes them a lot of stress as they have to be tied up to do this. So far we have only trimmed off uneven fibre that causes them no stress.

“In South America llama is often on the menu, but we have no intention of turning our llamas into burgers!

“People often ask do they spit and the answer is ‘yes they can spit if they feel threatened’ however so far our llamas have not spat at us.”