Alpaca Blanket Project

Alpaca News Item:

Peter and Carol Lundberg are alpaca friends of ours. This article is a little old, but the story keeps being picked up by the papers, so I thought I'd share:

http://www.statesmanjournal.com/article/20090211/COMMUNITIES/902110424/1133

We hope to interview them about the blanket project on the Paca Talk podcast ( www.pacatalk.com ) in the near future.

m

pooptacular!

http://www.newerspreader.com/newmodel.htm

Our shiny new manure spreader. Charles's dream come true.

He actually sold his English sports car so he could buy this. Sad, but true. It was NOT Maren's idea, either.

We'll let you know how it works out once we play with it some. :)

m

Alpaca 401 (k)

http://www.kmbc.com/cnn-news/17741606/detail.html

Our herd has doubled in value since we bought the orginal 4 animals four years ago. Not bad, especially considering the current economic turmoil.

Of course, just like stocks and bonds, to get that money we'd have to sell the alpacas. Maybe next year. :)

maren

Alpacas in the WSJ!

This article was on the front page of the Wall Street Journal!

"When Stocks Tank, Some Investors Stampede to Alpacas and Turn to Drink"

Here's a couple lines of the article...

"Peggy Parks, a 49-year-old auditor in Johnstown, Pa., turned to an unusual farm animal. "I've lost a fortune in stocks, and my 401(k) is falling through the floor. I feel comfortable in alpacas," she says. She invested $56,000 in a small herd that she believes has a better outlook than most mutual funds because of the animals' breeding potential.

The national Alpaca Registry Inc., in Lincoln, Neb., says registrations are on pace to rise 7% this year and currently stand at 140,297. Ms. Parks says a female of "medium quality" can fetch $10,000 and that prices have been rising, supporting her hopes that she'll see a profit on her alpaca portfolio in five years."

I'm interested in the idea that alpacas are seen by some as a sounder investment than stocks. I don't think I would go so far as to recommend people by alpacas as their sole investment. However, they are far cuter than most portfolios, and have a long track record of increasing the value of their herd (by reproducing).

I think it's great. I love front-page advertising.

m

Purchases!

http://www.alpacanation.com/alpacasforsale/03_viewalpaca.asp?name=22744

We're in the process of buying this black alpaca and her baby girl!

We haven't bought an alpaca since the first three (plus cria). I'll save the details until we've 1) closed the deal and 2) talked about it on Paca Talk (www.pacatalk.com).

Eee! This is exciting!

m

Paca Talk is on iTunes!

Hi Everyone!

Our podcast, Paca Talk (Pacatalk.com), is now on iTunes! You can search for "Paca Talk" or "alpaca podcast," and it will come up. Or click here to open iTunes on your computer.

I suspect that I'll be focusing less attention to this blog since we have the podcast going on, and it will have information about goings on on this farm. Our new human baby has taken up much of the time I had been spending on this blog, anyway.

Episode #1 of Paca Talk will be posted within a couple days.

maren

Paca Talk is live!

Paca Talk is our new alpaca podcast!

Check out our first "teaser" episode, which is posted on the blog:

http://www.pacatalk.com

Look for us on iTunes soon!
maren

New Baby!

Well, okay, he isn't so new. I've been busy (read "8 months pregnant") and I haven't been updating this as I should.

Principal Skinner (a.k.a. "Seymore") was born to Dawn on 10/3/07. Charles walked into the barn and found him...the best kind of birth as far as I'm concerned. He is white and male, but he is a son of Patchacuti, so he is beautiful. He's healthy, though not nearly the bruiser that Rainier was at birth. Seymore weighed in at about 14# when he was born. Now he's up to 23#. Rainier must be 45# by now.

We took Dawn to Northwest Alpacas on Saturday for a drive-by breeding to Cannonero, one of only two or three fawn studs up there. Dawn is a funny animal. During the breeding she ate hay and then she laid down on her side. We think the unusual position was because Cannonero is a big beast, and she's little. She must have thought he was too heavy. It was a good, long breeding, though, and we got to take her home on the same day. I like this "drive by" trend.

