Yes, we raise Alpacas for the Fleece and my wife is active in the KY Alpaca Association. I’m the chief Pooper Scooper and feeder.
We currently have 26 of them. We cut back on breeding over the last couple of years but expect to do some more this year. They were are very profitable animal to raise prior to Obama, in the last eight years the industry has been devastated as farm after farm has gone out of business for one reason or another.
What’s left are the big ‘mega farms’ that have deep pockets to work with and small ‘family farms’ such as ourselves that process the fiber ourselves for making hand made items like yarns for knitting.
All in all I really like the Alpacas and find them a real joy to work with.
Can you milk an alpaca?
A thread about a camelid...appropriately posted on hump day.
Do you have huyi’s or suris? I have suris - MacGyver and Attaboy stock. My gals love cut-up baby carrots, and one, aptly named Bunny, will chase everyone away if I don’t separate her out for the treat because she thinks all carrots on the planet belong to her.
It’s ok to hold fiber over until you’re ready to pay mill prices, but if you do a little processing of at least the champions’ fiber yourself (and you can get the kids involved in most of it), you’ll have a marketable product for the gift stall you’ll build for farm days. (you) Wash, dry, and the kids turn the fiber into roving and package it. If you’d like, I can post some videos.