Alpacas

What do you know about Alpacas? Same here. So with the open house last Saturday at Golden Pine Alpacas, we had an opportunity to find out. What we found on our exploratory trip was most enjoyable. The location of the farm was nestled in the ponderosa pine covered hills a couple of miles north of town. colored balloons on a string announced the "open house". The owners, Pat and Barb Patterson, in about three years, have made good use of their small farm. The first thing you notice when you drive in is the barn. Pat built it himself. It's a nice size and ascetically barn-like. Once you walk inside and look around, you see that he did his homework before building it. At the top of the walls, just under the roofline, are windows that let in plenty of light. Pat told me that he didn't want a dark barn. These window, actually, are just clear corrigated lexan, that can be opened to allow ventilation in the warmer summer weather. The same hold true with the window in various parts of the walls. They are also of the same material. The outside doorways, in addition to being constructed of wood, have these materials as part of their construction so they can double as additional air openings or sunlight sources. Very ingenious I thought.

Another "Hmm" moment was when I saw how Pat had constructed the interior. The floor is not concrete, but instead it is 4 inches of tamped crushed rock. This is covered with the same type of material that is used in road building to keep the underbed from erodong away. This covering allows water moisture to pass through it so when one of the animals relieves itself, the liquid passes thru. Any solid material can be picked up and the floor hosed off with that water also sinking into the ground. Walking on the floor, you would not know that you are not on concrete, except for the look of it and the feel, because when you do notice it, you have to bend over and touch it to find out.

Walking around the barn I also noticed that the vertical support beams had vertical slots on them. These allowed planks to be slid into the these slots to create animal pens and larger areas as needed.

Then there were the animals. They resemble Llamas but are considerably smaller. Because of their smaller size, alpacas are not used for beasts of burden, like llamas, in their native countries of Peru, Chile, Bolivia and Ecuador, but are raised for their fiber. Their fleeses do not contain the lanolin that wool does so people that have trouble with the scratchiness of wool, can enjoy the softness and warmth of alpaca.

Alpacas are interesting creatures. The ones at Golden Pine, had been sheared so their heads and feet appeared to be oversized. The trimming also emphasized the length of their necks and made them look more like one of their distant family members, the camel. It is easy to see the resemblance. Like camels, alpacas can spit. They spit to show displeasure. The "ammunition" varies from just air, to spit, to stomach contents depending upon how upset the animal is.

Mostly alpacas appear to be just interesting, docile, unique creatures. The cria (young) are, of course, majorly cute. The female female can be bred shortly after giving birth but will hold the egg until the young had been weened before the pregnancy begins. The gestation period is about 11 months. I have included some internet pictures of Alpacas so you can see what they look like unsheered. Pictures from the farm will come soon. Thank you Golden Pine for a grat day.