Driving Llamas

Last weekend we took our llamas camping at the beach and had a lot of fun driving them down the beach.  We have two trained cart llamas, one came to us trained the other my youngest daughter trained to drive.  She let me drive him this past weekend.  It is the first time that I have actually driven llamas!  There is a process in training them from picking the right one and starting with ground driving before you actually get in the cart.  Not all llamas are willing to do this.  The person also needs some training too as I found out when I took the reins!  Learning to have the right tension on the reins and a loud enough voice for the llama to hear from behind them.  Remembering to turn wide so the cart doesn't hit something.  It is also very important to have good equipment.  we just purchased another Eagle cart, it is our second one. You need a special halter for driving and of course a good harness for the llama.  Always take your time hitching the cart up so that it is securely on your llama.  The first step in training is to ground drive where you walk behind the llama so they get used to you behind them after that you can hitch the cart up but don't get in yet.  You should walk behind the cart while the llama gets used to it behind them.  Once they are used to the cart you can get in, we found it helpful to use a header, which is a person walking at the front of the llama incase there is a problem.  It is so much fun to be able to drive llamas!

llama fun!!!