Llama Biography #22: Autumn Hill's Khatadyn

The last of our fall 2005 crias was Autumn Hill's Khatadyn.  He's also one of my biggest success stories!

Autumn Hill's Khatadyn.

In 2003 we tried breeding April to the very famous Tuna Catcher at Mark Smith Farms, but for some reason she didn't take.  So the next year we decided to use the breeding with one of our maiden females, Autumn Hill's Catanna.

Autumn Hill's Catanna, June 2005.

Tuna Catcher.

In late October 2005 I came home early from school one day (gotta love fall break!) to find Catanna out in the field with a new baby.  He was doing great, already up and nursing.  However as the day went on, Catanna still hadn't passed the placenta.  It appeared that she or another llama had stepped on it and drained it, so it wasn't heavy enough to pass on its own.  We called the vet, who said to gently pull on it until it came out.  **BIG MISTAKE!  NEVER PULL ON THE PLACENTA!**  My sister and I loaded Catanna in the chute, and my sister started gently pulling.  The placenta seemed to be coming out...and then Catanna's uterus came out with it.  She had prolapsed her uterus.  We made another frantic call to the vet, who said to wrap the uterus in a plastic bag to keep it clean.  We sat like that for a couple hours waiting for the vet to get there.  Eventually he showed up and stuffed Catanna's uterus back inside.  Luckily she recovered nicely, but she did prolapse again with her next cria, so she was retired from breeding.

Khatadyn at a few weeks of age.

Back to Khatadyn...  It was evident early on that he was something special.  I advertised him and our other male cria at our stalls at the North American show a few weeks later, and a man from Tennessee  took interest.  He decided that Khatadyn was the one for him, and we delivered him shortly after he was weaned.  I never even got to show him!

Khatadyn at 3 months.

Khatadyn at 6 months.

But his new owner showed him, and Khatadyn did amazing!  He earned several Champions in the few years he was shown, and got his ALSA ROM and Halter Champion awards.

Khatadyn is one of the  many llamas I'd like to get back, but I've lost touch with his owner.  Hopefully he is still loved!

Llama Biography #21: Autumn Hill's Inali

I have to admit it, Inali was one of my favorite llamas.  If only he had been a girl I would've been set for life!

Fuzzy boy!

When we got our new herdsire, Randallama's Cherokee, in 2004, we bred him to a bunch of our females that fall.  Alder Crest April Showers was one of those females.  April is pretty much my favorite llama, so I was excited to have another baby from her.

April, Inali's dam.

Cherokee, Inali's sire.

When the fall of 2005 came around, we had two Cherokee crias (Trillium and Catastrophie) born in late September.  Just three days after Catastrophie was born, I came home to find a baby running around with April.  As I was walking from the house out to the barn I kept hoping that it was a girl, but of course it turned out to be a boy!  But he was adorable!  April has a good track record of throwing babies with big bone and heavy fiber, and Inali got all of it!  He is built just like her.

Just a few hours old.

Mom and baby.

Fuzzy boy growing up!

Such a ham!

Trillium sold right after her first show in 2006, so Inali became my show boy for the year.  He didn't do great in halter because he was pretty small (although he did get a few 3rd places in large classes at the Indy Open and Llama Showcase), but by the time the 4-H fair came around he was doing great in performance!  We won Grand Champion Senior Performance, Grand Champion Showmanship, and Grand Champion Costume at the Shelby County Fair.  Unfortunately our show season was cut short, as Inali sold at the Llama Showcase show and went to his new home in northern Indiana shortly after the 4-H fair.

Shortly after being shorn.

Inali has a wonderful home where he is loved and spoiled.  He actually lives with a bunch of horses.  I went back a year after I sold him to shear him, and it was scary how much he looked like his mom!

Inali (now affectionally called Chewy) with his horse buddy.

Llama Biography #20: Autumn Hill's Catastrophie

Unlike her name suggests, Autumn Hill's Catastrophie (aka Taz) was anything but a disaster...in fact she was one of the most gorgeous and sweet llamas to ever be born on our farm.

Autumn Hill's Catastrophie at the 2007 Ohio State Fair.

