Lenny is confined

Lenny continues to make his field a no-go area. It’s now a month since Val described him as The Llama of Our Discontent and two months since he bit me when I went to rescue him from Alpine isolation.

For the whole of those two months, we have not been into the big field he shares with three females. He has jealously patrolled the boundaries day and night, ever alert for possible rivals for the ‘affection’ of his harem.

In the short term, this has not been a problem. However, we now need to assert our right to enter his domain; we need to mow weeds, clean away some of the accumulated llama poo, and check over the boundaries. We also want to install an electric wire down the side of the the field that borders the lane, where Elif and perhaps the other females have been pushing the top of the fence down to browse on tempting new leaves.

To achieve these simple tasks, Lenny has to be out of the way. None of the other llamas object to our presence in their fields. Indeed, they show quite a lot of curious interest in our fencing and mowing activities. Unfortunately, Lenny’s idea of curiosity is closely aligned to his over developed skills of spitting and threatening.

Normally, to get llamas out of a field, we simply encourage them into a small catch pen with a little hard food in a bucket. They then wait patiently in the pen until we let them back into the field. Lenny’s aggression and insistence on keeping control of his females means that this approach will have to be modified.

We have attached two ropes to the gate separating Lenny’s field from the catch pen at the back of the house. Pulling one rope will open the gate, and pulling the other will close it – meaning that in theory we can operate the gates safely from a distance). Yesterday, we put the system to the test, in an experiment to see whether we could securely hold Lenny outside his field. We needed to be sure that he would remain in the pen and not demolish fences or leap over gates in a wild effort to get back to his women.

Rather to our surprise, the remote gate closing went as planned. Lenny came readily into the catch pen in search of some food, and I pulled the gate smoothly closed behind him.

It took only a few seconds for Lenny to realise that he was now separated from the females. What was he to do?



For 15 minutes till we released him, he paced up and down, never taking his eyes off the females, who were contentedly munching on some hard food that Val put over the fence for them. He explored every way of getting through or round the barriers that contained him, but rather to our surprise, he didn’t try to jump over the gate, and showed a respectful wariness of the oh-so-flimsy electric fencing.

We’ve decided to install an electric wire over the top of the gate, as an additional safeguard. Then we shall be able to confine him again, this time for the couple of hours I shall need to complete fencing and maintenance tasks. Val can be on guard at the catch pen, armed with a high pressure water hose. This should be safe enough, but I think I shall take a big stick with me, just in case . . .