Llama Biography #12: AAL Navarro

As I sat down to write this post, I realized that I'm to the point where I can't remember who came next in our herd!  I'm pretty sure AAL Navarro is next, or at least close enough!

Navarro, Spring 2003, after shearing.

In the fall of 2002, I started to realize that we needed our own breeding male if we were going to really get into the breeding end of having llamas.  For a few weeks I emailed various farms in the Midwest, looking for that perfect male.  And then like most people I got impatient, and decided to visit the farm with the best prospect over October Break from school.  That farm happened to be Animal Acres Llamas in Wisconsin, so my dad and I hooked up the trailer and had a very long day...

Spring 2002...the picture that sold me on him!

Navarro was truly a gorgeous male.  He was born in September 2001, but was shown extensively in spring and summer 2002, so he hadn't been shorn when we saw him in October 2002.  His red fleece was absolutely gorgeous, and he had a beautiful face.  He was a bit of a handful, but was 4-H trained so I felt he would be easy enough.  After spending a few hours with him at the farm, we bought him and headed home.

Chrys, Navarro's dam.  Chilean lines.

Nuevo Laredo, Navarro's sire.

Baby Navarro!

Luckily we already had 2 pastures at the old farm, so Navarro got to live with Duque (most importantly, not with the girls!).  Navarro was pretty young so he and Duque got along fine.

Fuzzy face!

Shortly after coming to the farm, fall 2002.

The next spring I started showing Navarro, and continued until fall 2004.  He was by far the best halter llama I'd shown yet, and really helped me improve my showmanship placings.  Navarro placed very well, finishing off his ALSA Recognition of Merit in halter, and peaking with a Grand Champion in Medium Wool Male at the 2003 NAILE.

His first show with me, the 2003 Western Ohio Triple Crown.

The 2003 Indiana State Fair.

3rd at the 2003 Great Lakes Regionals.

Grand Champion Medium Wool Male at the 2003 NAILE.

3rd at the 2004 Western Ohio Triple Crown.

Grand Champion Medium Wool Male at the 2004 Southwest Llama Show.

3rd at the 2004 Great Lakes Regionals.

We started trying to breed Navarro in the fall of 2003, but he wanted nothing to do with the girls!  Thinking it would just take him a bit longer to mature, we let him off the hook and instead used an outside breeding for the one female we chose to breed.  He finally got the hang of things in the spring of 2004, and bred 2 females, Casa Loma's Little Sheba (our herd) and Little Cattessa (back for an outside breeding).  Unfortunately Cattessa's cria died during delivery, and Sheba's cria died at only a few days old (very unrelated issues), but they were both beautiful.

Autumn Hill's Snowflake Obsidian, Sheba and Navarro's cria.

By the fall of 2004 we had acquired a second breeding male, and we chose to use him to breed our females that year.  But in the fall of 2005 Navarro got his chance again.  We bred him to 2 of our best breeding females, SHAG Cattera and Little May Flowers.  Both had gorgeous female crias, Autumn Hill's Cataleya and Autumn Hill's Camissia.  The red genes were obviously very strong in Navarro, as neither dam had thrown any red crias.

Autumn Hill's Cataleya, Cattera and Navarro's cria.

Autumn Hill's Camissia, May and Navarro's cria.

After Cataleya and Camissia were born, we decided that we only needed 1 breeding male after all, and unfortunately Navarro wasn't the best that we had on the farm.  So Navarro was gelded and sold to a fiber farm.  I'm so glad he found a loving home where his beautiful fiber is still appreciated!

While Navarro didn't have a huge impact on our breeding program, he had a wonderful impact on my show career for a year.  He was fun to have around, even if he was a bit of a pain!

Navarro with my sister.  He has the distinction of being the only llama we ever took to the second floor of our house...he was very willing to go up, but did not want to come down!

Llama Biography #3: SHAG Cattera

This week I'm being lazy and refusing to download new pictures from my camera, so I've decided to post another llama biography!  On a more current note, I will update that I have finished 2 more Christmas gifts (knitted items) and am working on an (optional) third!  Just one more to go, which after tomorrow may or may not be needed...

So on to Cattera...  Cattera was another of the three original llamas we purchased from Shagbark Ridge Llamas back in 1999.  She would be a companion for the first llama we purchased, Sheba.  When we bought her, Cattera was a beautiful 2-yr-old female, bred for her first cria (baby llama) (due in October 2000).  Like Duque, Cattera had been shown extensively by someone in Shagbark Ridge's 4-H program, and overall she was a friendly girl.  However, Cattera hated *me* with a passion!  No matter how nice I was, she just loved to spit on me!  Cattera quickly became another one of my sister's favorites, and Hannah also showed most of her crias.  I just stayed away!

Baby Cattera.

Cattera's sire, Mountain Cherokee.

Cattera's dam, SHAG Catterina.

Cattera and Hannah at the Great Lakes Regionals.

 I will give Cattera one bit of credit, she was a wonderful breeding female for our herd.  She had 7 crias on our farm, and 1 more after she was sold.  She was always a perfect mom, and gave us gorgeous crias.  Cattera's first cria was Cattessa, one of Hannah's best show llamas.

Next came Catanna.  She is easily the largest llama we've ever had born on our farm (34 lbs at birth) and matured to be the biggest too!  She was a bit stubborn to be good for performance, but she had beautiful babies.

Next was Catalina (are you sensing a trend in the names?  Every single Cattera baby had a name that started with *Cat*).  This little girl had a lot of potential, but unfortunately she didn't get shown much and didn't get to live up to it.

The first boy was Catlinite.  Amazingly he and Catalina (above) are NOT full siblings, they have different sires!  But they really do look identical!  Catlinite was my show boy for awhile, and actually did pretty well.

Next was the pride and joy of the farm, Catastrophie.  After all these white llamas we finally got some major color from Cattera!  Looking back at her progeny now, I believe Cattera produced crias with the coloration that the sire threw, and we were just unfortunate enough early on to breed her with males who threw white.  Taz was another of Hannah's show llamas for a little while, and then became one of our breeding females for a few years.

Once we finally got color, we really got color!  Cataleya is almost a carbon copy of her sire.  She was my show girl for a season, and did really well in walking fiber!

Another color mystery for you...Catallegre (below) is a FULL sibling to Catastrophie (above)!  We were obviously hoping for another reverse appy girl, but got this little tux boy instead.  He may be the most correct of Cattera's crias...he was a lot of fun to show for the few months that we had him.

After Catallegre was born, we decided Cattera needed a break from being a mom.  Instead, she got to be a grandma!  Here she is with Catastrophie's first cria, who looked remarkably like her!

This is Cattera at the ripe old age of 12, the summer before she left to go to her new home in Florida.

And the very last Cattera cria, Coosada Moon.  He also is a carbon copy of his sire, and was born at Cattera's new home in Florida.  I for one was not really sad to see her go, but it was still good to know that she would have such a great home!