Fueled by Fleece

After several encounters, both visual and audible, with coyotes at the Black Squirrel Ranch I am more convinced than ever that a livestock guardian animal is the way to go. Of course, there's no way we could rescue a sixth dog and still keep what's left of our sanity. A guard donkey could be a little noisy and we love our neighbors, so a pet ass is out. By process of elimination that leaves a guardian llama. Llamas are proven to seriously increase the safety of a herd of livestock, namely sheep or goats. They bond closely with whatever you've got in the pasture with them and they just sort of take over, instinctively protecting "their" animals. This will hopefully decrease the number of times I end up flying out of bed in the dead of night and throwing on barn boots with my PJ's,  to go see just how close the coyote howls are to my goat pen.

Diesel is the man for the job. He is one year and four days old today and he was in the Badgerland Sweepstakes Llama Show. Supposedly this is a show of heavy hitters: very serious breeders whose animals usually end up at Nationals.

Diesel should have been in the Juvenile class, but at the last minute he had to be entered in the Yearling class and he placed third (out of three). Oh well, for third place I got to take home a spiffy little lunch bag with a llama on it and took my picture with the man of the hour.

Diesel is being gelded in three days (we haven't even had the birds and bees talk yet!) and then he'll be shown by his little 4-H kid in June. He will most likely be officially on duty at the Black Squirrel Ranch sometime in early July. Unfortunately I really need him now due to the baby goat situation, but he's not quite ready. He'd be ready to guard, but we want the 4-H kids and his owner to handle him more. The last thing I need on this farm is a difficult animal!

Meet Diesel:

I know, right? He looks intelligent. I think he's wishing he
knew how to spit right about now....