I got a call from a guy needing to surrender his 4 female llamas early April 2023. He had taken them in from someone who needed to get rid of them about 5 or 6 years ago. They had 10 acres to roam and he liked them but had to sell his place and could not take them along. Financial hardship is often the reason for surrendering llamas. It did not sound like an emergency so April 18th, Jodi Addis, an expert llama handler and rescue assistant, went to see how they looked and how we would load them up. She found they looked ok but one had an injury on her hip that was missing fiber with some cuts. They also had not much of anything to eat. They had been scrounging in neighbor’s’ yards for anything to eat and the owner was considering letting them go roam on 200 acres of a subdivision to be able to eat something. They had gotten out on the highway at least once as well.
Some good news is that they like grain and will come for it.
Some good news is that they like grain and will come for it.
April 19th Frank and Jodi picked up the llamas. The owner had them in a chute that was easy to back up to and they were very eager to get out of that space and jumped right into the trailer. A very easy load up this time.
The 4 girls were brought back to Albuquerque where they were penned adjacent to our other females. Little Girl with an injury, her mother was Izzy, Groot, and Duchess were the other two. Groot was the most nervous of the group. Izzy and Little Girl were very compliant.
The 4 girls were brought back to Albuquerque where they were penned adjacent to our other females. Little Girl with an injury, her mother was Izzy, Groot, and Duchess were the other two. Groot was the most nervous of the group. Izzy and Little Girl were very compliant.
I noticed a rotting smell when I went to see the new girls the next day. The small female had a serious wound. No April 21st, Jodi and I went to work cleaning her up and found hundreds of maggots buried in her wound. We were in over out head with this injury and decided that day to take her to the vet. We figured she would need some pain relief at least to dig out all the dead tissue and clear out all the maggots that were drilling into her. What was very encouraging was what a fantastic patient Little Girl was. She cried lightly as Jodi was trimming away the fiber to get at the wound (which was huge!) but once Jodi started irrigating the wound with a weak solution of betadine, she was quiet and still. We kept her mom, Izzy, in the pen with her for comfort. There was also a llama adoption happening this day so when we got ahold of the vet, he said we could bring her tomorrow (Saturday) we decided.
RSS Feed
