Snowfall
ILR # 71412
infertile female b.9.18.85 ... d. 10.12.03
Andy x Snowflake
Snowy came to us as a rehab case, and she ended up clearly trusting Gwen above all others despite initially despising all women. She was 44.25" at the withers and weighed abut 315 pounds when not overfed.
Snowy had an extremely difficult life as a pawn of human investment. She was first removed from her mother and hand-raised to make her "more friendly." Instead, she was deprived of proper interllama socialization and never had a true mother. She struggled her entire life to overcome deeply ingrained habits and fears that resulted from this profit-driven mistake, although we continued to see slow improvement, and (the really important part) our visitors tended to remark how happy she seemed in her later years.
We did not accept Snowy with any intention of breeding her — we agreed to take her because no one else wanted her and she obviously needed help. However, after we became much more familiar with her and realized the depth of her outstanding traits, we accepted Snowy into our breeding program on probation after the essential portions of her rehab were complete (something she was perfectly happy with). Unfortunately, Snowy was infertile due to reproductive tract scarring — a not uncommon result of immature impregnation and constant pregnancy in llamas. We were quite sorry to have lost Snowy's potential contribution to our very selective gene pool and to the greater classic llama gene pool as well.
Snowy loved apples and grain, and alfalfa, all of which she finally learned to eat politely from familiar humans. She was also very appreciative that we'd given her glucosamine sulfate and MSM (despite the expense) because it allowed her to run again — and run and dance and leap she did when her personal supplement portion was on its way!
Snowy was absolutely fascinated by construction and would watch building projects for hours on end. She especially liked spending time in the new barn she watched us build. We joked that we should have put a television in there so she could watch "This Old House."
Snowy's past and her initial rehabilitation progress were not fast nor enjoyable for anyone, and in the end, we sadly agreed that her unexpected, peaceful death in the pasture was a kind release from tortures we never could have erased, even though her last seven years were clearly better (according to Snowy) than all those that had come before. Despite knowing that Snowy is finally at peace, we also feel a great loss. We especially miss her demonstrations of of unabashed joy at feeding time each day.