Alpacas: Sweetly Aloof

It was a surprise to this inveterate goat-hugger that alpacas don't like to be touched. At all. They don't even touch each other. I watched an alpaca bunch up and leap forward when a herd mate brushed against her. I'd describe them as sweetly aloof. Whenever I turned my back, they'd crowd in on me, trying to get a better look at my camera and sniff at my hair. But when I turned around, they'd back off, looking embarrassed and apologetic. Approached, they'd gracefully exit stage right or left. No thanks, their demeanor said. I didn't see any spitting, though alpacas will spit like llamas. It's not actually spit, but a foul-smelling grass-and-bile mixture that's regurgitated, bleh. They spit mostly at each other, and very seldom at people, though they're highly individualistic on that and every other score. I noticed that many of the males had protruding lower incisors (they have no uppers), and drooping lips, and apparently that's from spitting a lot--the bile tastes bad to them so they make that face. It's called "sour mouth." The man alpacas made this face more than the girls.Not everything you read is true, Missy. We're just trying to look tuff.

Combined with all the fiber on their topknots, which looks a bit like a bad Beatle wig, the males had a rougueish look to my eye. Annie told me they're quite...ehm...avid, and young or gelded animals need to be kept away from them. In fact, all the males were together in a separate "bullpen." But I felt perfectly safe walking amongst them as Annie and Charlie fed them.
At first I was a bit put off when my visions of hugging alpacas had to vanish in a poof, but the more I watched them, the more fascinated I became, and I began to understand their great allure. Purely from a collection aspect, they come in beautiful colors and textures, and they're quiet and gentle and odorless and graceful and funny. Here's MAROON. Ever seen a maroon animal? Maybe a deep chestnut horse. But oh, my. And she's got what breeders call a "greasy luster." They have their own way of showing affection, sometimes as simple as approaching close to a person they favor.While I talked with Annie and photographed some alpacas in front of me, this trio was quietly approaching from behind. "Look, Charlie. Look what they're doing," Annie said, her voice warm with affection. She was as tickled as I was when I slowly turned around to see this:If an alpaca can look sheepish, they did. Oh, sorry. We were just creeping up on you, but now you've busted us. How embarrassing. Again, sorry.

They're very responsive and intelligent and idiosyncratic. They're cool camelids.
So I bought three Peruvian huacaya teddies as gifts, and brought them home for a photo shoot with Baker, who would love nothing better than an alpaca teddy to "parent." Nothing doing, Bacon. Nope. In your dreams. I drooled over a gray and tan alpaca blanket, and a white one made from cria fiber that was so incredibly soft and fine and light and warm that it felt like sunlight on my arm. Alpaca fiber is up to 4 times warmer than wool. It's a luxury fiber, and alpacas are a luxury animal. I'm glad the coyotes stay away, that Riverboat's animals are housed out of sight of any roadway, and that there are apparently no alpaca rustlers in southern Ohio. You can be sure I'll be back with pictures of new crias come July!Here ends the Alpaca Adventure. For now. Thank you so much, Annie and Charlie and Riverboat Alpacas, for your patience and grace. Good luck with the cria rush.

Niche farming: what a way to go. I'll be looking for more cool assignments from my favorite little nonprofit magazine.

It's All About the Fiber

Other arcane camelid facts: Alpacas have a communal dung pile, and they like to evacuate together. That, I didn't see, but I brought a whole lot of it home on my new Keen Chamonix boots (which were a Christmas present to myself, and which I loooove. Buy a whole size up; they run small.)
But Enough! about me and my boots. As a blogger, I pride myself on my dogged focus, even in the face of withering brain cells...Click around and buy Keens if you must; I'm back to alpacas.

