Camelid Welfare: Your Help is NeededMarc Page

Sputtermill Ranch Llamas; Petersham, MA

My wife and I, like many of our friends and fellow llama lovers, found ourselves head over heels in love with llamas. Our first exposure to these wonderful creatures was at a fiber festival in the mountains of Vermont in 1990. We spent the next year learning all we could and in 1991 changed our entire life style to include what we thought would be four companions for hiking and perhaps competing in performance classes at the New England State Fair. Well, you know how it happens. Soon our four geldings were joined by girls and our first intact male. The next year crias provided us with endless entertainment. The herd grew and we were fascinated with the amazing behavior that unfolded daily in our pastures.

We continued to seek information everywhere- attending conferences, joining regional and local organizations, volunteering, offering support to our customers and sharing our growing knowledge with new owners. Our breeding program was manageable and comfortable for us. To this day we know where every llama we raised and sold lives, and we keep in touch with their owners. Because of our fascination with llama behavior, we attended many training workshops with all the top llama professionals in the business. We were having a great time, not making much money, but enough to pay for the hay and the lifestyle. Two of my greatest interests were shearing and training. In an effort to expand our services, I hung out my shingle and soon had more business than I could handle.

This changed everything. While I had many great, caring and wonderful customers who placed the welfare of their llamas first and foremost, I also began to realize there were many llamas living in desperate conditions. Not everyone had educated himself before taking on the large responsibility of caring for camelids. As I visited with owners all over New England, I was saddened to see a wide variety of neglect-llamas that were seldom (or never) sheared, uncountable numbers of llamas hobbling around on severely overgrown toenails, felted and matted fiber covering mange, crusty skin and wounds. I have found barbed wire, a lead rope and even firewood hidden in overgrown fiber. I witnessed severe overcrowding, incompatible animals running together (fathers and daughters, intact sons with their mothers, etc), nonexistent vaccinations, no vet care, black and moldy water, rancid grain and more than one farm serving only day-old bread from supermarkets. Too many llamas were living without any other llama companionship, had no place to get out of the weather, no cooling fans in the summer and had to break through ice to drink in the winter or eat snow off fence boards.

As if this wasn’t enough, many of the owners had no idea how llamas think, how even a basic knowledge of camelid behavior could go a long way to reduce the animal’s stress. An untrained llama lives a truly fearful life. Many are chased around till cornered, then wrestled into a halter and dragged to wherever the owner needs them to be. On one farm, a hard to handle gelding had his feet tied and then was pushed to the ground to halter him. Just imagine the fear! It may be fair to say that some of these people don’t know how wrong their behavior is. They don’t know any other way, or they have just become comfortable with the neglect. It got so I couldn’t take the excuses any longer.

A New Direction

Ten years ago we stopped breeding and selling llamas and redirected ourselves to training, education, and rescue and re-homing of llamas and alpacas. Boy, did we open a very large can of worms. I have completely lost track of the number of llamas and alpacas that we have re-homed. It is rare to go a full week without a call about a llama or alpaca in need. I am sustained only by knowing that even though I can no longer remember the details of each rescue or re-homing, every one of those animals is better off today than when we met.

Much of this misery could have been avoided if breeders simply asked a few more questions of potential new owners, then mentored them and did more follow up. True, many of the llamas and alpacas are now far removed from the breeders who raised them and can be found for sale in the local shopper or classified section of the newspaper. The instruction manual on these animals was lost long ago. When they don’t behave, they are considered stubborn and are destined to live a life dominated by force. Untrained and hard to handle animals are a large part of the rescue/re-homing problem.

It is important to emphasize that the majority of my efforts involve re-homing and not true rescue. The term rescue must be carefully used since it has such a negative connotation- suggesting abuse and extreme neglect, such as requiring emergency removal for the animals’ own good. Many of the requests I receive involve people planning ahead for the welfare of their llamas and alpacas. Both rescue and help with re-homing result from a wide variety of needs- divorce, illness, and certainly the failing economy. Or perhaps the llamas were originally purchased for children who have now grown up and moved away, leaving mom and dad to care for the animals. This past year I was involved in four re-homing situations resulting from divorces, and in another case a woman committed suicide, leaving a large number of animals. Events involving a rapid change in the owner’s situations are of high priority.

When the need is for help with re-homing, the call usually comes from the owner. With neglect, the call may come from animal control authorities, police or a neighbor. No matter who contacts me, I first must sort through the story to truly establish the need. If someone wants to give up a llama because they are having trouble handling the animal, perhaps a visit with an evaluation and some training assistance might be enough to help the animal stay with the present owners. If neglect or abuse is charged, I try to let animal control handle it, letting them know I will be there to take the animals if that is the outcome.

It is always best if I can move animals directly to their new home, yet this seldom happens. Animals often need shearing, vetting or retraining before they can be re-homed. Also, I must assess the behavior and level of handling and match it to the ability of the new owner. I have some animals that may live with me forever because of fear and trust issues left from their previous experiences. As I have continued to place llamas and alpacas, my list of potential adopters has grown smaller and smaller. There are now more animals in need than there are places to put them.

A Wish List

When we first started the National Lama Intervention & Rescue Coordination Council (IRC Council) at the Camelid Community gathering in Kansas City, Missouri, it was to organize and coordinate rescue groups and efforts nationwide. However, I had already been actively involved in rescue and re-homing for years, and to this day I have been unable to take a less hands on approach. I keep at it because I don’t know how to stop. The need does not go away, though I admit I am now becoming emotionally drained and at some point must either walk away or pass the baton. We definitely need more people involved with rescue and re-homing- taking calls, picking up animals, dealing with the emotions of the owners, training, vetting and mentoring the new owners- in short, the whole ball of wax.

If I could have three wishes in the area of camelid welfare, they would be:

1. Every llama and alpaca should be wanted. These animals have changed and enriched our lives. Please do not let them leave your radar once you have sold them. Please keep track of them, for years if possible.

2. A well trained llama or alpaca lives a healthier, happier life with less chance of needing re-homing. Please see that your animals are trained and manageable.

3. We need an improved economy. Things were bad enough before; llamas and alpacas need a bailout.

Sandy and Marc Page, Sputtermill Ranch, P.O. Box 731, Petersham, MA 01366-0731Home: 978-724-3273 Cell: 508-246-0424 or sputtermill@hughes.net

Published: Llama Life II, No. 93: Spring 2010: Outreach/Marc Page