RAISING ALPACAS

Raising alpacas from birth to adulthood will cause excitement to run rampant in your life. Sometimes life with your herd becomes more exciting than expected! But in the end, a great adventure.

Grab a copy of our free ebook to learn more about the business and farming ends of owning a herd.

Why do we raise alpacas? For the final end product that luxurious fleece and for a wonderful lifestyle. Learn about the fashion and lifestyle. Read about evaluating animal fiber and conformation before you purchase.

Births

Pronking at dusk (also known as leaping and playing)! A smile will form on your lips and you will think how cool you are when you see your cria pronking.

Our first cria is pictured on this page. What a joyful moment you'll experience when you hold your newborn.

Watching the miracle of a birth will bring a nervous tug to your lips. Will everything go OK? When it does then a relieved broad smile spreads from ear to ear. What happens when things don't go right? Read about a birth on our farm that did not go as expected, but has a happy ending. Watch a birth and read more info on crias. Crias need to be weaned but it is a controversial subject among breeders. Read our philosophy and experience weaning crias.

Get out the halter and start training. Now is the time to halter and handle your juveniles. We just started by getting them use to our touch and proceeded from there to haltering and leading.

Is it essential to halter train? Read why we think alpaca halter training is important.

After we had the basics, we decided to try a more advanced training program. Read about clicker training and how that went for us.

Once your camelid reaches adulthood, raising alpacas becomes a matter of maintenance, right? Well, that depends. Mostly, yes. But be prepared for different problems to crop up.

Basic maintenance requires feeding, toenail trimming, worming, vaccinating, and shearing.

Provide high quality food and you'll have a successful business. You'll want to be careful with ryegrass as it can cause problems.

Alpaca dehydration can be a life threatening issue. Intestinal blockage complications and death can occur, so be sure to keep your alpacas well hydrated.

What if one or more of your herd becomes ill and dies? Should you have insurance? Is your cute cushing camelid not so cute anymore due to a facial swelling? Well, it could be cud it's planning on swallowing later or it could be a facial abscess. Read about a bacteria called mycoplasama haemolamae to understand why you should be wary of purchasing thin camelids.

Aggression can be a problem caused by handling a cria too much. This doesn't become apparent to the novice owner until it's out of control. We caused some disrespectful behavior due to being novices which you can read about by clicking here. Our solution to the problem may not be trainer approved but it has worked for us and we didn't even have to touch the animal!

Think it takes a pro to train your fuzzy friends? Not really. You can do it yourself if you have patience. Training your herd is fun and rewarding.

When raising alpacas you'll notice males have an amazing ability to seek out females that are ready for breeding. How does he do this? It's the 'ol flehmen response.

It's important to keep your camelids stomach in balance. Knowing more about the Alpaca Digestive System will help you to understand how to keep their stomachs happy.

Do you have a small herd and want to save on shearing costs? Read how we did our own shearing by hand.

Camelids have a perpetual grin. We recorded Lucky so you could see him smiling...especially when he's naughty.

Raising alpacas from birth to adulthood will take you on an adventure ride better than anything at Disneyland and you get to have it right there in your own pastures. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll be frustrated, but you will never be bored!

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