Duke…

Just wanted to let those of you know who read here…Duke died early Saturday morning.  He was born with a breathing condition that eventually led to (we believe) mechanical pneumonia.  We had a vet appointment for him Saturday morning, but he didn’t make it.  Even if we had made it to the vet we don’t think he could have been saved.

Hank is gelded, and we have no plans to allow our three girls to be bred again.  Like dogs, there are too many unwanted llamas out there to be breeding them.  Celia and Lexus were bred when we bought/rescued them.

We thank God that Duke didn’t have to suffer, nor did Lexus’s baby.  It was just a rough experience and a long two weeks trying to care for them and make the right decisions for them.  For those of you who have called and emailed encouraging words, they have been much appreciated.  As we have learned quickly with farm life we are moving on and finding the good and the blessings that come with caring for all of these animals.

We will soon start another fencing project and are currently breeding five separate groups of sheep.  In the spring we will have more Texels, Dorper/Romanov crosses, and Texel/Romanov crosses for sale.  We are also trying to decide how we will deal with a black and white egg thief on our farm.  She lives under the front of our house and left an empty shell outside her entrance giving her away.  We had been getting half the eggs we usually get, but weren’t sure what was happening to them.  Last week we collected 101 eggs and 98 eggs the week before that.  This week we collected 79 eggs.  We keep track on a calendar.  It is a good way for us to see if something is going on that we need to investigate further.

Hope everyone has had a great weekend and a wonderful Sabbath.