Alpacas
This is a brochure from the Alpaca farm we visited yesterday. The one on the top left, Artemus, is one that we will be getting if the deal works out. The deal is actually for a total of 15, 7 females (5 are preggers) and 8 males. We would immediately sell 5 of the 8 males. The people at this farm were very nice and most helpful. They really run a first class operation and will be a great resource for info and help. The deal we will be working on is not with these people. They used to have Artemus in partnership with this other guy, but the other guy bought out their share.
Apparently, the animals we are looking at are very good quality.
This is going to get interesting.
Wow! that is a healthy start for this project . I wish you all the luck with it.Good that you will have a good support from the breeders, It never hurts with a new project to have a bit of back up.
ReplyDeleteBaby alpacas are so cute!! This is going to be fun!!
ReplyDeleteAlpaca are soooo cute. These look like really nice animals.
ReplyDeleteBest wishes,
Sarah
Wow! So what does one do with Alpacas? Do they have wool? Are they packing animals, or meat animals?
ReplyDeleteVery, very cute, rather Dr. Suess-ish animals. :)
Hummingbird Hill gets new residents. Can't wait to see how this progresses, and especially what you name them all!
Thanks Ladies!
ReplyDeleteBH, they are not meat animals, can't do it and Kevin knows better than to even suggest it. Yes, the wool is very nice and profitable. It is hypoallergenic and very soft but durable. The place we visited even has a store, the sweaters were just beautiful and so soft. They have a connection with a family in Peru who does the weaving.
OMG, the naming thing will be hilarious. The ones we get originally are already named but the babies are all mine. Of course, they will have their registered names but barn names, heehee. Each one of you is likely to have a baby Alpaca running around with your name.
There is a whole world of Alpaca, much like horses. They have shows, they breed, they are pets and investments. I had no idea.
ReplyDeleteCCC- oh yeah, they get as crazy as the rest of the world with showing, etc. My friend is very involved, I think she and her husband are even judges.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with them. They're cute! I hope you get some great ones and have a ton of fun :D
ReplyDeleteAfter our llama fiasco, I would never get another one (llama or alpaca) Plus, they smell just like the zoo. Saying they stink makes me kind of a hypocrit when I hang out with horses, but they do, lol.
CCH:
ReplyDeletePlease let me know your story. I want to have all of my facts straight before taking this really huge leap.
I am not real worried about smell, We have a big, open area for them and it is way away from the house. Hey, I have dogs who love to roam through the swamp and then come back up to the house covered in swamp mud, now that stinks. Combine the smell of swamp mud and wet dogs, kinda makes your nose hairs curl.
Oh we just thought it would be great to have some llamas around as pets. You know, you see the commercials and how soft they are when you find one in a petting zoo.
ReplyDeleteWe ended up finding a lady that was selling all of her mom's exotic stock because the mom had fallen ill. We went out and were told that they were all friendly and worked with. They appeared to be. All the animals there would kind of circle you and look. We picked two females because the lady guaranteed they were both bred. We loaded them through a chute system into our trailer. She sent us home with halters for them. We named the Red/Sorrel Lucy (2yo) and the smaller bay/brown Ethel (3yo).
Well needless to say, they were not nice after they left their home. They were never halter broke, and we never did get a single halter on them. They spent the first week in the trailer because they turned out to be so wild that we didn't want them to jump the fence and we thought that confining them would help them to know who feeds them and build trust. This did not work. We eventually turned them out into a drylot. Despite numerous efforts to pet them and gentle them. Even with grain bribes, you could never touch these things.
The next Spring, Ethel had a pure white baby boy, which we named Steven. I begged my mother to take him away and bottle feed him. She wouldn't because she insisted that he needed his mother's milk to survive. This was a terrible idea. He was never able to be gentle and would not let you touch him either. Plus his mother was very protective.
Did I mention that its not the spit you need to watch out for (Between the 3 of them there was only one incident of spitting) its the striking/kicking. I got kicked more than once and those hooves are so sharp and small that it is beyond painful.
By the fall (after we had them about 16 months), we had changed their names to Osama bin Lllama (Steven), Ude and Kuse (Lucy and Ethel) because they were so hard to be around. Steven was trying to breed both of them all the time even though he was way too young. We had to take them to an exotic sale. Steven went with his aunt to a breeding farm and Lucy was bought by a private lady as a pet. The three of them brought like $80 which was way less than what we paid for them.
They also pee and poop in a pile, which has its pros and cons. Its fairly easy to clean with a bobcat. But because its all so confined, and can't dry out, it really does smell very bad. The urine soaks into the little poop balls and makes a bit of a mess. Also because we could never tame them, they were never groomed and always looked like crap. They really needed to be groomed or shaved, but there was no way it would ever happen. I can't compare the smell to anything except maybe big cat spray from the zoo or wierd zoo animal poop. We have dogs that go to the muddy stagnant part of the river and roll in it and dead stuff all the time and they do not smell like those llamas did.
I don't know all the differences between llamas and alpacas, but I would just make sure that every one you get is halter broke, friendly, allows you to groom/pet it everywhere and pick up all its feet. I also might think about getting only 2-3 females and only 1 intact male if you intend to breed, otherwise get neutered ones because the males have a scent to them.
Ok that was a lot of rambling. I feel bad ripping on the llamas, but it was a horrible experience. We really did try to tame them down. I don't know if there was anything else that could have been done, so I'm just going to stick to horses from now on.
CCH:
ReplyDeleteThanks for your story. Sounds pretty bad. I do know that the ones we are looking at buying are halter trained and some have even been shown. They have all been trained to stand for shearing, vetting and having their feet trimmed.
I can imagine how unpleasant it could be to try to deal with them if they haven't been handled.
We will be thinning down the herd immediately. I don't want to have that many.
Osama Bin LLama, OMG, that is too funny.