SASKATOON – Looking at the llamas she entered in the Grey Cup parade Nov. 18, Jean Wright shakes her head and laughs.
“It takes a lot of work to get them cleaned up for the show.”
She and her son Kevin will spend a week grooming four llamas. They will have to brush each one before washing and after, then blow dry the animals twice. The first time to dry them and again to fluff up their coats. Then they will put the llamas in the heated barn for at least two days with fans blowing constantly to dry the llamas.
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“I think a lot of llama breeding is pride in ownership,” she said.
And pride she has.
Enough pride to go through all of this so “people (can) see them to appreciate how beautiful they are.”
She said if they weren’t so well-behaved, she might not go to all the trouble. But Nobility, Cally, Quintana, and Persephone are quiet, co-operative animals. When they travel they usually lie down in the trailer. And she doesn’t think the hustle and bustle of the Grey Cup crowd will bother them.
Wright’s love of llamas is evident. She knows each animal’s personality and treats them more like domestic pets than livestock. When she has to stay overnight on her way to a sale, Wright has been known to bring Nobility into the hotel room rather than leave him in the trailer.
A member of the Saskatchewan Llama Association, Wright said she would like to spend more time showing her llamas.
Association secretary Pat Bell said they try to visit farm fairs and trade shows as much as possible to promote llamas. But individual breeders like Wright, “do a tremendous amount of promote the industry.”
When they have time. Since Wright quit her job as a nurse and moved to a farm to breed llamas full time, “there’s so many farm kinds of jobs to do that there isn’t a lot of time left.”
Still, she doesn’t regret her decision. It is something she can do without a lot of help from others and there aren’t a lot of expenses.
The initial purchase was the most expensive part, said Wright. She paid $78,000 for the stud llama alone.
That was a good investment, she said. There are always buyers for her llamas, most paying at least $20,000.
