A Llama in the Yard
Makes an Impression
On the Neighbors
Every morning, four llamas bask in the morning sun on a hill near Shirley Pringle's house. Later, in the heat of the day, they retreat to the shade of a nearby oak. It's just the sort of picturesque scene Ms. Pringle envisioned when she bought the animals for $1,000 apiece to roam the 7.5 acres surrounding her rural Kelseyville, Calif., home a couple of hours from San Francisco.
"It's exactly what I had in mind -- a minifarm," said Ms. Pringle, who also has pheasants and chickens on her fenced property. Ms. Pringle doesn't breed the animals: She just likes to look at them. "My land is definitely unique when you drive down the road and see these four llamas," she says.
People have used animals as prey, pets and food for thousands of years. Bored with conventional landscaping, some homeowners now are using bulls, sheep, chickens and other live animals as outdoor decor.
Shirley Pringle and one of her llamas.
"Why do people have horses? You never see them ride them," says Don King, president of Texas Longhorn Breeders Association of America, an organization of 5,000 cattle breeders. Instead, he says, the point is: "You can have something that no one else has."
Six years ago when Janet and Pattie Chelseth bought a house in Shingle Springs, Calif., about 30 minutes from Sacramento, they populated the 10 acres with livestock to give their spread the look of a farm. They also brought in six rare miniature Icelandic sheep and two Indian runner ducks to hang out around a pond stocked with mosquitofish and bullfrogs.
"We saw these odd ducks and thought they were pretty cool looking," says Pattie Chelseth, a nurse practitioner, of the runner ducks, which stand upright and look a bit like bowling pins. As for the sheep, she says, "This area is a farming community, but this is probably the first time the county has seen Icelandic sheep."
Four-legged outdoor ornaments are catching on as homeowners go to ever-greater lengths to outdo their neighbors and make their property stand out. Zoning laws usually keep homeowners from raising farm animals in cities. But it's a different story just a few miles outside town, where there is more grass to play with. If you can have a high-tech modern kitchen and still not cook, why can't you have a ranch or a farm that's just for show?
"People ask, 'Why buy a llama? What does it do?' " says Dennis Abreu, a llama breeder in Mount Shasta, Calif. "But I say, 'What does a Picasso do?' It doesn't do anything but look pretty."
When Bill Hudson bought a house on 1,000 acres in Purvis, Miss., he purchased some ordinary cattle for about $800 a head to give a Western feel to the landscape. But they were too ordinary -- "not pretty," he thought -- so he replaced them with nine Texas Longhorns for a total of $12,000. He later added six horses and three donkeys to complete the look.
"I wanted pretty ornaments ... and needed cows to decorate my pastures," said Mr. Hudson, a discount-shop entrepreneur, adding that the Longhorns' "beauty is unmatched. They're the most beautiful creatures God made."
Dawn Hills, a native Minnesotan, had a similar decorating scheme in mind when she moved to her urban Scottsdale, Ariz., home on Cactus Road, about 15 miles south of Phoenix. She did the house in Western style, with paintings of cowboys and horses, leather furniture, feathers, baskets and horseshoes. On the acre of lawn surrounding the house, the stay-at-home mother installed five African pygmy goats.
"I wanted my home decorated in a Western theme -- both inside and out -- and the goats fit right in with that," says Ms. Hills, who one day hopes to buy a miniature horse as well. "People are very attracted to them. The pygmies are a big hit."
Larry Barker, a Denver cattle breeder, says one of his wealthy customers spent $15,000 on seven head of cattle to roam his land, only to have the steer die and the six cows get sick for lack of enough grass to eat. He finally gave the cows away.
"They just wanted a trophy steer and some cows to put on the pasture," Mr. Barker says. "But they didn't take care of them."
