That's a picture you don't see on this continent very often. And "llama" is a word generally not heard here outside of Spanish class. We have a few alpaca farms in my rural county. There are likely more in the surrounding region. I've been around them at the ag fairs where I've worked the booths for some organizations, and folks bring in their critters and their spinning wheels and set up shop. But no one around me is raising llamas (I guess the alpaca fur is comparatively finer so is preferred in this market.) It seems that alpaca are generally farmed for their fur and llama are farmed as trekking/pack critters or as companion animals (much as you would put a mule with a horse so the horse does not get lonely.) And as you said, Yvonne, llama seem to make great guard animals.
Goats are nibblers and don't do much to control underbrush unless you have a lot of them in a small area. Goat meat is the best so you might look into meat goats such as the Boer. It is healthy meat and commands a good price.
@John Brunner Do you have a whole house generator that hooks to the PTO? I have seen custom-made ones, but never as a Kubota attachment.
Nope, but I look at them every once in a while. The ones I see just say "PTO," and are not brand-specific. I don't see why a PTO generator would not be universally attachable, but I've not seen them in person, nor have I investigated extensively. I don't even know if they generate enough amps to be called "whole house," but it would be nice to recharge the fridge, the freezer and the water pressure tanks every so often with something that's diesel-driven. When I moved in here in 2010, I was concerned about power interruptions because of the remote location. I had a guy give me a quote for a transfer switch ($900) and decided to wait. Power has been fine so far, but the past is not a perfect predictor of the future.
I've been getting a lot of use out of it, and out of that other tool rack. I just spent a few hours cutting some of my property, and it's nice having the chain saw so I can cut the felled stuff and the overhanging stuff on-the-spot. I could use more energy and less humidity, though. 3-4 hours seems to be my limit. I should get up earlier and beat the heat...
Some people use llamas for hunting as well, but they are not as common, cantankerous, and more expensive than goats. They do work well, though.
I have looked at them in the past as well, but they are not offered by anyone here that I can find, they tie up the PTO and the tractor, and they are more expensive than the stand-alone generators.
Yeh, but diesel keeps forever, and if I need the tractor, I can always unhook the generator and go without power for a bit. If power is needed for fridges and freezers and wells, I'd likely not be running it steadily anyway. I know my tractor burns about one gallon per hour doing heavy work like pushing snow around, but I don't know what the burn rate is when the revs are at a constant high level required to drive a generator (likely 270 revs at the engine/540 revs @ the pto) and what kind of lead there might be. The fact that I always have diesel around, that diesel will keep for years, and that I'm always rotating through my diesel supply is what might make one of these attractive. But as I said, I don't have power problems here (so far, knock on wood.)
I have an inverter to use for single-use applications that will hook to either the tractor or the truck.
Interesting. Will it power a fridge/freezer/well pump? I have no idea how many amps my tractor's alternator puts out.
Not the well pump, but you can use it on many things depending on what inverter you get. Mine is fairly small but I think it will keep the fridge going. I thought it would power my air compressor, but it didn't. I guess I could get a larger one
Yeh, air compressors take some juice, especially to get started. I wonder if a capacitor hookup (similar to what HVAC systems have) would get it fired up so an inverter could keep it going. Over the years, I've read of folks using strings of LED Christmas lights in power emergencies. They remove every nth one further conserve power, and run them off of 12v batteries that get recharged. This would be one beneficial use of a solar setup...keep the batteries charged so at least you could see after dark.
I have some wonderful old oil lamps. You can still get wicks and oil for them though you need to try out the oils because some of them smoke.. I had the same bottle for maybe fifty years that I got replacement for from the same company recently. Not quite the same oil today. I have a pretty big gas, powered generator, but that is at the farm for the sheep shearer and the freezers are at hubby's house. I have insulating blankets for the garage freezer. (and some rechargeable flashlights) The thing I find funny about power outages is, even when you know the power is out, you habitually hit the light switch going into a room, unless you are carrying a lighting device. and I have to remind anyone heading in that direction DON"T open the REFRIGERATOR. Hubby refuses to understand the reason why.