Llamas have been a part of the landscape at Groveland Farm since 1988. We fell in love with these wide-eyed, woolly creatures early on, but it is only recently that our numbers have grown to the extent that we are able to offer some of them for sale.

Our breeding program is geared toward producing well-balanced, conformation ally correct llamas with even temperaments and sound genetics. Our females are good mothers who produce plenty of milk and no birthing problems. We are also breeding for a variety of fiber types, suitable for blending with wool or other fibers, or hand-spinning into yarn. For those who are new to llamas, you may not know that there are trends and fashions in llamas. When we first bought, about all you could find was white llamas, so people started breeding for dark colored fleeces. Then, after there were lots of dark llamas, you heard, “Oh, another brown llama”, with the yawn implicit in their tone of voice. These days, ringlets are all the rage.

Well, a person can try to chase those fashions or set their own fashions. I guess I’m brave enough to say that we don’t kneel down to the high-dollar mavens of style. Enough of those folks have gone out of business in the last few years to make one think that maybe alot of them were in it for the money. That leaves many of us who are in this for the love of the animals and the heck with chasing this fashion trend or that. This is my message: I want a good, strong animal who isn’t too extreme in any way. I want straight legs, strong toplines, good tailset, and athletic animals with good dispositions. There is a ‘look’ I like, which you can see from the photos on our site.

Our blood lines include English, Canadian, Chilean and North American genetics; good, proven, solid breeding stock which has stood the test of time. I don’t have anything against the folks who are breeding or buying the Peruvian or Bolivian South American imports, but you won’t find me standing in that line. I like to have some track record behind the animals and some of the imports have been so recent that they don’t have any provenance. Speaking my mind this way may make some folks mad at me, but I do want people who do business with us to know our philosophy.

Our senior herdsire is Embarcadero (Deacon’s White Knight x Sable of Tunitas Creek). We have known and loved Embarcadero for years; bred to him, and bought his daughters from Loren Hoppe. In 1998, I was able to convince Loren to sell Embarcadero to us, and we are proud to announce that Groveland Farm is the new home of this great stud. He is half Chilean and came from the fabled Tunitas Creek ranch at Half Moon Bay (now sold).

Barco has a most regal carriage and moves beautifully; he also has fabulous soft fiber. He is a breeder’s dream, as he is extremely easy to work with, knows his business and gets the job done.

We have several Embarcadero daughters and their offspring in our herd, so we needed a boy to breed to them. We have been doing ‘outsides’ for several years. Now we have a new strong herdsire prospect that we believe will cross well with the Embarcadero lines.

Our most recent addition to the breeding program is a young fellow born September 23, 1998. He is a Senior Ricardo son out of a Quebec daughter. His name is Aspen Hills Montage. Montage is super silky soft with very wavy fiber that floats when he moves. He’s got some growing-up to do, but already shows that conformation, presence and carriage we look for in a stud.

Our dam side is pretty much right where I want it. Eleven years of breeding and acquisitions have provided us with about 15 females who are joys to be around. We don’t want a large herd! I do most of the llama work myself, including the breeding, so I need a group that is manageable for me. And I want to keep it fun. When there are too many animals for me to cope with adequately, I get all stressed out, and what’s the point of THAT? I can go to the office and get that, for no charge! So here at home, especially since I got sick, we want a nice manageable number. I think I’m there (you can imagine Rusty wiping the sweat off his forehead – “Whew”).

Since we have sheep as well as llamas, many people have asked if we use our llamas as ‘Guard Llamas’. This would be a good place to address that issue. Llamas are prey animals, the same as sheep are. My main gripe with the concept of putting llamas with a flock of sheep is the idea that the llamas can ‘guard’ the sheep. I would much prefer to have them referred to as “Watch Llamas”.

I think that fits the function that they perform much better. From a perusal of our site, you can see that we also raise and train livestock guardian dogs (LGD), and we have seen that llamas in the same pasture with a LGD will often see a potential problem sooner than the dog. Used this way, I have no problem condoning this use for llamas. It takes a special type of personality in a llama to be ‘guardy’ and this is often inconsistent with the way I want my llamas to behave around me and my other animals.