lamas for packing ?
 

I,m thinking about getting a pair of lamas for pack animals. Each can carry 100lbs.
They can get further into thick timber than mules, and can be trained to load up in the back of a truck. They also eat very little compared to mules, and no pricey vet bills or shoeing .
Any one know what exactly what the annual cost of horses or mules are.
If anyone has used lamas what are the disavantages other than not being able to ride them. I usually dont have to hunt more than 2 miles from the truck for elk so walking is not a hassle.

RE: lamas for packing ?
 

I hate them camels. They can carry a whoppin' 60 lbs, max. They walk slower than a human, an' have to stop every 45 minutes or they simply plop down on the trail blockin' everybody on the back trail. Horses an' mules hate their smell, an' often won' t pass ' em. Sometimes throwin' a dangerous fit or jumpin' over a cliff. Never seen a llama carry much of an' elk. I do wonder if they wouldn' t be good eatin' . You will do two or three times the distance easily with horses an' mules, carryin' three times the load. Sure beats makin' several trips at a snails pace to git yer game an' camp out.

RE: lamas for packing ?
 

Save your money! I had one and he weren' t worth a sh!+!

He spits and mouths everthang he can get his lips to. Always spittin at you. Ate every water hose I had. The wires on the tractor. He even ate the hose on the sprayer. I thought there was enough poisin left in the sprayer to kill him, but it didn' t. Was bent over trimmin Rosco' s hooves and the bastard came up behind and bit me on the thigh. I tried to stick that hammer right thru his skull and he went crazy. Ran all over the farm. Took 6 shots with the 30-06 to finally stop him.

Met a vanquero down in Patigonia on a pack trip and he had his trained right. but mine weren' t worth a flip.

PS BJ they taste just like they smell. Can' t even make decent sausage with them.

RE: lamas for packing ?
 

Damn filthy no-account creatures. Outta be outlawed from the Rocky (by God) mountins!


Save the elk! Open llama meat feed grounds for the wolves!

RE: lamas for packing ?
 

I would rather have horses or mules but where I hunt you would have to cut a trail 3/4 of a mile. as for the ones that lay down and block the trails I would have clubbed the owner not lama. Theres no excuse for blocking the trail any aninmal can be moved with the right persuation.
Sound like Im gona have to go packing with some one who knows how to handle them this summer to figure out if there worth haveing .
If I get some Ill make damb sure the there trained to get the hell out of the way for you Beaver Jack!;)

RE: lamas for packing ?
 

You say you' re only hunting 2 miles or less from your truck. In my experience, you could easily have the meat out at those distances by packing it out on your back. (and a buddy) By the time you get back to camp and load animals and stuff, then get back to hunting spot and unload animals and get them ready to pack out elk meat you' ve lost half a day. This doen' t include having to break trail for the critters either. This goes for horses, mules, llamas, or any critters. We have 3 horses in camp for packing meat, and I can honestly say they have been rarley used in the last 12 yrs. It' s not because we don' t kill anything, it' s because of the hassle. But once you get beyond the 3 1/2 mile range horses and mules are invaluable. elknut1

RE: lamas for packing ?
 

BeaverJack - CAPT BRAD ; You guys must be outfitters ??

Llamas are absoltuely fantastic animals to pack with. They will carry 100 pounds for a few miles of good trail, 75 pounds all day in rough country. The ones I use walk my ass off staying on my heels the whole trip. They have NEVER spit nor kicked at me in 4 years os using them. Very easy to care for, on the trail and at home from what I know about keeping them (I rent mine every fall) As for being tasty - I at a llama roast one fall and found it every bit as good as venison - kinda had a lamb taste.

So WESTANER - these negative things being said about llamas are FAR from the truth. Like everything in this world you can get good ones and bad ones, but the good, well trained llamas are worth their weight in gold and much better than horses or mules IMO. I walked out two years ago with each llamas having 100 pounds or better on their back, in a literal downpour of rain and the trail was very rough, maybe a 8-10 % grade, muddy and slick - I fell 2 or 3 times and the llamas very rarely even slipped. Amazing how they can traverse tough ground.

I' m renting 4 llamas for 4 guys this fall again - wouldn' t do it any other way (have used horses - hated them)

RE: lamas for packing ?
 

I doubt they are better than Horses or Mules for packing in fact I am sure they are not. There is good and bad in every animal especially pack animals. There are plenty of misbehavers out there Horse,Mule,Llama. Llamas if they are well trained and experienced make excellent pack animals for a small hunting operation, and if the terrain is extra steep and the owner is on foot.

