FEATURES
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 7. 1990
Mama Llama
A group of Sika deer gathers near Philip Luthi during feeding time on his farm 15 miles north of Topeka. Sika deer come from Japan.
A pair of buffalo are free to roam on 30 acres of the land.
Adopted home on the range
Sharp antlers make this small Sika deer a formidable opponent.
By Mike Brassfield
Kansan staff writer
Three ilamas named Shadow, Mama Lila, and Peter Tosh roam a plot of land north of Topeca along the coast of Jamaica. Deer from Jamaica and South America
It's not a zoo — it is the 40-acre farm of Philip and Willa Lulit, about 15 miles north of Topeka. The Lulits exotic animals for fun and profit
Philip Luthi said both Mama Llama and Shadow, an 18-month-old female that recently reached breeding age, were pregnant. Luthi has been breeding llamas since he bought his first female llama at a llama auction in Tecumseh, Neb., five years ago.
Male llamas sell for about $500, but females of breeding age can sell for as much as $8,000, he said.
Willa Luthi said that she enjoyed breeding exotic animals. The llamas are her favorite.
"I love it," she said. "How many people in Kansas can look out the window in the morning and see a lama or a bobcat?"
The bobcats, Pretty and Joe, are kept in a 20-foot-tall cage built around a tree next to the Luthi's farmhouse.
Philip Luthi said that in the six years he had kept the bobcats, they had produced five litters of kittens. At first he sold female kittens for $700 and males for $600, but the price for both has dropped to $300.
"The interest is dying down a little," he said. "Now it's mostly local people buying them for pets." If
you' buy them when they're young they make really good pets."
Luthi said he sold most of his animals to people in the Topeka and Kansas City areas who wanted to breed them or raise them as pets.
For the past several years Luthi has been buying most of his new animals at exotic animal auctions in Macon, Mo. Animals such as camels, horses and goats are sold at the spring and fall auctions, which usually last a week.
Luthi had raised exotic animals 16 years ago when he bought his first white fall deer, an animal from South America.
"I bought one, and I've kept on going since then," he said. "I grew up on a farm, where I used to raise animals, and I have been curious about different animals."
The two buffaloes on the Luthi farm roam a 30-acre enclosure. The 1,500-pound animals must be handled with care because they are unpredictable, he said.
"The they are definitely wild animals," he said. "You can never be sure what they're going to do next. People think that buffaloes are slow, but you can run almost 4 miles an hour. You don't want to tease them or anything."
The only other problem Luthi has with his animals is when the occasional hunter takes a shot at one of his deer.
Luthi has white fallow deer and five Sika deer. He has raised Sika deer — miniature brown deer from Japan — for four years.
Luthi has kept buffaloes for 15 years. He originally crossbred them with Texas longhorn cattle, but then sold the cattle and tried to breed a full-blooded buffalo. That proved to be difficult.
The two buffaloes currently on the farm are Luthi's second pair of the animals, but he has not been successful in breeding a buffalo calf. He plans to get rid of the buffaloes in the spring.
Luthi has plans to fill the space when the buffaloes leave.
"I'd really like to into camels next," he said. "I've always wanted one. Besides, I wouldn't want to buy something ordinary like just a cow."
At various times in the past, Luthi also has raised pygmy goats and rhea, a species of ostrich from South America.
"Those were mean birds. We got rid of them because they were too much trouble," he said. "We raised them for three years, but none of their eggs ever hatched. They were always too nervous to sit on them."
A fallow deer turns to stand guard as the rest of the small herd moves on. Luthi has 11 of the deer.
Photos by Andy Morrison
Philip Luthi gives his bobcat Pretty a hug in her 20-foot-high cage.