On this Wiki page, under the section headed “Paw Prints” it reported that a farmer purchased two llamas to protect his sheep from a reported big cat. What’s the reasoning for picking Llamas? Aren’t they pretty delicate?
This is just “what I heard”, but what I heard is A) they see pretty good and 2) are vicious nasty suckers that’ll stomp a coyote
When my wife and I moved out here (Oregon) from Minnesota, we were amused by the adds for “guard llamas” in the newspaper. We were picturing home-defense llamas or somesuch.
Imagine our dismay when we discovered they were for guarding sheep. I don’t know how it works, but virtually every sheep flock out here has a llama or two (or maybe an alpaca - I can’t tell the difference) standing out in the rain with them – even the ones “in town,” where I wouldn’t imagine there’d be many predators.
Apparently llamas are especially effective in keeping coyotes away, and a llama would likely prevail against a single coyote. I could see where they might help against a cougar as well, though probably more as an alert and a perceived threat to the cat than actually being able to overcome one.
See: National Geographic
Obligatory llama llama duck
Llama are pack animals decended from guanacos. alpacas are raised for wool and are decendants of vicunas. Alpacas are smaller and more delicate. Wild guanacos are dangerous.
That is actually pretty interesting. Live 'n learn.
Warning: anecdotal information only.
I live out in rural central California. Our crazy neighbor one property over raised goats and sheep and kept two border collies with them. Well, in one night he lost both collies, a couple of sheep, and one of his goats to coyotes. It was a pretty big mess. Subsequently he got a couple of llamas (they’re actually pretty common up here) and never had a problem with predators again. According to him (please take with a grain of salt - he is crazy after all), the llamas are fiercely territorial so their "guard"qualities have less to do with them protecting a flock and more to do with them simply stomping interlopers.
Somewhere I have pictures of a male llama used on a goat farm back near my home town. His job is to protect the babies because they are so small and there are a lot of coyotes around.
The main thing he does is some crazy kind of “I will KILL you!” squeal that gets the guard dogs running over in a flash. The second thing he does is go after the invading predator with a viciousness I’d never think could be behind those big, dopey eyes and kicks the ever lovin’ crap out of it. Never personally saw him go after anything, but I saw the remains of a stomped coyote (or fox, it was hard to tell being a red mash of fur). The poor thing looked like it had been beaten to death with a bat.
ETA, I was told two things:
[ol]
[li] If there are no other llamas around, the big male llama will take on other critters as his “herd”, so “goat babies” = “his babies”[/li][li] If he starts running at you with his ears down, run for your life and get over the fence![/li][/ol]