About 6 months after Randallama's Cherokee joined our farm, we decided to breed our best three females to him.  The first was Little May Flowers, who delivered the beautiful Autumn Hill's Trillium the next fall.  The second was SHAG Cattera, the dam to Autumn Hill's Catastrophie.  And last but not least was May's own dam, Alder Crest April Showers, who delivered Autumn Hill's Inali.

SHAG Cattera, Taz's dam.

Randallama's Cherokee, Taz's sire.

Taz and her two half siblings, Trillium (L) and Inali (R).

Almost a week after Trilly was born, I came home from school to find the most gorgeous spotted baby with Cattera.  All I could think as I was walking across the pasture to see the cria was "let it be a girl, let it be a girl!", and it was!  Taz was gorgeous from the start, and quite a big baby.  She had a lot of fun playing with her two half siblings and the other cria we had born that fall.  Babies are always so much more fun in groups!

Newborn Taz with Cattera.

Taz (behind the tree!) with her cria friends.

Taz grew up to be a gorgeous girl, and sweet as can be.  And did I mention huge?  She was absolutely enormous!

Such a sweet girl!

Unfortunately Taz was never a huge fan of the show ring.  She went to her first show (the Western Ohio Triple Crown) with her two half siblings, and managed a respectable placing in a huge Medium Wool Juvenile Female class (Trilly beat her though).  I continued to show her on and off for the next few years, but she really never enjoyed it.  Her fleece did amazing in the shorn and walking fleece classes though, winning several firsts and champions.

Taz at her first show.

Taz winning Reserve Grand walking fleece.

When Taz got older, we knew she had to become part of our breeding program, so we sold her sire Cherokee and bought an unrelated male, MRLF Ridge Runner.  Taz was bred to Ridge in the fall of 2007, and delivered her first cria, Autumn Hill's McKinley the next year.  Taz was a great mom and Mac was adorable!  She was bred back to Ridge again that year, and had Autumn Hill's Annapurna the year after.  Once again a truly stunning cria!

Taz and her first cria, Autumn Hill's McKinley.

Taz and her second cria, Autumn Hill's Annapurna.

After Annie was weaned it was decided that Taz needed to find a new home where she could be better utilized as a breeding female (I was once again downsizing the herd).  My mom about killed me, but Taz found a great home on the East coast and has since delivered a stunning reverse appy daughter!

Llama Biography # 19: Autumn Hill's Trillium

This is another semi-sad biography, but not until the very end...

The next llama to join our herd was Autumn Hill's Trillium.

Autumn Hill's Trillium at about a month old.

Once we got Randallama's Cherokee to be our main herdsire, we quickly let him get to work breeding our females.  Little May Flowers was one of those females, and she was bred to Cherokee in the fall of 2004.

Randallama's Cherokee, Trillium's sire.

Little May Flowers, Trillium's dam.  May was pregnant with Trillium in this picture.

In September 2005, I came home from school one afternoon to find May looking very uncomfortable.  It soon became clear that May definitely was in labor, so I grabbed the neonatal book and birthing kit and camped out in the barn for awhile.  A little while later May delivered a gorgeous true black female cria.  With May's first baby, it took her awhile to figure out that she was responsible for it, so we were careful not to intervene too much with her second baby.  Luckily May was a great mom!

May and Trillium...twins!

I love true black llamas, so this little girl quickly became a favorite.  She also had amazing presence and the most gorgeous fiber.  

Goofy baby!

A very dusty Trillium at 3 months old.  Her half-brother (same sire) Inali is behind her.

Trillium at 4 months old.

Trillium went to her first show in the spring of 2006, the Western Ohio Triple Crown.  Even with not behaving well, she placed 6th in a huge class of Medium Wool Juvenile females.  Friends of ours saw her at the show, and decided that she needed to join their farm.  I was sad to see her go, but was glad she was going to a great home.

Trillium at 7 months old.

Several months after Trillium left the farm, I found out that she had contracted a parasite and died.  It was a huge loss, for both myself and the other farm.  Her legacy does live on though...May was rebred to Cherokee a few years later and had another stunning cria!

