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We offer current alpaca articles and alpaca events from alpaca breeders throughout the world.
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Alpaca ranching a
recession-proof business
By KRISTEN SALAMON The Sheridan
Press
Published:
Saturday, June 26, 2010 9:27 AM MDT
SHERIDAN — When Mariann Foster and her husband, Jeff, of
Parkman bought their first alpaca in 2005, they planned to raise the animal to
breed and sell its offspring.
“I quickly found I had a weakness,” said Foster, adding that she loved the
animals so much she quickly discovered that she couldn’t imagine selling one.
“So we’ve never actually listed an animal for sale,” she said. “Which a lot of
the other farms, my friends, thought we were crazy. I mean you can make a good
income selling the females.”
When the Fosters bought their first alpaca, a good female could sell for upward
of $20,000. Then the market for selling alpacas crashed, and Foster’s weakness
became her strength. Instead of focusing on breeding and selling alpacas, she
created a different product their fiber.
“We’ve had our best January, February, March and April this year,” Foster said.
“The economy hasn’t affected us. It ended up working well.”
The business, Big Horn Mountain Alpacas, is run by Foster, who tends to the
animals’ daily needs and creates hats, scarves, and other products from their
fibers.
The business came out of Foster’s desire to stay home with her daughter, Maria,
who was born in June 2005. Before then, Foster was a teacher. She raises the
animals on the 7.5 acres owned by her and her husband.
“Very quickly (after Maria was born) I knew I needed a job,” Foster said. “So I
just kind of looked at different options. So I thought of a fitness center
because I like to run and all that. But I’ve really always had an interest in
animals and agriculture.
“So we bought a pregnant female alpaca, then we bought a few more, and they
have been increasing ever since.”
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Wooly times at alpaca
farm
Furry friends from Peru
July 2, 2010, The Daily Press
At Dream Acres the livestock grazes lazily about, going about
their day without a care in the world.
But Dream Acres isn't your average farm.
While you will find chickens, there are no cows and horses roaming the
grounds, but an animal usually found deep in Peru.
Gary and Jo-Anne Burton started raising alpacas two summers ago, finally
fulfilling Jo-Anne's dream of being a farmer. What started with nine of the
llama-like creatures has grown to include 19.
The Burtons
purchased their farm, just west of Matheson in 2006, and after fixing up the
area to house the animals, purchased their first nine males in July 2008.
"We were living out of the country and I saw an ad in a magazine,"
Jo-Anne Burton said. "I can watch them all day, they are so calming.
(Click here to read full article)
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Fanciers extol
charms of alpacas | Gathering celebrates, informs about
the animals
By Winston
Ross
The Register-Guard, Monday, Jun 21, 2010
Let’s be clear about one thing right away:
Alpacas are not llamas.
The alpaca is, like the llama, a “charming and
valuable member of the camelid family,” according to the signage at the
weekend’s inaugural Alpaca Festival of Oregon at the Lane Events
Center. But they’re
camels without humps; goats with longer necks; sheep, but stretched out and
skinnier.
And like the llama, as Abbie Smith knows all too
well, alpacas spit. She got in between two of them once as they battled over a
food bowl at her 5-acre ranch along Lorane
Highway.
First came the warning “hum,” one of 17 variations
of odd sounds the creatures make that can resemble the squeak of a new tennis
shoe on a wet wooden floor. Then, the gurgling in the back of the throat; the
gathering of ammunition.
Thwap! Right in the face. Right down Smith’s light
pink silk top, in the middle of a workday.
Phlegm wars aside, Smith has no regrets about
buying six pregnant alpacas for her Silver Moon Alpacas, which have since
multiplied to 17. She wanted animals she didn’t have to slaughter, and in
researching the creatures, Smith learned that many prefer them to sheep.
They don’t have teeth on top, so they chop grass
off, rather than pull it out of the ground by the root, as sheep are wont to
do.
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