Llamas & More Sheep

We have been waiting to pull the trigger on a deal where this guy was going to give us a bunch of sheep and some llamas for freee for quite some time. It seems like it has been at least a month or so and he kept cancelling or saying it was too muddy and we had just about written him off when he called the other day and said we were good to go on Saturday morning. Well, at like 10:30pm on Friday night, he cancelled again and said we could do it today (before the big rains that are now pounding us and knocked out our power) came in. I really didn't want to do it, but I went ahead and picked them up today. The good news is that they were just down the road a few miles (very convenient) and not too hard to get loaded. Oh yeah, and free. While I was there, he also offered us a few pygmy/boar mix goats that we will have to pick up later (they were in a separate pen and we didn't want to mess with trying to get them too at the time) and they should be great for BBQ
Here's the synopsis of what we picked up today:

• 1 Barbardos ram (impressive horns!)
• 1 Barbados ewe (unknown age)
• 1 Barbados/???? mix with 2 babies sired by the ram listed above (this one has some "wool" on her back and almost looks like she has wool sheep breeding in her ancestry)
• 1 Mouflon ewe (really old by the looks of her, but of unknown age)
• 2 male llamas (brothers although one is a year or so older than the other)

The pasture we keep all these (and our other goats and sheep) in is getting VERY filled. In fact, you may be asking yourself what we are going to do with all these animals? Well, we are asking ourselves that too. At this point, (aside from the cattle) we have been acquiring "fiber" animals. That is, animals that we can shear to get a saleable product. None of the animals we picked up today (except the llamas) can be shorn for profit. In fact, the Barbados and Mouflon sheep are basically just kept to eat and to stock "exotic hunt" ranches (rams from both species grow really nice horns.) We are kind of leaning toward selling most of these animals. The goats that we will get from the guy later will probably be best handled with a BBQ party.

Speaking of a BBQ party, one of our spanish employees' mother is reported to be an expert cook and I invited him to invite her out to cook for us at a "company picnic" at the farm. I told him we would slaughter a goat if she could teach us how to cook it. I'm really hoping she accepts that - my mouth is watering just thinking about it.

About the llamas - well, to me, they were just BBQ or sale-barn material. I guess I don't really know what they are good for. Some people use them to guard their livestock from coyotes, but we are raising a dog for that. Dad, on the other hand, has apparently always wanted a llama, so he laid claim on the older of the two and is going to see if he can get him halter-broke a bit better (right now he mostly fights the lead - he even just sat down at one point.) I guess it would be kinda cool if he could get it trained to haul stuff....but then we would have to hike somewhere with him....

This is not really relevant, but have you ever seen a llama run? I have to tell you, it is just about the goofiest thing you ever may see. They are really a wierd animal - it's hard to explain - maybe I'll try to get some video...but, alas, that won't be for a while because I leave for Baltimore tomorrow morning and from there to Chicago, so I am going to be gone all week :(