How did we end up where we are now?
After a year of enjoying our beautiful country property we decided it would be a waste of the facilities (barn, pastures etc) to leave them unused. Of course I have always wanted to be a farmer and could not miss my big chance.
With that the hunt began. What do we do with a barn?
We looked into all kinds of livestock from cattle, to sheep, game birds, mink, rabbits, pigs …It became evident that one of us would need to become a full time farmer for many of the options, and for others there was little profit to be made, more daily hands-on work than we could manage and not to mention major renovations to the barn in some cases. In each case we compared the requirements to what we knew about alpacas.
Alpacas: Easy to keep, disease free, manageable size, valuable fleece and both domestic and international markets for breeding stock. Not to mention really cute! Limited (in comparison) renovations to the barn, and of course an upgrade to the rickety fence you have been hearing about.
Best of all a great many alpaca ranchers we spoke with maintained full time off farm jobs. Could this become a love affair with these fuzzy creatures?
Research went on for about a year and a half, visiting too many websites to count, alpaca farm visits, and reading everything we could. We took advantage of Ag Canada programs for assistance with a business plan, which actually made sense. A few last steps to pull it all together and here we are.
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