This Business is Fun

I know that so far I've been talking about the business of alpacas and not the alpacas themselves, so I 've decided to take a page from Susan, the wonderful woman who introduced me to alpacas, and when I visit the farm, write about my visit.

When I go by myself, I go really early to help muck the fields and get a feel of everyday life on a farm so when I do have my farm I won't feel like a fish out of water. Mucking it is not fun but at least it can be done quickly. The main problem is that ten minutes later, it doesn't look like you touched it. Patti and I had great conversation while mucking. Her advice on pricing, "price what the market will bear." That's why she and Rick have such reasonable prices. They know right now the market isn't bearing $20K alpacas very well. It's just like with anything, there are always going to be people who can pay top dollar but how many of them want to buy your product?

When we got to the main field, we saw something Rick and Patti had only seen one time before: a girl slipped her pregnancy. It was extremely gross. We had to keep making her move so that gravity could pull it everything. (double yuck) The former mom-to-be seemed to take it in stride. It was her first pregnancy. Now it has to be determined if this was a fluke of nature because she had a placental abruption or if she can't carry a pregnancy.

It's situations like this that underscore the risk in the alpaca business for breeders. If you've bought a female with the idea that she is going to pay for herself by giving you lots of crias, you're taking a huge risk with an unproven girl. When I went to .925 Suris I met the sweetest alpaca, Hard Days Night. Not only is he sweet but he is gorgeous, I want to breed him to Keona. Anyway, he was his mom's first and last child. She died after giving birth to him because she couldn't hold her uterus and by the time the doctor got there, she bled out. The risk of breeding. The good news is even if she only gave Nancy one cria, she gave them a good one.

Rick went over what I have so far of my spread sheet. He filled in some pricing I didn't have and corrected some pricing I did have. He also advised against buying fiber males. He pointed out that I will have males born who will only be fiber males and they won't cost me a cent. I'll see how my fiber sales work out before I totally shelve the idea. Rick and Patti also told me it would be a good idea to start my own fiber mill. I don't know, sounds like a new research project!

We halter trained Keona for the third time. She wasn't any happier than the last two times, but at least she walked with us. She decided she doesn't like being tickled, so she didn't stayed cushed longer than a second inthe beginning. She refused to walk the way we wanted her to go. When we got to the circuit, she did everythiung beautifully going up hill but down, she decided to stage a power struggle. I swear she understood Rick tell me not to let her get in front of me because the second he said guess where she went? Even with my hand in front of her she just put her nose in my hand and kept going. Then she cushed. We ended the lesson there.

I can't help but laugh. Keona doesn't want to be controlled anymore than any human and she's doing a great job of lettting me know it. Not only do I love Keona dearly but she ahs earned my respect. Now I have to do the same with her.