A New Home for Nash

Nash has a new home!

This morning Nash happily stepped off of the trailer and into his forever home. It's Old Stage Alpcas, near Edgerton, WI, a fiber farm and sanctuary for llamas and alpacas. Jennifer Lafoe is the wonderful lady who runs this place, providing excellent care for critters who have been through as much as Nash has.  Jennifer says that, like the horse market, the llama/alpaca market nosedived a few years ago, and the once-trendy animals continue to be abandoned, auctioned off and even sent to slaughter.

 Jennifer supports her herd entirely out of her own pocket. She works full-time as a nurse at UW Madison and gets a little income from the yearly shearing. The camelids share space with a pot-bellied pig, two dogs, several goats, a couple of mini mules and a horse. Almost all of her animals were surrendered to her over several years from private citizens or through the county, more than a dozen of them from a single hoarding/neglect situation.

My favorite part of bringing Nash to Old Stage Alpacas was when Jennifer's herd suddenly saw Nash, and en mass, charged towards the fence. Here's a video of that, but warning: it was really windy when I was filming so the audio is awful-- it's probably better just to turn the sound off.

 He'll be introduced gradually, but he's in his own paddock for now so that he can adjust to his new surroundings. He already seems to love them-- he jumped right off the trailer and explored with enthusiasm.

 I'll post a few more pictures below.

If you want the back story on how I rescued Nash, a neglected llama running wild on a dairy farm, with the help of friends, the hindrance of a crazy lady, and a vet with a blowgun, just type "llama" into the search bar in the left corner up there. You'll get at least five separate blog posts of llama drama. Before I sign off though, I'd like to mention an awesome phone call I got while trying to find Nash a new home.

• Chris Stull in Pennsylvania helps run the Southeast Llama Rescue, a network of haulers, foster folks, adopters and rescuers. She was incredibly helpful to talk to, and offered to try to organize a transportation chain to get Nash to a top-rated llama rescue in Indiana. She rocks. Fortunately however, I found a local alternative. Anyway, she was great.