Royal Ranch Royalty

I hope you are all having a wonderful weekend, it is proving to be a beautiful one here in Colorado, not that there are that many that aren't.  MGF Fortune Hunter is his name, but Hunter is his game.  No really, Hunter is what he goes by.  Sorry, sometimes I'm such a dork I kill myself.

I have to kind of chuckle when I see Hunter, because here this spectacular llama, dirty and packing, amongst all of these "rescue misfits".  When we first got him he knew it too.  He is one of the few llamas that I have that is papered, or at least that the papers made it as far as he did, and he is one of only two that I paid for.  

Actually, Hunter was my deciding llama.  I was debating whether to go with females or males, since you can't house both together successfully without a lot of fencing and brawling, but that's another story.  If I had gone with females for packing it would have gone entirely against industry standards, but I didn't care about that so much as I fell in love with MGF Fortune Hunter.

I would never have been able to afford him, but lucky for me, he was the product of a divorce liquidation.  The husband had told the wife to sell nothing below $1000, so she immediately offered him to me for $750!  And the funniest thing of all, was that Hunter was one of the ones that was supposed to go for much more than that even!

Well, as I have pointed out many times since then, it is such a good thing I ended up with males, because almost all rescues are males since they are worth less money and are harder to keep.  But, to a person like me, who only has males, and uses them for packing, it works out perfectly!

As for the fancy name, that comes from his paperwork.  It is very similar to a dogs pedigree, instead of the American Kennel Club (AKC), it comes from the International Llama Registry (ILR).  The first three initials are the code for the farm that Hunter was born at, so it is a very efficient way of keeping track of the llamas, it is just a shame that not more people register them or keep the paper work with the actual animal.

Okay, so a few things that make Hunter a higher quality llama than the next boy.  In terms of his conformation, Hunter is perfect.  He has the all sought after banana ears, well set eyes and just the right length of neck.  His back is long and straight, and his tail sits on his rump where it is supposed to.  This is one area other llamas tend to have problems with.  Hunter also has beautiful wool, which I am diligent about shearing and getting to someone who will do something with, but that is as far as it goes.

Hunter had only had the halter on twice when he arrived at The Royal Ranch, and was quite wild, and I was a newbie.  He took one look at the pack I tried to put on that beautiful wool and looked at me like I had lost my mind, like "Don't you know crazy woman, I'm supposed to be in the show ring!".  Within just two training sessions though this boy and I had it down pat.  He is one of the most willing llamas we have ever owned actually.  A little spoiled maybe, but I have no idea how that happened...