I picked up Marco's body from the vet this morning and took him off to be buried in the landfill. I made some calls before I hit the road to find out about animal disposal in my county. I found out that our main landfill will accept animal corpses within reason (don't bring a truckload) with a call-ahead, so I was able to drop him off there. And I did my vet's office a favor and took a dead calf too, since their county's landfill does not accept animals and the owner was refusing to come collect. Hopefully that little favor will reflect on my bill.
Looking back on the past few weeks of Marco's behavior and illness, it's another coulda-shoulda situation. ::shrug/sigh:: I suppose I "know for next time" but hopefully there won't be one for a while. I'm not all that interested in alpacas now that I've met Hercules. Sure, alpaca fiber is nice - but I can buy that, thanks. If we were going to pursue an addition to the farm family, I would much prefer another llama with whom Herc gets along and who likes goats.
My near-term goals are 1) to get all of the new babies really well socialized and people-centric so that they will be heartbreakers at the show and sell for hundreds of dollars to people who are desperately in love with them, and 2) get Scout out backpacking with Herc. In other words, I want to spend a ton of quality time with the babies and the not-so-baby-anymore, and be a good goat-mom.
