'Getting Started'
By James Humphreys
Article in ALPACAS MAGAZINE®
-Summer 2002-
On my first date with my wife-to-be, we learned of
a mutual love for animals
and that we had both dreamed of becoming veterinarians. Our plans for
becoming vets had run aground somewhere along the way but we still felt
a
need to be surrounded by animals. When we married and moved into a small
townhouse it wasn't long before we, and our very active Springer Spaniel,
outgrew the townhouse…with a strip of grass the size of a bowling lane!
Then one fateful day in February of 2000, Helen ran into a friend who was
selling an old farmhouse a few miles north of Pittsburgh. A farm? Growing
up,
my family had an old farm used as a weekend getaway so farm life wasn't
completely foreign to me…but a farmer? And that small strip of grass
had
become 10 acres of land with an old bank barn. Well, needless to say, we
"bought the farm".
Knowing Helen, it wouldn't be too long before she
had filled that barn with
some kind of critters. We wanted something that was relatively easy to
care for and something we didn't eat or send out to be slaughtered. Helen
was
sold on raising alpacas after looking at several other possibilities and
researching the animals, as well as the investment and tax advantages of
being
an alpaca farmer. She eventually won me over after we visited a few farms
and
fell in love with these fleecy, humming beauties.
We educated ourselves by joining AOBA and attending
auctions and shows,
taking in as many seminars as we could. We also visited 15 farms across
the US
and in the process garnered reams of invaluable information and advice from
some of the leading alpaca breeders in the industry…as well as some
of the nicest
and most diverse people we'd ever met!
When we began searching for our starter herd, we
felt quality and diversity
were the keys to creating a magnificent herd. We started with 20 beautiful
females of renowned bloodlines from east to west of the US. Our starter
herd
includes offspring from Hemingway, Caligula, Camilio, Bueno, Microsoft,
Vengador, Desperado, Felix, El Niño, Royal Fawn, and Altiplano Gold.
We felt that the key to getting off to a good start
in this business was to avoid
making costly and irreversible mistakes. We'd like to thank all of the gracious
alpaca people who gave us their time and shared their advice so that we
might
avoid the inevitable stumbling blocks along the way.
Dr. Doolittle was a vet who could talk to the animals.
I'm no Doolittle, but I
believe I can 'hum' a few bars…
© 2002 Alpacas Magazine - Reprinted with permission. |
