Farm Friday, September 9th, 2022

Rest In Peace, Precious the Beloved Llama

Precious came to our farm in the summer of 2001. Her owners described her as a little brown llama, and they gave her to the school to help us guard our sheep. We had just acquired two Shetland sheep and we were leaning into learning about sheep care by helping out our neighbors who had 300 sheep and several llamas and guard dogs. They were the ones who suggested a llama and they gave us Precious with the stipulation that they could breed her one time and get the offspring.

Our two sheep loved Precious from the get go and sheep bonded to them quickly. Whenever we needed to separate them for hoof trimming or shots, she would watch closely and hum in a concerned way. And if we came into the pen, the sheep would stand behind Precious.

Llamas are natural guard animals for sheep. I think sheep are roughly the size of the baby llamas, and so there must be some instinct to protect the young of the herd. We learned that llamas are generally calm animals, but can fight if needed. They have strong necks and can swing them to hit. They can pull up bile to spit. And they can use their front hooves to pummel. Their sheer size can deter a predator. In our area, llamas can protect sheep from coyotes and stray dogs, but you need dogs to protect sheep from bears and wolves.

Precious never had to fight a predator, but our neighbors found a stray dog that had gotten into their sheep pasture that had been killed by one of their llamas, so we know she could have. During her whole tenure on our farm, we never lost a sheep to a predator.

We learned a lot about caring for llamas with Precious. Be of the hard lessons was that llamas are susceptible to a deer parasite called a meningal worm. This is a tiny parasite that lives part of its life cycle in tiny snails in grass. The deer eat the grass and inadvertently eat the snail, and then the worm lives in the deer for a while until exiting out the nose into the grass. In llamas, this parasite can get lost in the spinal column and cause all sorts of problems. We have an excess of deer in our area so there is a high parasite load in the snail population.

Precious got this parasite early on before we knew enough to treat monthly with preventative antiparasite meds. She might have died, but our neighbors knew how to save her. After her brush with death, she never walked exactly straight. Her back end was always a little tilted.

A lifetime of sideways gait caught up to her 20 years later. We could hear bone on bone clicking when she stood up or walked for the last year of her life. Our vet had her on pain meds which we would mix in with her food. She was a trooper, continuing to care for the sheep and be lovable with the children. She never spit at children and loved scratches.

Then in May she sat down and couldn’t get up. Our vet treated her for anemia and after that she could get up with help from us, so we moved into a new phase. We would lift her three times a day and bring food and water to where she was sitting.

Near the end of August it was clear we were near the end. She was having a hard time transitioning from up to down or down to up. She also spent most of her time with her neck extended on the ground in front of her. We knew she was ready, but we were not. We wanted her to rally. Each day told us news we did not want to hear.

It was never our intent to prolong suffering, and this week we decided it was time to call our vet. Many tears were shed for Precious. She was part of our family.

I delayed this post, partly because I am away from the farm on a trip with our school’s junior high and partly because I didn’t want to face it.

We are looking to get another llama, but we could never replace Precious. May she Rest In Peace.

Laura M. Quainoo I am sorry to have to share this news.