May with Trillium's full brother.  He is now a breeding male in Kentucky.

Llama Biography #18: Randallama's Cherokee

Well I made my first chronological mistake...I forgot Cherokee!

Cherokee.

Randallama's Cherokee was purchased from Mark Smith Farms in the summer of 2004.  Our then young herdsire, Navarro, hadn't been able to settle a female, so we needed another male.  Cherokee had been purchased by Mark Smith Farms several years before and used as a breeding male until they acquired the famous Tuna Catcher.  We were happy to add him to our farm!

Cherokee was 3rd at the ALSA Nationals.

Cherokee was a great breeding male for our farm.  He was easy to handle but an aggressive breeder.

Cherokee had great presence and bone.

Cherokee and Navarro never did get along...they fought quite aggressively at first, and anytime one of them got "lucky" after that.  It was always a bit scary to watch them fight...

Cherokee got to work pretty quick after we bought him.  We bred him with 3 females in the fall of 2004, and the crias were born in 2005.  Trillium (May's daughter), Catastrophie (Cattera's daughter), and Inali (April's son) were all quite impressive.

Cherokee's crias, Trillium, Catastrophie, Inali (L to R).

We bred Cherokee to Cattera again in 2006, and Catallegre was born in 2007.  We also bred May to him in 2006, but she was sold before the cria was born.  Surprisingly the baby looked exactly like Catallegre!

Catallegre.

May and her cria, Picasso.

We decided to keep Catastrophie as a breeding female, so Cherokee went to a new home in the spring of 2007.  He's still breeding on a farm down south.

Llama Biography #17: Autumn Hill's Snowflake Obsidian

I'll warn you...this is a sad llama biography.

Llama #17 in our herd was Autumn Hill's Snowflake Obsidian.

Sid had a lot of symptoms of being dysmature (looked premature but wasn't born early): floppy ears, weird fiber, and soft pasterns.

In the spring of 2004, we finally managed to get our junior herdsire, AAL Navarro, to successfully settle a female.  He was bred with Casa Loma's Little Sheba, and in May 2005 she gave birth to a little male cria.

I came home from school one afternoon to find Sheba looking very uncomfortable.  I waited around to see if anything would happen, but she hadn't made any progress by the time my mom got home.  We finally decided that we needed some help, so we loaded Sheba up in the trailer and headed for the vet.

By the time we got there Sheba had managed to deliver the front legs, and the vet quickly pulled the rest of the cria.  The vet thought that Sheba's contractions weren't strong enough for her to deliver the cria, possibly due to a selenium deficiency.  We then spent an hour or so waiting for the cria to stand and nurse, and finally we headed home- Sheba in the trailer and the cria on my lap in the truck.

The night was very stormy, and after hearing a song on the radio I really wanted to name the baby "Rainmaker", but I'd been waiting for awhile to name a black and white cria "Snowflake Obsidian", so I went with that instead.

Sheba and Sid spent several chilly days and nights locked in a pen in the barn, but finally they got to have some time outside in the back yard.

Sheba and Sid.

When Sid was 2 days old, we had our other vet out to the house to draw blood for an IgG test (which evaluates the cria's immune system and how much colostrum they got).  Two more days later, we found out that his IgG was low, and the vet was back out to give him a plasma transfer.  Sid seemed to have turned a corner by the time the vet gave him the plasma, but shortly after he finished the transfer Sid started straining and acting very uncomfortable.  I'm still not sure what happened, but the next day Sid was septic and going downhill fast.  Unfortunately he didn't make it through the night.  I'll never forget my sister's voice on the phone (I was at dance that night) when she was telling me that Sid had just died.  I cried all the way home, and on and off for the next day or 2.

Sid had the coolest fiber...he may have been our first suri!

Sid was the first cria (actually the first llama of any age) that we had ever lost, and it hit all of us very hard.  Sheba cried for days, it was pretty heartbreaking.  We gave Sheba several months to recover, and then bred her for another cria.  She sold before the cria was born, but luckily she easily delivered a healthy cria the next time around!

RIP Sid.

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.