室外装饰用活物－－酷！
每天清晨，四匹骆驼在雪莉?普林格尔(Shirley Pringle)家附近的山头上晒太阳。随著气温的升高，它们会退到一旁的橡树底下乘凉。这如诗如画的场景正是普林格尔当初买它们时设想的胜景。普林格尔的家位于加州郊区的Kelseyville，离旧金山有几个小时的车程。她以每匹1,000美元的价格买下这四匹骆驼，让它们在家的周围7.5英亩的土地上自由漫步。
“这正是我脑海里浮现的画面--一个小型农场，”普林格尔说。在她用栅栏围起来的地方，还生活著一些雉鸡和小鸡。普林格尔从不动手喂养这些动物，只是喜欢看著它们玩耍。“当你顺著公路开车下山看见这四匹骆驼时，我的农场肯定会给你独一无二的印象，”她说。
几千年来，人类一直把动物当捕猎的对象、宠物和食物。如今，一些厌倦了常规景观的房屋主人开始用公牛、绵羊、小鸡和其他活物作室外装饰。
“人们为什么要养马？他们从来就不骑马，”唐?金(Don King)说，他是美国德克萨斯州长角牛饲养者协会(Texas Longhorn Breeders Association of America)主席，这个机构有5,000名养牛成员。他说，关键在于“你拥有一些别人没有的东西。”
六年前，珍妮特(Janet)和帕蒂?切尔塞斯(Pattie Chelseth)在加州Shingle Springs买了一处房产，离萨克拉门托大约30分钟的路程，他们在房子周围10英亩的土地上养了些家畜，使这片辽阔的土地顿时像一座农场一样生机勃勃。他们还买了六只罕见的小型冰岛绵羊和两只印度跑鸭，让它们在一个池塘周围玩耍，池塘里还有一些食蚊鱼和牛蛙。
当护士的帕蒂?切尔塞斯在谈论那两只鸭子时说：“我们当时看见这些奇特的鸭子，觉得它们很酷 。”这些鸭子笔直站起来的样子有点像保龄球瓶。至于那些绵羊，她说：“这一带是农业区，不过整个地区以前可能还从来没有这样的冰岛绵羊。”
如今房屋主人们都在费尽心思地想让自己的房子与众不同，好把邻居比下去，于是用四条腿动物作户外装饰的做法渐渐时髦起来。区域规划法律通常不允许屋主们在城里饲养家禽家畜，但城外几英里就不一样了，那里有更多的青草可供动物们玩耍。既然不煮饭也可以有高科技的现代厨房，弄个大农场来摆摆阔又有何不可呢？
丹尼斯?阿布胡(Dennis Abreu)也在加州Mount Shasta的家中饲养骆驼，他说：“人们会问‘买骆驼干吗？要它有什么用？’我就说，‘毕加索的名画又有什么用呢？不就是为了好看吗？’”
比尔?赫德森(Bill Hudson)在密西西比州Purvis买了一座房子，周围有1000英亩地。为了让风景平添几分“西部”味道，他买了一些普通的牛放在里面，每头大约800美元。但它们太普通了--“不够漂亮”，于是他买了九头德克萨斯长角牛来替换，总共12,000美元。后来，他又加了六匹马和三头驴，这样他的杰作才算完成。
经营一家折扣商店的赫德森说：“我要的是漂亮的装饰...需要一些牛来装饰我的牧场。”他又说，那几头长角牛“简直美妙绝伦，它们是上帝最美的创造。”
土生土长的明尼苏达州人唐?希尔斯(Dawn Hills)搬到亚利桑那州的斯科特斯德后，也在酝酿一个类似的装饰计划。她的房子位于凤凰城以南15英里的仙人掌路(Cactus Road)。她把房子装饰成西部风格：牛仔和骏马的画像、皮革家具、羽毛、篮子、马蹄铁等等。希尔斯不喜欢出门，她在房子周围1英亩的草坪上放养了五只非洲矮山羊。
“我想以西部主题来装饰房子--里里外外都是，那些山羊正好符合，”希尔斯说。她希望将来能买一匹矮种马。“人们很喜欢这种马。小型动物现在很受欢迎。”
丹佛的养牛者拉里?巴克(Larry Barker)说，一个有钱的客人花15,000美元买了七头牛，让它们在房子周围的草地上闲逛，结果公牛死了，其他六头母牛因为没有足够的草吃而得了病。最后主人只好把它们送人了。
“他们只是想要一头象