That's all for now. I'll post pictures soon.
maren

Map of WABA farms for Alpaca Farm Day

This is just a test/proof of concept page for now. Neat, huh?
m




View Larger Map

New baby!

Welcome to Rainier Wolfcastle!

He was born on August 18, 2007, at around 8:30 a.m., and weighed in at nearly 21 lbs.! His mother is Cabernet, who was on progesterone because we thought she was due two weeks later. His father is Hakuna Matata, who now resides on the East Coast.

We're pleased at how robust this little guy is. He has gained six pounds in a week! Normally, you can expect cria to gain 8 oz. a day, but he has put on nearly a pound a day. The vet thought he looked two weeks old on the day he was born.

A boy isn't a girl, but we're pleased with strong babies one way or another.

m

Cute picture of the day

Cute Picture of the Day!

This was taken sometime in May, I believe.

This is what is known as "Velcro fleece."

maren

Far too long since I've posted...

Hello!

It's been too long since I posted, so here is a brief update:

HOTV show 2007: Lisa (left) received no ribbons. G. K. Willie won a fourth place out of ten! Yippee!

Willamette Valley Alpaca Fleece Show 2007: Wille got a second place, Bart and Lisa got 3rd and 4th places, and there is one more fleece that I forget about.

Everyone is now pregnant.

I'll post more info and pictures once life settles down here.
m

catch up

It's been a long time, so here's a summary:

1. El Barto and Consuella have conceived! We don't know how long ago, since Consuella is notorious for hiding her pregnancies. We'll ultrasound her this summer when we have sometime and money.
2. The boys are now sleeping under the stars so that we can get some grass growing in their pasture which is attached to the barn. They are enjoying the fresh grass, and seem to be used to their tent-shelter now. (pictures to come)
3. We had El Barto and Duffy shorn last weekend so that we can enter their fleeces in the Willamette Valley Alpaca Fleece Show on May 19-20. They have been cold and picked on by the other boys all week. Bart opened a new can of whoop-ass to keep the minions in line.
4. The Heart of the Valley Alpaca Show is Mother's day weekend in Albany. Go see the website that Charles and I designed. We'll have two baby alpacas entered.
5. The rest of the herd is going to be shorn on May 19.
6. Charles and I are starting a web design business aimed at small farmers and others who need a custom website and easy data management.
7. I am teaching five different classes this quarter, so I am meeting myself coming and going. Whew!

That's enough for now. I'll have pictures of shearing and the show later.

m

Wow! It is so pretty here.

We don't get a lot of snow here in the Willamette Valley, but it is pretty when we get some. This is about 1/2" that came through in Jan or Feb 07. It was gone by the end of the week.




This other picture is of the tracks we found that evening leading into and out of the barn. They are of some canine, although we don't know if it is coyote or just a random dog. I haven't had my friends in the biology dept. look at it yet.

We have been pasture-breeding Bart and Consuella for about a week now. The idea is that they will have the whole day to "do it," and perhaps without the "pressure" they will conceive. She's been spitting off for a couple days now, so they are in their separate pastures. We'll spit-test them in a week.

Wish us luck! Our next step will have to be fertility testing.

m

January update #1

Here's the cute picture of the day. This is from the first snow this winter, about two days before Thanksgiving. Milhouse and Charles are caught in a private moment. :)

So much has happened in the last two months that I'm going to have to update you in stages. This post is going to be abotu breedings.

-------------------
First, Dawn is pregnant and at home. We had no problem re-breeding her to Patchacuti. She was actually bred the day we dropped her off, and she took the first time. We picked her up this last weekend, and have her in minor quarantine for a couple weeks.

We were not so lucky with Consuella and Barto. She remains not pregnant (according to her progesterone scores). The question is, who's to blame? Is it Barto, the young, inexperienced stud? Or is it Consuella, with her confounding biology which confused the vest at NWA for two months with false negative pregnancy tests? We don't know, so we're going to have some testing done in the near future. We've stopped breeding them for the time being because it is too late in the season for babies to be born (it's snowing AGAIN today, for example).

