Not Following the Herd

Bozeman’s Alpacas of Montana finds its niche in the thriving business of raising and breeding these gentle animals

January 15, 2008

Nancy Kessler - Bozeman Daily Chronicle

It’s said if you buy an alpaca when a child is born, that alpaca can pay for the child’s college education. Furry fantasy or financial animal acumen?

Alpacas of Montana owners James and Sarah Budd tick off what they see as the many positive attributes of operating an alternative livestock operation in Bozeman: one acre in this region can support five to seven alpacas, each animal consumes only about one-and-a-half pounds of grass a day, most animals will never need veterinary care, they don’t cup up pasture since their feet lack hooves, they are fully insurable, and raising and selling alpacas and their fleece is quite lucrative – indeed enough to pay for that college education.

“You can buy a pregnant dam (breeding female alpaca), and if she gives birth to another female, which is about 55 percent of the time, you can sell that baby and make your money back in about a year,” James explains. “The next year’s baby is almost all profit, as are the ones after that.”

With an average purchase price of $12,500 for a pregnant female, just one reproducing dam will generate about $150,000 in profit over her lifetime, he said.

The Budds are proving alpaca ranching is a great business to be in, even without children to put through college. Alpacas are very hardy, don’t bite, are gentle on the land and can make delightful pets, even if they spit a little.

“Alpacas are such gentle animals and really easy to care for,” said Sarah. “They’re small, only about three feet tall at the shoulder, and not at all aggressive.  And they produce the most wonderful fleece.”

Unlike other exotic livestock ventures that have come and gone, alpaca ranching is here to stay, the Budds maintain, because the final product – clothing knitted from the luxurious yarn – will always be in demand. “With llamas, what percentage of owners really will ever pack their animals?” James asks. “And emu, buffalo and ostrich, they were a craze. Their producers were fighting to get shelf space for their meat.”

THE FLEECE OF KINGS

Alpacas aren’t only the most recent livestock to be raised in Montana – they also are the second newest mammal on earth.  About 6,000 years ago, the Incas crossed vicunas and guanacos – camelid species both native to the high plains of Bolivia, Peru and Chile – to produce a domesticated animal for its fine fleece. Clothing made from the fleece was once reserved for Incan royalty.

Related also to llamas, alpacas have never been used as pack animals or bred for meat, and as a strictly prey animal, they have no natural defenses. The Budds keep two llamas and two Anatolian Turkish guard dogs to protect their flock.

Seven years ago, the Budds had no plans to get into any type of livestock business. For one thing, neither had any ranching experience. Sarah, 28 and a Bozeman native, worked in real estate, and James, 41, originally from Maryland, was a surgical assistant. From childhood on, however, James had wanted to make a living working with animals. He had even seen television commercials about alpaca ranching, but thought it was too good to be true.

But almost seven years ago, he came across a Costco flyer featuring an older couple with big smiles making a lot of money raising alpacas. Later that same day, he read an article in the Wall Street Journal about investing in alpacas, and finally, that evening, he received another article from his sister on alpaca ranching, thinking he might be interested.

“I brought the pictures to Sarah, and she had never seen or heard of alpacas,” James recalls. “She said, ‘I am not going to be a farmer.’ But I spent the night researching alpacas online, and in the morning I knew it was what I wanted to do.”

Sarah adds that the “sticker shock” at the cost of one animal gave them a dose of reality, but they created a business plan to start with eight animals and applied for a loan.

“The banker looked at us like we were from Mars,” James says. “But when I do something I put everything into it.” More importantly, James notes, they found a mentor in alpaca breeder Steve Rolfing, owner of the Great Northern Ranch in Whitefish, and eventually bought their first alpacas from him.

“This is very much a networking business,” James added. “It isn’t cutthroat at all. We’re all growth oriented, and we want to nourish and grow the business as a whole, especially in Montana. We’re building this industry together.”

EVEN THE DROPPINGS HAVE VALUE

The Budds now have 80 alpacas on their 20-acre farm in the Cottonwood area, and are in the midst of what they call the “long, tough process” of getting certified as an organic farm. The animals, including a dozen owned by investors, are rotated among four pastures for about seven months of the year, and are fed baled grass the other five months.

“Southwest Montana has some of the best grass in the world,” James enthuses. “And the terrain is the most similar to alpacas’ native lands.”

With three stomachs, alpacas are very efficient in extracting nutrients from their feed.  Cleaning up after the animals is simple, too. The entire herd lays its waste in one place, making for easy disposal, and since their droppings are low in acidity, the Budds can sell each truckload as fertilizer for about $200.

Alpacas first were brought into the U.S. in 1984. Today, there are only about 100,000 alpacas on 6,000 farms nationwide, so there is plenty of room for more breeders, said Budd. Of the 25 farms in Montana, six in the Gallatin Valley alone, only a half dozen operations – including Alpacas of Montana – are large enough to sell breeding stock.  However, in 1996, the Alpacas Owners and Breeders Association (AOBA), which certifies breeders and all registered alpacas in this country, closed the borders to additional animals from South America.

“We work hard to improve the bloodlines and the fleece,” Sarah says.  That is why every animal is genotyped, by the AOBA and microchipped, and why breeders spend so much time matching the right herdsire (male alpaca) to the right dam to produce high-quality fleece.

“The difference between a hand-knit product from American alpacas and products from South America is that the imports may be made from yarn that is only 25 percent alpaca,” James explained.

