HUMBLE BEGINNINGS
It so happened that there were just two sources of llamas in Western Australia—four recent arrivals from NSW and a few en route from Victoria to Popanyinning in the South-West. The four were only a few kilometres away, so we arranged for a visit. It was very exciting. We were entranced by the llamas' liquid gaze and their stately demeanour. In short, we were hooked.
The four we saw were all shortwools, however, and only one female was available for sale. Our primary interest lay in augmenting our sheep's wool with llama fleece. The Popanyinning females, whilst short woolled too, were both pregnant to longwoolled sires, so, following a 2 hour drive and about five seconds' consideration, we bought them both. Shorn to the skin and stressed by their long journey, they were not looking or behaving at their best, but they were a good size, had nice heads, great ears and were soon to multiply!
EXPANSION
By that time, however, we'd expanded, with the purchase, direct from Victoria, of herdsire Tikus and our beautiful longwoolled female, Snow White (Zamoka) (see pic). Our second cria, Snowy's daughter, we called Balalaika. She still is one of our most beautiful llamas, with several beautiful daughters, granddaughters and great-granddaughters, all sharing her fine, silky fibre.
Our initial purchases were pure Chilean, from the '88 "Agricola" shipment into New Zealand.
Given the small number of llamas within Australia (let alone those animals with the fleece-type and quality we were after), and the isolation of Western Australia, both in geography and in freedom from diseases, problems associated with the very limited gene-pool were looming. There were approximately 500 animals in the country and only a handful in Western Australia. We decided to look elsewhere, particularly for a proven, long-woolled sire. Nearby New Zealand was the obvious choice.
THE KIWI CONNECTION
He'd been known variously as "Pumpkin" and "Chilli Willie". We thought the former name too undignified and the latter too much like that of a stud being advertised in the American magazines, so we renamed him Kiwi Willie (see pic).
He was quite different in type to other llamas we'd met, but looks exactly like the"Argentinian" type llamas written about by Paul Taylor in a 1998 Llamas magazine. Interestingly, many of his offspring follow the Argentinian type, with heavy bone, solid bodies and heads which are deeper through the jaw than the Chilean, British/New Zealand or North American llamas we've seen.
STARS AND STRIPES
He's a son of UK import, Union Jack, out of the magnificent American-bred Aladdin sister, Sheherazade.
BEATING THE BEASTLY BEAUROCRACY
Once more, the dogs were a help, for we'd used the WA quarantine station five times when importing GSPs, so were well known to and friends with the staff there. The argument that all the animals we intended to buy were several generations North American bred and came from an island off the North-West coast helped our case. The protocol finally established, the facility was set up expressly for us.
The offspring of the Americans, combined with the Chilean/New Zealand stock, form the basis of our herd today.
MOVING ON
Our aim is to breed large, elegant, fine-fleeced llamas, sound in both mind and body. So far we're very pleased with what we've now got gracing our paddocks, and those of the friends to whom we've sold.
The summer of 1991/92 was the catalyst for a change of livestock at "Burnbrook". The sheep had eaten the paddocks bare and our precious topsoil was blowing in the wind. A biologist friend who owned 130 acres, offered to agist the sheep for a while and suggested we might consider replacing them with some interesting, environmentally appropriate, fleece-producing animals she was investigating for herself. They were of course, LLAMAS!
I have always loved camels, but felt daunted by their huge size and our few acres. "Llamas are very closely related to camels" said my friend, who supplied us with a small mountain of information on the breed, including a subscription form for Llamas magazine.
We took delivery of our precious pair on Easter Friday, 1992. On the 29th of May, our first cria was born and it was a girl! She hit the ground running and we named her Aria, the first of a whole alphabet of "musical" camelids and, by December 1998, was the dam of three male and two female offspring, all as strong and vigorous as she. Sadly, "Brighteyes" (see pic), her poor old mother, produced only one other offspring (which died) and following what appeared to be a massive heart attack, died very suddenly some 18 months later.
After a careful search, we decided on another Chilean, one of the 16 original males from the '88 shipment. His offspring were nearly all long-woolled and of excellent conformation and temperament. A dark fawn appaloosa (solid body colour was another aim for our herd ). He was covered in extremely dense fleece (he cuts 5kgs per year).
To accompany Willie, we bought two females, both pregnant to "Prince of the Plains", another long-woolled Chilean from a later shipment. Both the resultant cria were females (Diva and Iolanthe) and they in turn have produced long-woolled offspring.
Both mothers and daughters have been mated to our latest (and greatest) addition, Union Pacific (imp. USA) (see pic).
By the time we were looking at the USA to provide us with a third source of unrelated genes, we knew what we wanted, to consolidate and improve upon the current stock. Both Llamas and Llama Banner magazines had provided us with photographs depicting a wide variety of types, plus advertisments in which breeders stated their breeding aims. We visited five farms, saw some wonderful llamas and met some great people. For a variety of reasons, we chose to buy from Ron and Maggie Schuler of Bauernheim Llamas.
There had been no direct camelid importations from the USA into Western Australia, and there was some reluctance at both State and Federal level to allow it.
After some further drama, delay (and of course, enormous expense) our animals finally arrived in May 1996. Accompanying Union Pacific were two females; the handsome and well-bred Princess Noel (see pic), plus a silky little treasure who'd been named in honour of our visit—Bauernheim's Aussie Gold (see pic). Both females were mated to Black Cloud of Bolivia, a magnificent, superfine long-woolled male of similar phenotype to Union Pacific and his big brother, Black Knight, who remains one of the Schulers' "Main Men".
Our latest purchase, Belle Park Leonardo La is a full Chilean outcross sire with extremely lustrous, dense, fine fleece, perfect for mating to our American/Chilean females.