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Re: [RC] [RC] Cougars - Carla RichardsonSome sheep and goat farmers around southwest Colorado (prime mountian lion country) keep one or two llamas in the pastures with their sheep and goats. Not only a mountain lion deterrent, but they keep coyotes and/or dogs away also.
The first time my horse, Top, saw llamas on the trail he was wide eyed but not terrified. A group of hikers were leading llamas, there were 4 llamas all with packs, it was quite a sight to meet this pack train on a fairly remote mountain trail. At the time I worked for a feed store, and a couple of months later at Christmas time, the store manager decided to have a live animal display in the parking lot. I volunteered Top to be the horse in the display. We set up pole pens, about 10 x 10 size, and when I arrived with Top, his pen shared a side with two alpacas. On the other side was a llama. I am certain that the other employees did that to see how my Arabian would do -- since they didn't know Top, they knew he was an Arabian, and they probably figured he was a "crazy silly Arabian ..." (don't ya love stereotypes). Imagine their surprise when I walked him in there and he nonchalantly looked at the alpacas, they looked at him, and both started calmly eating their hay. Hee hee. We had calves, lambs, goat kids, a steer, llamas, alpacas, and an Arabian in the pens.
If I were in a situation like yours, I'd seriously think about getting a llama. They used to be very expensive, but now you can find them for a couple of hundred bucks, or sometimes even for free.
Carla Richardson
Colorado
On 3/22/07, Maryben Stover <mbstover@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I cannot find Dawn Simas' emai, address so wrote to RC this afternoon but I guess it did not go through. I was wondering her take on this. We have a cougar, or possibly two, right next door to where my horses are in pasture. The local pet retreat (dog kennel) has lost 4 sheep in the last week.
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