RE: lamas for packing ?
 

I aint no outfitter. I take a few guys huntin every year, some from this board. It' s all in fun and fellowship. Like the guy that started this thread, we rarly get more than 2 miles from the truck. The biggest animal we might get would be a bear of 400 lbs. I know there' s bigger ones out there, but 400 would be the exception, not the rule. Were not alowed to quarter anything but elk. and were a little short on elks around here. I think there was 5 killed in the state last year.

We drag our deer and bears out as they must be intact when checked.(except they can be feild dressed). We don' t pack them.

I drug a deer about 5 miles when i was about 17. It wasnt fun. A mule will do 10 times a lama and is really no harder to maintain. And he don' t eat any less than a lama especially if part of the lama' s diet consist of your equipment.

RE: lamas for packing ?
 

Damn hippie goat packers.

RE: lamas for packing ?
 

Beaverjack - You got horses don' t you ? And when they see llamas they roll their eyes into the sockets, foam at the mouth, buck/kick and take you for a ride ! LOL ! Horses are stupid like that unless they live around llamas. I have NEVER had a llama spook. Never had one buck, kick, bite or spit. I did have one last year that was a true mtn llamas - he had his nose at the back of my neck all the way up the mtns - my kind of llama.

RE: lamas for packing ?
 

First read this and thought you were talking about packing a lama pistol!!

Anyway, I wouldn' t get caught dead using a llama as a pack animal, the other guy' s 60# allottment is being pretty generous, and the hassle of handling them is worse than with mules or burrows by far; horses, mules, burrows, other equine species think for themselves about what you' re out there doing, once they get the picture of what the objective is, they' re great animals to work with, llamas never figure it out, and they get side tracked easily, one experience we had with one, it walked off while we were grubbing (eating) chasing a butterfly, then when the owner yelled at it, it looked like it woke up out of a trance, and was spooked, so it took the rest of the afternoon to capture the dang thing again!!! Our horses were content to wait for us and mill around grazing nearby.

RE: lamas for packing ?
 

Normal is right. Ain' t no horse or mule gonna foam at the mouth an' act a nut less he has a reason. The troublesome animals are the novice ones. They ain' t pros like mine. I' ve worked with mules that will stop dead if an obstacle is too narrow for their load. Now that is a thinkin' animal. No dang goat is gonna do that. I' ve seen mules fully loaded easily walk over a rocky pass that would ' cause lesser animals to die with their heart in their throat. Buckin' and puttin' up a fuss ain' t normal for trained animals. But them camels don' t have a cooperative bone in their bodies. They even look like they think they' re too good to even be on the same trail with humans. 60 lbs is pushin' it. My dog can carry more.

RE: lamas for packing ?
 

What do you guys smoke out west :D

The llamas I have used have carryed up to and over 100 pounds each for several miles. NEVER have they given us ANY trouble. I go out of my way to get off the trails with my llamas when horses are coming and the horses spook none the less. Llamas walk in almost a straight line - their feet stepping very close together, They know their pack size too - never trying to walk between trees they won' t fit through. Very intelligent animals. They have splayed , almost padded hooves that allow them to get around much better IMO than a shoed horse or mule. I tell ya, nothing like them.

Besides, real hunters don' t ride, they walk !! [:o][:o][:o]

RE: lamas for packing ?
 

You' d spook too if you saw a hairy, unnatural creature with a snake' s neck, a duck' s body, an' a showgirl' s eyelashes. If god had meant for them creatures to be roamin' the Rocky mountings, he woulda sobbered up an' laid waste to ' em long ago, an' we' d have llama fossils layin' ' round with the dinosaurs.

RE: lamas for packing ?
 

Beaverjack - Did you know that the horses went extinct about 10,000 years ago in North America and were reintroduced by the Spanish a few hundred years ago ? The horses we have today are no more or less unnatural than llamas. Do you ever hunt pheasant, chuckar or grouse ? They aint native either as are a lot of animals we hunt and fish we catch.

Its okay to be angry about a superior pack animal getting more and more popular - its a natural human reaction.

RE: lamas for packing ?
 

I figure the good lord got pissed cause injuns weren' t shoein' horses an' ruinin' some good animals. So he made ' em extinct. The spanyards were a religeous bunch of tin heads, so the lord got them to bring back the horses so the injuns could thin out the buffalo herds, while lettin' the tin heads thin out the injuns a lil' too. He didn' t count on the blue bellies shootin' all the great herds to totally ruin the injun way of life. I figur the injuns were god' s chosen people on this continent. Like the jews, he couldn' t stay mad at ' em forever, jus' 10,000 years or so.

