Rescued Llama

A week ago my husband spotted a lone, stray llama roaming the countryside just west of our farm. When he stopped to investigate, another woman was looking at the llama and stated she had seem the poor thing for over a week roaming around. The husband decided he wanted to rescue this poor critter.

So, we rescued a llama. We named her Lucky, and when you hear her entire story, you will know why she earned that name. The best thing about Lucky was that she was so easily caught. She has been haltered and trained to walk on a lead! This is Lucky:

As you can see, she has scabbing (and scarring) around her entire neck. The vet seems to think this was either caused by a barbed wire fence she was caught in, or she was rubbing her neck while trying to get food. It could also have been caused by sticking her head through a metal bin for oats. We'll never know for sure. She also has not been sheared for 4-6 years, maybe her entire life?!

She also has frost bitten ears and will lose most of both of them, poor thing. Perhaps we should have called her "Stubby"?

This is a picture of her, now healing, canine bite (it was a gaping hole at one time the vet states) on her left rear flank. She also had a touch of frost bite between one of her toes and all of her pads were scrapped & cut (two were bleeding when we got her) due to the crusty snow she had been walking through.

The vet estimates she was on her own since mid-December. This time line was concluded by the amount of freezing rain we had in December. The odd thing is that Lucky is obese. My vet rarely uses that word, she rather say things like, "...on the heavy side..." or "...should lose weight..." or "...over conditioned..."!

The husband, the vet and I decided we do not want to know who owned this lovely sole because we think she was either starved on their farm or let loose because they could not afford to feed her. Regardless, the owner would be reported to SPCA if we find out who they are, so it is best that she is here and safe now.

So, Lucky is lucky to have survived on her own for at least 2 months (or more). She is lucky to have found a home where she will be loved and spoiled for as long as she lives. Oh, and because she survived not becoming dinner to these:

These three cougars (1 male & 2 females) were trapped 1 mile west of where we found Lucky. That is approximately 6-7 miles west of our farm. The county was snaring coyotes as we have an over population of the little buggers here and lo and behold this is what they found instead!!