So, that's the breeding update. Watch for hay and website updates soon!

maren

Alpacas in Smart Money!

http://www.smartmoney.com/smallbiz/index.cfm?story=20061218

So, you want to start an alpaca farm? This links to a story about starting a small business while keeping your "day job," and it includes a couple that started an alpaca farm while remaining teachers. It's what Charles and I did.
m

Evergreen Terrace's X-mas 2006

Hello everyone!

We've had a busy year, naturally, and it took a couple of interesting turns. We've have a pretty good year with the alpacas, artistic endeavors, website building, consulting and caring for family members.

First of all, Maren has been busy writing, but branched out this year into filmmaking as well. Maren and a friend made two short films together this year. One was a documentary about alpacas at the Heart of the Valley Alpaca show.

The alpacas are doing great. (Snowball is the Rudolf impersonator in the picture.) We have two adorable babies who were born at the end of the summer. They play together and are endlessly entertaining. The male, Willie, was born two weeks early, but he is robust now, and the color of a new penny. The girl, Lisa, was born a month later, and is a very light fawn.

We have had a productive year entering alpaca fleeces in fleece shows. Bart and Duffman have each won one fleece ribbon, but Milhouse has won two, including third place out of a class of fourteen in a spin-off competition. We are very proud.

We want to reiterate that everyone is welcome to come visit us on the ranch.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Charles, Maren, Tigger, the kitties, and the alpacas.

November Updates and random photo

This is the random alpaca picture of the day. Milhouse was backlit nicely by the sunset in September.










It’s about time for us to spit-test and progesterone test Consuella. It has been three weeks since her last breeding with Barto. I hope that all tests show her to be solidly pregnant, but given the difficulty the pros at NWA had in finding her pregnancy last year, I’m fearful that she will be equally difficult to pin down this year.

In other news, the rains have come back and, despite our French drain, the barn still floods. However, we aren’t in the “water flowing through the barn” stage or the “water standing in the barn” yet as we were last year. We have some mud, and a pool of water where the clay floor of the barn is saturated with urine. The boys are a muddy mess. We have made progress, but it is still disheartening that there is still so much water in that stall.

Maybe we should build a dike next year.

Breeding updates

Cabernet has been confirmed pregnant with a progesterone test. Later on in the season, we may ultrasound her, but we didn't last year, so I don't think it is necessary.

Consuella's progesterone was so low that we decided to tease her again with Kuna. It could just be that she doesn't accept El Barto's authority yet, so to speak. He'll get more macho as he matures.

Anyway, Kuna was able to get Consuella down, and Bart was right there to finish the job (after 1/2 hour!). A few days later, we brought Kuna back to tease her again, and she spit and threw a fit. She did the same thing on Tuesday, so we're pretty sure she thinks she's pregnant. We'll tease her and do another progesterone test in a couple weeks to confirm it.

However, we won't be able to tease her with Kuna anymore. Polly was able to sell him to someone in Connecticut. He's leaving in a couple days. Polly is sad, but he'll be happy as a clam there with all sorts of girls to play with.

Our final bit of news is that Dawn is at NWA for her date with Pachacuti. This is a re-breeding because she lost her pregnancy sometime last spring. She was bred on Saturday, and spit off on Tuesday. They'll try again on Friday, but she may have taken on the first try this time. Keep your fingers crossed!

So, we may finally have everyone pregnant. Yippee!

2006 Fiber Odyssey Spin-off ribbon

Milhouse won a ribbon!

Back in July I sent off 2 oz. of Milhouse's fleece to Idaho for this spin-off contest, and promptly forgot about it until I received this package in the mail today!

Milhouse won third place in the Fawns for his fleece, out of FOURTEEN entries! He lost the most points for lack of crimp and architecture in his fleece, but obviously, that isn't enough to hold back a nice yarn!

I'm so proud. :)

m