They Teach Llamas To Square Dance

They Teach Llamas To Square Dance AG WORLD Ag World 18-5-22 When Iry and Bea Kesling went to Lexington, Kent., last spring to attend the International Llama Association Conference, they took several llamas along with them. They took their square dance caller, too. When they put on a square dance demonstration for the people in attendance, each couple on the dance floor consisted of one person and one llama. "The audience was clapping its hands and having a ball," says Bea. "The llamas seemed to enjoy it, too. They make great square dance partners because they're just naturally friendly and like to cooperate. They can't make the fancy moves that people can make in square dancing. But they can do the basics, like bowing, with a gentle pull on the lead rope. "A lot of people told us that the llama square dancing show was the best part of the conference. We had two sets of dancers so there were eight llamas and eight people dancing." The llamas wore colorful outfits decorated with silver sequins and had matching red, white, and blue bows around their necks. "They were all the same size so they looked very uniform, although we used animals of every color," says Bea. The Keslings start teaching llamas to square dance as soon as they're weaned, at about 6 months of age. They halter-break the animals and teach them to walk at the owner's pace. They also teach them to go in and out of livestock trailers and to pull a pony cart in parades. The Keslings, who have more than 150 llamas on their farm, gave their first public demonstration of llama square dancing last October during a meeting of the Hoosier Llama Association. They also staged a two-day public event on their farm last May that included llama squaredancing. Nearly 4,000 people attended. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Iry and Bea Kesling, 3300 Tallyho Drive, Kokomo, Ind. 46902 (ph 317 453-7070).

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