Momma llama, Stunning, steps in to take the blow

I love to watch and learn from the animals as they interact with me and each other on the farm. I witnessed something very neat a couple nights ago while feeding the llamas. My adult llamas know the routine when I get ready to drop hay down the chutes into the feeders and into the aisle of the barn. The llamas are usually loose in the barn aisle during this routine, so I look down first to make sure no llamas are in the path of the hay that is about to hit the barn aisle floor. If someone is under the chute, I can say "girls, hay coming," and they will back out of the way. The crias don't yet know the routine though.

Tuesday evening, Lily was standing directly under the hay chute. A partial bale of hay hitting on her back would not have felt good, and could have possibly injured her. Her momma, Hard Rock's Simply Stunning, was alert to the situation and was several feet away when she heard me make the hay announcement. When she realized her daughter wasn't moving out of the way, she quickly came over for the rescue. She gave a nudge and didn't get a result, so in her assumption that she needed to make a fast decision, she stretched her long neck and huge frame over her daughter and waited! That sweet momma llama was going to take the hit of the hay on her own back and neck in order to save her daughter from the pain and shock. I just set the hay down in the mow and cried for a bit. I hadn't seen something that beautiful in a little while.

I wasn't going to drop hay on my sweet cria, Lily. But her momma didn't know that. She didn't know that I had seen her daughter standing in the way and that I was going to wait for her to move. The love and care of a momma - llama or otherwise - runs deep.

by Vickie J. Maris
Heartsong Llamas of Dawn of Promise Farm
http://www.dawnofpromisefarm.com/