How early to start training and going on walks

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Permalink Reply by Robert Dewar on April 28, 2012 at 1:32am

We're based in the UK and trek without packs.  Our youngsters (born on the farm) are encouraged to seek an older llama to act as a mentor or uncle.  The young llamas seem to need to follow an older llama and to learn from him, so we split the herd and leave the youngsters with the best and most amenable older llamas.  We select the gentlest trekkers.  After less than a fortnight, we find the youngsters have chosen a particular adult and look up to him for guidance.  This has meant that when a trek goes off the farm the youngsters are keen to follow, and from 9 months a good young llama can take training walks.  Our youngest full trekker started at just 13 months.  He followed his uncle the lead llama closely and made sure his front flank was alongside the uncles's rump for the first few walks.  Within two or three months he was walking in a solid second place and we were confident for him to he handled by guest trekkers.  Now aged 2 years and 9 months, he sometimes leads treks (with uncle in second place).

We go along with what the individual characters of the llamas will take.

I should add we think it is easier to get the mentoring to take effect if you have just one youngster in the bonding herd.  Two youngsters in a year tend to hang around together and develop more slowly.

We've no advice on carrying packs, but walking and general training really does seem to be speeded up by our mentoring process

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