Meet Rose! She is the mother of the cria that I spoke about in an earlier post on this blog. Rose is a very friendly llama who allows anyone (even me) to hand feed her. Rose has a male llama companion, Paco. These beautiful animals live on a farm where they are loved and cared for by two wonderful people, our good friends David & Becky.

If you have never hand fed a llama, then you may be in for a shock. A llama's upper lip is split, and they gobble the food with a dry mouthed suction that is a cross between a hoover vacuum cleaner, and an elephant's nose.

Rose would only let me stroke her neck when she was allowed to put her entire mouth in the bowl to gain the last scraps of food. Now I know why llama fleece is so prized, she was as warm as toast as we shivered in the 40 degree wind chill.