About Us

LlamaSalesList.Com is run by Jim White of Burnt Mountain Llamas in Virginia. and Brian Edwards from Maryland. The company is run under the umbrella of Burnt Mountain Llamas, Inc. and was founded in 2003. In the beginning, we offered free listings to any farms that wanted to post their llamas, but as the site grew, the time involved increased and we found it necessary to start charging for the service. Our first online auction was held in the fall of 2004, and we have had 2-3 online every year since.

Jim and Jennifer (and daughter Arianna) own a herd of about 20 llamas. Various bloodlines in the herd include Merit, Whist, Papa Noel, Don Divo, and Kobra, to name a few. The also own Merit, one of the best herd sires in the U.S. In their search for great llamas, they had some difficulty locating these animals quickly without searching many web sites. Jim's idea was to create a web site where excellent llamas could be found in one place to expedite the searching process, and thus, LlamaSalesList.Com was born. There have been a few revisions.. The idea of a high quality llama auction came the latter part of the year in 2003, and after doing a poll to find the amount of interest, Jim decided to go ahead with the idea.

Brian Edwards has joined the LlamaSalesList.Com team as a partner. He is the chief auction programmer and technical troubleshooter. Many of the ideas that are thought of a made reality through the expertise of Brian. Brian and his wife Frannie reside in Maryland with their children, Rachel and Peyton.

Why online auctions?

Unlike the alpaca industry, there have not been many online llama auctions in the past. Paul and Sally Taylor were the first ones to try an online auction with the Temuco Project imports from Chile, as well as their online production sales held a few years ago.. Applegate Llama Stud farm also held an online auction in 2003 to sell their llamas. It seems that the llama industry could benefit from a online sales that are not expensive to participate in and not limited by time schedules and traveling. Have you noticed that the quality of llamas at shows is increasing? There are many farms, big and small, with great quality herds. This auction provides an excellent opportunity for farms to showcase their breeding program without a significant cost or gamble and for farms to benefit from their reputations. This auction has been heavily promoted in Llama Banner and LlamaLink up to this point, and it will continue in the future.

There may be some hesitation from some about buying in an online auction. To help overcome some of these concerns, the selection committee weighs llamas that have been shown and have done well a little heavier than those that have not. But appearance of the llama is also very important. The llamas that have both of these characteristics will always be accepted to this sale and are in the highest tier. Fiber type is also very important. The newer fiber styles will be emphasized because that is what breeders are breeding for, and those styles are in demand. Silky fiber to suri fiber and everything in between will be accepted. In addition, we recommend that consigners have been make videos of their llamas available upon request.

This sale should be viewed as a chance to "show off" what you are breeding, not as a chance to cull your llamas that are not up to a certain standard. After all, whenever farms send a llama into an auction, they are giving an example of their breeding program which will be the impression people get about their farm. The llama you put into an auction could either attract people to visit your farm or push them away. There are other sales where culling animals may be appropriate, but this is not the place.