s e v e n i s a j o u r n e y

We now know why Jim died. We also know lightning can strike twice. And we know that llamas are incrediably tough, stoic animals.

The lesions in the lung were from a cronic, non-fatal disorder. Maybe pneumonia as a cria, we will never know for sure. But that didn’t play a role in his death. Jim suffered a bowel torsion, just like Ferrari. When Julia opened Jim up and saw the intestine, her immediate response was “bowel torsion”. I said it could not be so, as Jim had been symptomatic for at least 18-24 hours.
A bowel torsion killed Ferrari in less than 5 hours, and the amount of damage and inflammation in his gut was tiny compared to what we found in Jim. It just goes to show how tough llamas are. Except for the pained expression on his face, and his slow deliberate walk, you would enevr know that he was in agony, dying inside.

We can take some small comfort that, like Ferrari, there is nothing we could have done. Weird to have so many completely random deaths. I hope we are done now.