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B4DBB820; Some say that alpacas are simply too cute to eat.
5[TTRTS Qh cWT =Tf ATS <TPc Such â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;noveltyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; animals as alpacas, llamas, emus and ostriches have turned out to be poor investments for aspiring ranchers By Alastair Bland
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lpacas came to the North Bay 25 years ago, and in the decades since, thousands of entrepreneurs around the state and the nation have invested heavily in the small exotic-animal cottage industry, many with the hopes of striking it rich. While the shaggy beasts, natives of the Andes and relatives to llamas, vicunas and camels, can sell for thousands of dollars apiece, and while their f leece may be softer, finer and silkier than that of sheep, the value of the animals and the entire industry itself took a big hit with the economic crash of 2008. Industry analysts say the game is over, that those who bought in are unlikely to recover lost capital, but local alpaca owners insist the crash is just a slump, and now, they say, is the time to buy. Veteran alpaca owner Vicki Arns calls the current state of things â&#x20AC;&#x153;a buyerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s market, like real estate.â&#x20AC;? Arns, with a little help from her
husband Don, operates Alpaca Shire in Sonoma, the oldest alpaca ranch in Sonoma County and one of the oldest in the nation. Founded in 1985, the farm began with the purchase of several animals, including a now 25-year-old male, or sire (females are called dams), who was among the very first alpacas to arrive in the United States from South America. Back then, Arns paid as much as $12,000 a head. The market was hot, and Arns hoped she might be able to pull in a viable income entirely off the exotic animals, mostly through selling their offspring, supplemented by fleece production. Arns began selectively breeding her animals and building her herd, and last summer a peak population of 30 alpacas from six generations ranged over her two-acre pasture. While gentle and rewarding pets, the animals havenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t exactly paid off, Arns says. She shears them in the spring and sends the raw f leece, also called â&#x20AC;&#x153;fiber,â&#x20AC;? to mills, including one in Yreka, where machines clean the material and spin it into yarn. Arns then weaves the
processed fiber into garments and sells them onsite, but proceeds donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t cover the overhead costs of maintaining the farm, and sales of animals themselves have dropped off steeply. Arns calls the business â&#x20AC;&#x153;a labor of love.â&#x20AC;? (For his part, husband Don calls the alpacas â&#x20AC;&#x153;yard ornaments.â&#x20AC;?) Now Arns is trying to sell as many as a third of her animals, aiming to cull the herd down to 20. She sold two alpacas last fall, in fact, though they went for half the price that they would have pulled several years ago. â&#x20AC;&#x153;And that,â&#x20AC;? says Arns, â&#x20AC;&#x153;was still a pretty good deal.â&#x20AC;?
Animals of the Andes Alpacas, Vicugna pacos, have been bred for thousands of years in Chile, Peru and Bolivia as f leece- and meat-producing livestock. Of two breedsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;huacayas and the less prominent surisâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;alpacas number as many as 3 million in Peru alone, where they graze on high chilly pastures up to three miles above sea level. Minimal effort or cost is spent making '+ THE BOHEMIAN
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