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We sold our first llama to
guard sheep in 1994. He was Sundance, our first herd sire that we
retired and gelded. When we met up with Sundance's owner a couple
of years later he told how great Sundance was working out as a guard.
In fact he told us a story that amazed us. One day a ewe went
down. The rest of the sheep came in that evening without Sundance.
That alerted them that something was wrong. When they found
Sundance he was standing guard over the ewe. He would not leave
her side until help came. I know this sounds like a Lassie story,
but I swear it is true.
The next story I heard was not about one of our llamas, but I was so
impressed that I must tell you about it. The first winter this
llama was guarding the snow began to fall and the sheep did not have a
clue as to what to do, so they got trapped out in the snow. Again
the llama stayed with them. The next snow that fell. The
llama led the sheep back to the barn before they could be trapped.
We've heard that from a friend of Mahogany's owner that he doing a great
job guarding his sheep, but the Boer goats that he bought him to guard
are being ignored. Luckily the goats are in the same pasture
so in reality they are being guarded. Llamas are territorial
so even if they don't buddy up to their charges they do a good job of
protecting the area. We have also sold llamas to guard just goats
and they do bond with goats. But if they have a choice I think a
sheep looks more like a baby llama than a goat does.
Just recently we placed a gelding with someone that was having problems
with dogs and his calves. Even though the llama hasn't bonded with
the calves, the dogs are no where to be seen. And the owner says
the llama seems perfectly content to graze beside the calves.
We sold a weanling boy as a pet to someone who has goats, sheep, donkeys
and cows a couple of years ago. They told us that they looked out
their window about a year or so after they brought him home to see him
chasing dogs away from a newborn calf. They said they could not
have gotten out to the calf in time, so that Puppy saved the calf's
life. We do not suggest buying a weanling to guard.
Puppy was almost 2 years old when this happened. He now is
officially a guard llama.
Two years ago we sold a male named Merlin to a sheep farm that was
losing lambs to predators. They wrote us a lovely note with a
picture of Merlin standing with his sheep. They said that "He
didn't know what to think of the lambs at first back in the spring, but
they all made it to market this fall."
In 2000, we received a call from Mary Miller the mother of Mathew Miller
an extension agent in Virginia who raises prize winning sheep. It
turned out that all he wanted for Christmas was a guard llama for his
sheep. He mother found us along with a few other farms and came
for a visit. We had two males that we felt would be good for
guarding. We agreed to let him pick his llama after Christmas and
gave her the "Caring for Llamas" book by Dr. Clair Hoffman, that we give
to each new llama owner and the halter and lead that would go with the
llama and a picture of both llamas for her to wrap up to present to
Mathew. He picked Andre. We talked with him recently and he
said Andre is doing great.
The other llama that he did not pick is also guarding now.
Ishkabible took to his job immediately. I always felt that he
belonged with sheep and I was right. Jane sent me daily updates.
It was fascinating to hear Ish stories. "He rats out the lambs
every time they do something they are not supposed to do like going into
a field they shouldn't be in. He really bonded with the sheep. The
one mother keeps forgetting about her baby so he just hangs out by the
baby and leads it back to mom. When I take him for a walk, he is
fine until the the sheep start baaaaing. One little baaaa is ok,
but let them cry out well he has to go back now to the fence and check
on them. He's got to see everyone. If we can't find two of
them, he's got to go find them. When he's happy that nothing is
wrong we can finish our walk."
Jane's husband Steve was won over when Ish spotted a dog that was so far
out Steve couldn't see him. But Ish did. He stopped eating
and was flipping his ears back and forth until Steve could finally see
what Ish was looking out. Steve captured the dog before it got to
their pasture and brought it back to its owner.
The only problem with Ishkabible is that he likes the white sheep, but
will have nothing to do with the black sheep. So Steve and Jane
bought Katrina a dam that we took out of production because she had
problem births. All of her babies had been black so we thought she
might bond to the black sheep. There is some controversy as to
whether you should only have one llama per field or if two or more will
still be effective. Since Ish was gelded I wasn't worried about
them making babies. This probably would have worked well, but Jane
fell in love with a young intact male we had for sale, Scout and wanted
him for a pet. Well I thought these llamas were going to be in
seperate fields. This should have worked. But they couldn't
manage to keep all the sheep in the fields they wanted them in so they
all ended up together. Ish did not want to share his sheep at
first, but got over it. Katrina took awhile to bond to the sheep
possibly because she is older. But she did. Scout was the
problem. He decided he wanted to breed Katrina. She wanted
no part of him. We offered to take him back and it looked like
that was going to happen, but it finally all worked out.
 Katrina has turned out to be a wonderful guard. She is originally
from a ranch in Montana, so she is used to no shelter. We had a
problem with her keeping her babies out at the perimeter of our pasture
even in the pouring rain. This will be a good thing in her current
position, because she will guard the outer region while Ish stays close
to the lambs at the barn. I was so thrilled when I received the
following story about Katrina. This meant she was going to be a
true sentinel guard. "Yesterday I was watering the cows when I
heard Katrina doing this weird, loud yell. It almost sounded like a
toucan crying. She looks at me crying, she looks at the dog and
cries then she screams at the sheep. She walked over to the gate
to the big field and cries. 20 minutes go by and she is still
crying. I couldn't figure out why. I go back out to the cows
to finish watering them and see that our ram is out. As soon as I
start herding him back in to the pasture Katrina stops crying.
When I get him back in Katrina goes back to eating as if nothing had
ever happened." I explained to Jane that what she was hearing was
the Alarm Cry. That they do this to warn the herd of danger.
We always guarantee that our llamas will do their job or we will take
them back. One female we sold, Tranquil, had won first place in
the show ring and we were excited about the babies she would produce for
us. It turned out she couldn't get pregnant. The new
owner said she didn't really care if she guarded or not. "She is
so beautiful that I am happy just to be able to look at her out in the
field." But she is doing a great job as a guard.
Well that's all I can remember for now. As new stories come in
I'll add them to this page. Or if any of you hear any good ones
let me know.
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We just received a new story about Ish and Katrina. There was
a wind storm that blew open the gate of the pen that housed Ish's
sheep. He stood at the open gate and would not let anyone out of
the pen. The wind broke off a piece of metal roof but it was
hanging on by a little bit. Well it was making noise and flapping ,
Katrina just kept crying and looking up to it like she was telling me
well do something about it. It's going to fly and hurt someone. She just
wouldn't stop crying till it came off. "
After years of
successfully guarding sheep Tranquil was found dead of unknown causes.
Her owners came back to us for a another llama and luckily we had just
gelded a male that would be a good candidate. We wouldn't know for
sure until he is put in with the sheep. Well we just got an update
today. "We sheared Friday and I wanted to let you know how Joey
did. He stayed with the sheep until they went to the ‘preshearing pen’,
and then he became quite agitated. Stayed as close as he could – just a
fence between them. When the first couple of sheep had been sheared, he
went over to the fence and stuck his nose through and received direct
‘nose to nose’ communication from the victims.
After a while, he seemed satisfied, but he kept coming up to the fence
and checking them out.
The guys were impressed by how he stayed with the sheep when they were
being run from the pasture, and they like him lots more than they did
Tranquil. Joey has been real steady and easy to work with. " |
