Llama Biography #16: Autumn Hill's Catlinite

Well I hate to do "biography" posts 2 weeks in a row, but I'm severely short on time today so I apologize...

On to llama #16, Autumn Hill's Catlinite.

Catlinite at 1 month of age.

If you happened to read last week's llama biography post, you may be having a deja-vu moment.  Catlinite is almost a perfect twin to Catalina!

Catlinite at 2 weeks of age.  Catalina is right behind him.

Catlinite was born to SHAG Cattera in October 2004.  His sire is SHAG Guido.

SHAG Cattera, Catlinite's dam.

SHAG Guido, Catlinite's sire.

Catlinite's birth was quite the show...both of my grandmothers were over at my parents' house for dinner on a Sunday afternoon, when Cattera decided to give birth.  So the whole family (minus me, but I don't remember where I was) got to see this little guy be born!

Newborn Catlinite!

Even though he shares a lot of physical similarities with his many half-siblings, Catlinite has one unique point...he was the first Cattera baby that I ever trained!  Cattera was originally my sister's llama, and thus my sister trained most of Cattera's babies for 4-H.  By the time Catlinite came along, my sister wasn't as involved in 4-H, so he became my project for 2005.  He was also the first male I had shown in 4-H.

He had a great set of hooked ears!

Quite the good-looking guy!

We had quite the interesting show season.  He never placed great in halter, but he was passable at performance.  And we had an awesome costume (he was a sled dog, and even pulled a sled!) for the 4-H fair.  Unfortunately I don't have a picture on my computer...

Catlinite and I at the 2005 Western Ohio Triple Crown.

Catlinite and I at the 2005 Hillsdale Hobo Show.

Catlinite sold in the fall of 2005 to an alpaca farm in Ohio.  He later found a new home with his half-sister Cataleya in New Mexico!

Catlinite with Cattera, winter 2004/2005.

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!