Llamas, Slugs, Ducks, Geese, Dogs, Poop & Worms

My puppy, Sammy, ate a cantaloupe-size clump of llama wool in one gulp the other morning.

Fret not. No llamas were attached to the clump.  My neighbors, Toni and Paul, run a llama rescue operation. Just a few months after moving here from urban southern California they said I had to come over to see what they got at the Lincoln County Fair. I figured they’d bought some homemade pies or maybe splurged on a quilt.

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Nope. They came home with not one, but two llamas–a male and a female. I doubt they knew what this would lead to–fencing needing to be put up here, noxious weeds being ripped up from there, and enduring wise cracks from me about Green Acres.

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“Why did you get two?” I asked. They thought if they only had one, it might get lonely. Then it turned out the female was too young to be with a male–jail bait so to speak—so they put a dividing fence in their pasture to separate the love birds. Then Toni and Paul again worried about potential llama loneliness, so they got another two llamas.

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Then, since slugs are bad for llamas, and since we have slugs in abundance, they got some ducks to eat the slugs. Then, since ducks have the brains of, well ducks, they got some geese to act as  guard birds. Then, they got a maremma, a dog specifically bred to tend livestock, to look after the whole lot of birds and beasts. Then they got a second maremma so the first one wouldn’t get lonely.

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Then they became so knowledgeable on everything llama others sought their advice on the care of llamas. Then people began bringing their ailing and elderly llamas over. Then they started getting calls about abandoned and abused llamas. Pretty soon they had over 20 llamas wandering around not just their pasture, but occasionally through their livingroom.

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Then they ended up with so much llama poop (a.k.a. llama beans), they started a worm farm to turn it into compost, compost they sell to fund the rescue operation.

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It’s been over 15 years since they brought the first two llamas home with them. I often wonder if they wish they’d just brought home a pie.

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