RE: lamas for packing ?
 

If indians had had llamas and modern compound bows, they' d have beaten the white men and we' d not be having this discussion.

Ya' ll kill some big elk this fall and post pics of them - and BTW, llamas are fantastic animals regardless of what these yahoos say !

RE: lamas for packing ?
 

Jus' use lots of garlic on ' em.

RE: lamas for packing ?
 

ya should get the hairy one at least El paca,s?

ITs a 2 lama nite?

Then when you get sick of them , not only a few nice roasts , but maybe a sweater or mittens in the deal.

||||if you saw a hairy, unnatural creature with a snake' s neck, a duck' s body, an' a showgirl' s eyelashes. |||| lol BJ;)... if the wemonn are rare enoough it could be a wife.

RE: lamas for packing ?
 

Rented llamas for the first time last season. Most of the negative posts are way off and are obviously based on experience with untrained animals that were more suited for pets than pack animals. The llamas we rented packed 40 lbs in each panier and top loaded 20 making a total of 100lbs. We were in some pretty rugged country in Southwest CO and I couldn' t begin to out walk one of the things. They never once spit at us and the trainer explained that the animals that do this have been raised as pets and shown affection. They treat their animals well but they are purely pack animals that are well trained and routinely given work outs. They also never layed down on us while packing. They did not spook at the slightest whim like some horses sometimes will. He did tell us that horses did not care for them though. He also told us that most bears didn' t care for the things either and would normally avoid them completely. I know the camp next to us had been seeing bear close to camp everyday until we showed up. After we moved our camp we found out that they had spotted more bears again. If you plan to hunt bears that isn' t a good thing, but if you don' t want bears destroying an elk camp it could work out great. The bear thing may have been purely coincidental but that was our experience with using them. I would gladly use them again.

We did talk to an outfitter who would pack us in with horses if we wanted. And he did explain that he could carry more awkwardly shaped loads due to the larger size of his paniers. And of course as mentioned you can ride a horse. I would also make the assumption that there is the same difference between a typical riding horse and a good mountain horse used for packing, and I have very limited experience with the everyday riding kind and none with a good pack animal.

My problem with the horses is I have very little experience with them and unless the horse was near dead it would probably kill me in the mountains because of some idiot with a llama laying in the middle of the trail. LOL

RE: lamas for packing ?
 

Hobbes,

Where do you rent your llamas from in SW Co? How much do they tend to run? Where do you hunt with them? Thanks for the info.

RE: lamas for packing ?
 

Tenderfoots.

RE: lamas for packing ?
 

LOL ! You' re the one riding the horses to make the hunt easier, not us !!

RE: lamas for packing ?
 

No, I' m the one buckin' hay bales in -30 weather, re-shoein' while 1200 lb critters lean on my back, an' huntin' 5 times the territory you camel jockies cover.

RE: lamas for packing ?
 

We rented from Buckhorn Llamas in Durango. Their main office is in Northern CO but they rent from a farm in Durango also. The animals were $40 per day per llama. We also had to pay for an orientation class and you can rent a livestock pen that fits in the back of your truck.

I am not furtunate enough to live in the West and I have never owned horses so to use horses I would have to pay an outfitter. I prefer more of a do it yourself hunt so I chose the llamas. Although we didn' t kill any elk, if we had we could have gotten those llamas into anything to pack them out. We lead them through some pretty nasty blowdowns a couple times and up and down some very steep terain where there weren' t any trails. The horses we checked into would be used to pack us in and we could pay to have a horse left with us, but as I said, a 1200 pound horse would kill me. The llamas required no food to be packed in and rarely would even take a drink. They eat just about anything around them.

If you want to learn more about the llamas go to Bowsite.com and go to the Elk forums. There are a lot of guys there that use llamas.

RE: lamas for packing ?
 

LOL AGAIN ! You don' t have a clue what I do for a living or what condition I am in, do you ?

Hobbes - I rented from the same people for several years - excellent animals. I am renting from another guy in Pagosa Springs this year - we' ll see how they do.

RE: lamas for packing ?
 

Good Recipie:

Lama quarter
2 onions
2 ribs celery
2 carrots
2 quarts stock
2 tbs butter

melt butter add onions, celery, carrots and sweat.

Throw lama away and go to the store and buy a chicken.
add the chicken to the pot along with the stock and sit back and watch the wolves turn their noses up at the lama you threw away and enjoy the chicken.

Wash with a cold beer

I love camp cookin