Alpaca fleece is naturally warm because each strand is hollow, resulting in one of the world’s most luxurious natural fibers,” soft as cashmere and warmer, lighter and stronger than wool.” According to the AOBA, fleece comes in 22 certified colors, more than any other fiber producing animal. Yarn spun from the fleece is almost completely waterproof, and less than one percent of people are allergic to it, added James.

NO KNITTING REQUIRED

The Budds have their alpacas sheared once a year in the spring and have that spun into yarn at nearby Thirteen Mile Farm. Raw fleece can sell for as much as $6 an ounce, while spun yarn sells for about $15 for a 145-yard skein. With the average alpaca producing six-and-a-half to seven pounds of fleece each shearing, each alpaca pays its own yearly keep.

“We’re just getting into end-use retail, having our fleece spun into yarn and knitted into hats,” Sarah said, “but hour handicap is that we don’t knit. Still, one of the things I like about this business is there are so many ways of making it work. We’re doing well with breeding and selling stock.”

“Female alpacas are ready for their first breeding at about 13 months old, and 11 months later will produce a single offspring called a cria, Spanish for creation.  The Budds breed their females in the spring and summer.  They are then bred again two weeks after giving birth, and continue to nurse the babies, called weaners, for about six months.

“The females are pregnant and nursing for most of their lives,” Sarah said, “but they are such good mothers, it’s natural for them.” The females can be bred for 17 or 18 years, and live another seven years. Herdsires become sexually mature at age four, can be bred for about 12 years and live to about age 20.

While just about every female cria can be used for breeding, not all males make it into the hersire category. Those animals are sold as pets to people who want to spin their own yarn for $500 to $4,200, depending on their fleece. Since alpacas are such social animals, however, they need to be living with at least one other alpaca. Hersidre owners can get $1,000 to $2,500 in stud fees for a guaranteed live birth. An unproven herdsire can sell for $10,000, and the world record price ever paid for a proven herdsire was $600,000.

Still, the Budds remain cognizant of the challenges that potential buyers face, especially if they are new to the world of alpacas.

“The toughest issue buyers have when they start out is the costly investment, and you can’t know enough about the animals to feel comfortable,” James says. “I encourage people to research, research, research. And you truly have to build a relationship with the seller, which is easy because we really are a networking business.  We’re partners with the people we buy from and sell to.  When you buy from us, we’re with you forever.”

 

A home where alpacas roam

By Ken Buday

February 5, 2008 - 2:55PM

Havelock News

Traveling through eastern Craven County, you’ll run across farms where corn is grown, fields where cows graze and one particular home where the alpacas roam.

Yep, alpacas.

Ken Bradley has seven next to his home on Becton Road, and he’s looking to build a herd of 12 to 15 of the animals rarely seen in eastern North Carolina.

“It will do a little to supplement my retirement,” said Bradley, who along with his wife, Bunnie, operates Little Creek Alpacas.

He said there’s not a huge profit in alpacas, an animal in the same family as llamas with a heritage that stretches to the mountains of Peru and Boliva in South America.

However, alpacas have a rich fur, the finest of which has the texture of cashmere, Bradley said.

“We spun a blanket and gave it to my eldest son for a wedding present,” he said.

Bradley said he first encountered alpacas in Oregon, watching and then helping a farmer shear one. He got his first alpaca in 2003.

He’s had success with breeding the stocky animals that weigh around 200 pounds. He has one alpaca that’s about a year old and another that’s pregnant.

He said the real money is in breeding alpacas that produce the highest quality fur.

“I think I’ve got some good genes here,” he said, adding one of his alpacas is the offspring of a national champion.

He said a breeding female alpaca can fetch $15,000 or more. He said he has one male alpaca on the market now, and he’s hoping for $1,000, but he’s not sure he can get that much.

Bradley did say the number of people raising alpacas is increasing.

“When I started, there were just a couple of dozen in the state,” he said. “I think there’s about 60 or 70 now.”

On a recent afternoon, he carried bits of carrots to a fenced portion of his yard to provide the alpacas an afternoon snack.

The animals are somewhat curious, and they have personalities, he said. One is rather shy and stays in the background. He said most of the time they are well-behaved, but they do have their moments.

“They will spit at you,” he said. “They would just sometimes rather not have you around.”
But, no such problems occur on this day. The animals eagerly take the carrots, then go back to feeding on the dormant grass.

“There’s just something peaceful about watching an animal graze,” Bradley said.

He said they eat grass and hay. He does supplement their diet with grains that contain important minerals. He said feeding one alpaca for a year costs about $120.

“They’re fairly hardy creatures,” he said. “They don’t have a lot of diseases that are a problem. They will get stomach worms periodically, but you can treat them for that.”

Once a year, usually in late April, Bradley will get the shears out to trim the hair from his alpacas.

He said female alpacas will generate five to six pounds of fiber each, while males will generate eight to 10 pounds. He said shearing one animal takes him about 30 minutes.

“We’ll try to get the two boys home and make it a family outing,” he said.

Bradley said the Carolina Alpaca Breeders and Owners organization is working with North Carolina State University in an effort to find more uses for alpaca fur.

“There are a lot of claims about it being less itchy than wool and warmer than wool,” he said. “We’re hoping N.C. State looks into it, and I think they’ll do that.”

He said the small number of alpacas he has doesn’t make selling the fur for processing profitable.

“It’s hardly worth messing with,” he said. “But, it’s nice knowing that it came from our animals. At least I can get a couple more blankets out of it.”