Llamas Make Great Guardians

The last few years we have had many requests for llamas as guardians for sheep, goats, and cattle.  Gelded males and older female llamas appear to be the best candidates to use as guardians for farm livestock.  Llamas bond well with all types of livestock.  We have placed several llamas the last few years as guardians and companions.  We encourage our new owners to take their llamas on hikes on the farm in addition to letting them be livestock guardians.  We have goats at Walnut Ridge to help prepare our llamas to be used as guardians.

One of our recent customers, Kit Jackson, wrote this real nice note about Perfect Stranger, a gelded male that she purchased from us as a guardian for her Pygora goats and as a companion for her.

“Stranger has been a wonderful addition to our farm. We decided to have a Llama guardian for our goat herd since they are quite, low maintenance and just a neat animal to watch.  He has been all of those things! I agree with those that say you should not have a solitary Llama as he seemed very lonely before the herd arrived.  He was humming more often than not, and as I have read “a happy Llama does not hum”.  Once the goats arrived, the integration was a non-event as he was gentle, patient and accepting of them right away.  AND no more humming…unless the goats are distressed (vet visit) or I take him for a walk away from them.  When the vet had to give shots all around and the goats were fussing, he paced the fence until we let him back into the paddock where he promptly went to the goat stall to “check” on everyone.  His job is to be the big brother and deter predators from the goat herd.  We have both coyotes and bobcats spotted on property, but to date, none have bothered the goats. We couldn’t be happier, thank you!”

Kit Jackson