The Many Hats of Ping

December may not be the best month for any animal to be born in the northern hemisphere, but in middle of a blizzard with windchill dragging the temperature down to a skin-cracking 28 C below zero, anything that survives is going to be tough!

In such circumstances did ‘Ping’ make her arrival into the cruel world.



Pinguino was not only born into an environment suitable for penguins, but she even dressed for the occasion in suitable woolly black jacket and white woolen shirt!

The tiny llama had only just hit the ground when she was spotted, but even so, she must have been exposed to the extreme weather conditions for at least half an hour. We rushed her into the deep-straw floored shelter and dragged the generator alongside to power a hairdryer hoping to dry her quickly. Even this couldn’t compete with the icy drafts cutting through the walls and she was once more wrapped in a blanket and whisked into our studio for drying in front of the wood stove.

Re-united with her mother back in the shelter, we anxiously waited for Ping to have her first and all important feed. In the meantime, cardboard and blankets were tacked up around the walls to prevent the cruel wind from sapping the young llama’s essential body heat.


Frostbite and Pneumonia



Ping made it through the night and seemed OK for a few days, but then her ears flopped and she started a disconcerting wheeze and chest rattle.

She was rapidly losing weight too, down around 4 pounds from her 29lb birth weight.

The Oldest Remedy in the Book - Urine

Hauled once more into the warm studio, Ping was provided with a large cardboard box, which she quickly decided was not suitable for living, but perfect for a toilet.

Llamas are incredibly easy to house-train, preferring to have one small area set aside for a toilet. As soon as she stepped through the little door made in the side of the box we could shove a bucket under her back end and catch all the produce ……or nearly all! Plenty of newspaper and a polythene under-sheet advisable!

At her first squatting, we swooped an old saucepan under her to catch the urine and added about 3cc of her urine to a bottle of milk. An old 330cl beer bottle is the ideal vessel for milk feeding (plastic bottles collapse under the phenomenal sucking power of a cria!). Lamb-feeding teats are readily available from feed stores and fit the beer bottles snuggly.

Getting a new-born llama to feed from a bottle is a trial of patience, but knowing that a baby animal usually needs darkness to start feeding, we invented a series of devices that pretended to be mummy! Sticking the bottle under an armpit with the teat barely showing started the ball rolling. Once Ping had pushed her face into the warmth and darkness of the sweater she was…..eventually, happy to feed. Later a couple of sticks taped to the corner of the cardboard box were used to support the sleeves of the same sweater. Poke the teat between the sleeves and feeding usually commenced after a minute of poking around.

Once Ping was used to the bottle feeding we only had to place a hand over her eyes and she would take a bottle.



Ping was urinating hourly and for the next six hours we would catch her urine and feed 2 or 3cc back into her bottle ready for the next feed. 2cc of ionic silver was also added to every other feed to support her weakened immune system.

Learn more about urine therapy

In less than 24 hours the snuffling, croaking, rattling breath and distress of the pneumonia had vanished and Ping was back on her feet and full of llama bounce!

We decided to make up a bed on the floor of the studio and spent the next 10 days sharing the room with Ping, attending to toilet and feeding at 2 or 3 hour intervals throughout the night. Each day she was taken back out to her mother for milk and bonding, but the bitterly cold weather continued, with temperatures in the region plummeting to -38 C. Ping spent most of her time indoors until she had regained her birth weight and was fighting fit.



Unfortunately, her ears didn’t fare as well as her lungs. The upper 4 inches of each ear was so badly frozen, that they never recovered. The ears cracked and bled and our repeated attempts to create hats and ear-warmers were not welcomed by her or the rest of the herd! So desperate was Ping to rid herself of the many fluffy, fleecy or woolly contrivances that she made her ears crack and bleed even more. Honey and vitamin-E oil eased the pain a little, but she refused to wear a hat. For reference though – the most successful hat was made from the leg of a nylon stocking stretched over the head, holding a pad of her mothers fibre over each ear. Un-sexy and zero street-cred, but definitely warm!

Frostbitten Penguin

Winter here in central BC has been incredibly mild so far and despite several dumps of snow, nothing has stayed around for long and the grass has continued to grow and the Llamas continued to graze the cut oat field - that was, until Friday.

Friday trumpeted the arrival of winter with vicious winds blowing straight out of the Arctic, making minus 16 degrees C feel more like -27.

Fine powdery snow arrived horizontally, drifting around everything and hampering any attempt at movement.

.......and Sodah chose THIS day to bring into the world her first baby!

Of course, she couldn't have the baby in the cozy hay shed, Llamas prefer to be out in the open for such events. Luckily, the writhing wet mass was spotted within a minute of landing in the snow and was rushed into the haystall and wrapped in blankets and towels.

The spiteful wind found every chink in the woodwork and opening eyes in the blizzard was painful at times. Cardboard and blankets were quickly stapled to the walls and the generator dragged to the haystall to power a hair dryer to assist in fluffing up the coat.

The cold was so savage though, that even the hair dryer couldn't cope. Our little winter cria was then bundled up and rushed to our work studio to dry in front of the furnace.



After an hour of heavenly warmth and having learned the art of standing up, she had to be returned to the stall with her anxious mother for the all important colostrum feed.

The tempestuous weather continued the following day with the air temperature dropping to -25 C, so mother and cria remained confined and frequently monitored. Unfortunately, SoDah refused to allow her baby to feed on the second day and once more she was hauled indoors for a bottle feed as she appeared weak and was constantly shivering......hardly surprising really!

We are not great advocates of interference, but at this stage tube feeding had to be considered as the baby would not take a bottle. We gave Sodah one more attempt and THANKFULLY she allowed her baby to feed, perhaps due to the anxiety of absence.

Unfortunately, at some time during the proceedings, the cria's ears succumbed to frostbite and now hang limply. This is always a danger with newborns in winter here.

If only she had been born the day before, she could have enjoyed warmth, sunshine and grass. I have read that Llamas choose the best time and weather to give birth......but then again SoDah has always been the 'difficult teenager'!

....and the baby's name? Pinguino seemed appropriate - evenly marked black and white - our own little penguin!