Hello all, I had quite the unnerving experience this morning...We live in the country outside of Chicago on five acres on FORTUNATELY a quiet road with 2 llamas, 3 alpacas, 5 goats, 2 potbelly pigs and assorted ducks and geese in our pasture. So......at 4:00 AM we hear frantic honking at our gate...I hear it in my dreams first and then I start to wake up and I hear it again. I get up and out our bedroom window we can see the front gate and there is a car there with headlights in our drive outside our big car gate and the pedestrian gate next to it is open..and a man is coming through with a high beam light like the police have. My husband and I throw on clothes, go downstairs and it is an off-duty police officer coming home and telling us there are TWO LLAMAS LYING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD and he can't get them back to our gate..(he drives by a lot so he knew they were ours) .....SO the language LYING IN THE ROAD..I am thinking DEAD but no they were kushing in the middle of the road. THANK GOD he was only going 25 and saw them.oh yeah and did I mention there is was unbelievably thick fog tonight so you can barely see your hand in front of your face??????? So I can't even see the llamas from the house nor even when I went through the outer gate to the road. So..FORTUNATELY,,THANK HEAVENS they are herd animals and they had stayed in the general vicinity of the pasture and not wandered off on an adventure hike through the acres of corn/soybean fields that surround us (the road runs alongside the pasture) and NOW that they were scared off the road they were hanging out with their buddies on the other side of the fence (alpacas and goats) who had the sense not to leave the pasture with them...I didn't want to even think of the disaster of finding 8 more animals in the fog!!! WIth the three of us and outstretched arms moving slowly we got them back through the front gate of the driveway and then moved them back into the pasture. So as I am realizing the horror that could have been (car damage, dead people and dead animals from a car hitting them) that we narrowly avoided, I thought, I could have SWORN I put all the clips on the gates because my one llama Roseanne Roseannadanna (yes she is a Saturday Night Life baby) is a master at flipping the latch on the gates to get out. So we find the gate she opened and indeed the clip is on it BUT the latch is severely bent so that the clip no longer impedes the gate from opening. It was as if she had slammed into the gate and bent the latch severely and it was very noticeable, such that I would have seen it earlier that day. It is a gate we open and close probably 10 times a day. (BTW did I mention she has to open FOUR gates of different types to get to the road but only the inner one had the clip on the latch..but she still had to work all these different doors and latches..very very smart and there were others she could have used to get to the fields but she went for the road...she is a real gypsy girl!) OMG... WHen we got the two llamas back into the pasture, the fog is SOOO thick that I could not see the goats or the alpacas OR THE PIGS..because of course the llama opened the gate that went into the pig pen!!!! So with fiashlights we are going around looking and calling. Goats call back so I knew at least some were there but I needed to see and count them. The alpacas were too scared of the proceedings with the flashlights and the strange person stopping on the road to come to the sound of food, but they stayed stationary enough that I could find them...pigs had been snoozing in their toasty condo but got up at the last minute to see what the heck was going on!!! Poor dears..they never get up this early..it is pitch dark outside....geese and ducks were upset to have their rest disturbed... Good news..all of them were there and so we didn't lose anyone. OMG OMG OMG So when the hardware stores opened in the morning..it was chains on the outer chain length gates and large clips that go around the two posts of the fence and gate for all significant doors... We lived here for three years without anyone flipping a gate latch, then Roseanne figured it out one day and it is so IMMENSELY reinforcing to be free to explore the other side of the fence where the grass is definitely greener and there are pine trees and ornamental plants to sample. The first time she did it I had no idea what happened, I just thought someone forgot to close the gate and she let EVERYONE out into the yard..the second time I caught her playing with the latch and the mystery was solved. This would make for a great enrichment..nose flipping toys for camelids..I must invest in some.... So any thoughts other then chains and clips or locks for gates with the flip up latch. The ones on the four foot fencing separating pens INSIDE the pasture (that she bent)are two parallel pieces of metal with a hole at the end of each piece . We have not been able to find anything to across the two holes to ensure the latch can't open other then a long padlock which is a royal pain. We put a clip on one side which kept the latch from being raised up until now when it was bent. In the chain link fence and the pasture antipredator fence we have the latch that looks like a horse shoe with one hole at the base to keep it from being lifted. Clips are easy to put in there but with some play in the gates if they really wanted to they could push on the gates and just pop the latch open from pressure. So looks like chains and locks on those puppies. Any other thoughts? In the meantime..back to contemplating another beer.... Susan Brown, DVM The BEhavior Connection
