Unlike the saying implies, llamas come with little drama — they are rather easy animals to work with. 

Holden Cooper, of Powell, has eight llamas, already double what he bought last December.

“I bought them from Utah,” Cooper said, adding, “I just started with the four. I bought two girls that were pregnant, and then two geldings that had some minor packing experience.”

In the Big Horn Basin, it is rather common to use horses during a hunting trip. But, Cooper purchased the llamas after hearing some horror stories about using pack horses while hunting, so he instead opted to use the South American pack animal.

Cooper found his llamas online at KSL Classifieds — an online sales  platform. After picking them up, the journey began. 

He grew up in a cattle operation and found that raising llamas was a rather easy feat. 

“They are super easy keepers,” Cooper said. “Raising cattle compared to the llamas, I mean, they’re just completely different. They don’t really need very many vaccines. They don’t really have a lot of illnesses to watch out for either.”

Cooper keeps his llamas on pasture throughout the spring, and summer, and feeds them a couple of squares of grass hay during the winter months. 

While caring for them was easy, training llamas was a completely new concept to Cooper. 

“I had no clue what I was doing when I started,” Cooper said. “I asked a lady… who runs a packing business out of Lyman, then [watched] YouTube videos.”

After lots of trial and error, Cooper found the llamas attitude very easy to work with. 

“They’re super curious, they’re super smart and they’re only really timid when they see something for the first time,” Cooper said. 

Cooper has grown his production since the start. His herd is slowly increasing, and he has plans for more in the future. 

Cooper hopes to have a registered breeding program. When the time is right he will get his own stud, and begin a registered herd. 

Building Cooper’s herd to a registered standard will only help his future. While he currently uses his llamas for personal use, he hopes to one day shoot for something much bigger. 

“Right now, I kind of just want to raise them for myself,” Cooper said. “Then I’ll be able to raise them, get them pack trained, take them to the mountains, and then sell them when they’re, you know, at their prime, and people don’t have to worry about the hassle of training them.”