Alpacas hum and moan, and the males orgle (sing) when they are courting a female. There is an album called Alpacas Orgling, by L.E.O, a tribute to the Electric Light Orchestra. Pretty darn good album, but it has diddly to do with alpacas. Orgling is what horny alpacas do. Just the word makes my every cell vibrate. Orgle. I cannot wait to hear an alpaca orgle. I heard them hum and moan a little bit, Ruthie, but I want a full-Monty orgle. Guess where I'm going to be come June, when the 14 crias are born and the males will be trying to get the females interested in mating again? Yep, hangin' over the fence down at Riverboat Alpaca Ranch.Annie told me that there are now about 100,000 alpacas in the U.S. The breeders know each other, help each other, and form little coalitions to help market their fleece together. It's cool. Annie told me that there need to be 600,000 alpacas producing to supply enough fleece to have a mill run around the clock to spin their fleece into yarn. The fiber sells for $5-$8/oz. So the incentive is high to get more people into alpaca ranching. Believe me, I am thinking about it. As well as goat farming, and running a greenhouse, and writing a ridiculous Chetbook, and learning how to play the guitar. Only one of those things is likely to happen. But Enough! About Me! Fiber! It's Fiber we're talking about here!There. There's your fiber. Five to eight dollars an OUNCE. That's more expensive than dried wild mushrooms, or premium yellowfin sushituna, or almost anything else I can think of. Ann and Charlie have a cria due this summer who was sired by a stud valued at $250,000. Eek! I want to see it, and see if it looks any different from oh, say, the cria sired by the $10,000 stud. I'd have to take my electron microscope and analyze its fiber to really judge its quality.

Here's what they make out of alpaca fiber in Peru. (The hat is made from skins from an alpaca that died of natural causes). But the scarves and throws are made from sustainably-gathered fiber. This is dyed, of course; they haven't got a green alpaca yet. Annie's favorite throw, made from undyed, natural suri fleece:Her prices are amazingly low, considering the value of the fleece. This big throw was $85. Egad, I've been thinking about it ever since I saw it. I can't imagine a warmer, softer blanket. It's like cashmere. I'm tickled pink to know where to get things like this, from good people who are making a go of niche farming. It makes shopping ever so much more fun, to be able to go to an alpaca ranch to get your goodies, talk to nice folks, and listen for the orgle of a horny alpaca.

Alpaca Ranch

What makes a person up and decide they want to start an alpaca ranch? I'd always wondered. I wonder about people who buy emus and llamas and miniature horses and ostriches, miniature Watusi cattle and Highland beasties and belted Galloway cattle. All those things. I know I shouldn't lump all those animals together, because some of them produce saleable products, and some don't. When an animal is rare enough, all you do is breed them and sell the animals, I guess. When an animal makes a valuable product, you breed them, sell the animals, and sell the product.Charlie Thomas feeds part of the herd of 29.

Alpacas fall into that select group last described: an exotic animal with a product. I never realized how valuable alpaca fleece was, or why. Ergo, I never realized how highly valued the animals themselves are. I know a little more about them, after visiting the Riverboat Alpaca Ranch near Marietta, Ohio.

Two years ago, I bought a teddy bear made of alpaca skin at an art fair in town. Riverboat Alpaca Ranch imports these and other alpaca products from Peru, where, I understand, it's illegal to kill an alpaca. But there are winter kills, especially of the young ones (called crias), and when that happens, or when one dies of old age, they make wonderful things from the skins. This is the coolest teddy bear anyone's ever seen, and, being made of real hair, it's especially fun and preternaturally comforting to hug. When I need a hug, and nobody's around, not even Baker, I grab my alpaca teddy--it's the one on the far right. These bears show a good range of the possible alpaca colors. They're all made from the wooly variety of alpaca called the huacaya, which I'll talk about below. Chet Baker wants one of his own. Mether, I promise not to open a seam or kiss its eye out. I am a better dog now. Yeah, right. Real Boston Terrier Babeh # 2, which you unwrapped on Christmas morning, is blind, noseless and hemorrhaging Hollofil.

I left Chet Baker home for my foray to the ranch. I can just imagine him rounding up alpacas.This year, their bear shipment didn't arrive in time for Riverboat Alpacas to sell them at the crafts fair where I usually get them, so I was delighted to (tough work, but somebody's gotta do it) have to go to the ranch to pick some up. Took the camera, and a little notebook. Ann and Charlie invited me to climb right in amongst the alpaca herd, something I wouldn't have thought I'd be able to do. They are wonderful to be around. I asked Ann and Charlie a bunch of questions, and scribbled down answers, and then did a little self-edification after I got home. Here's Annie, modeling an alpaca hat in her little stone farm store building.She's great, bubbling over with enthusiasm for her alpacas. Here's how she and Charlie describe themselves on their Web site:

Charlie T., an IBM retiree,and Annie A., a retired special ed teacher with a farm background, are raising alpacas as a retirement "financial venture adventure". We like to try new ideas and come up with some of our own! The Alpaca Lifestyle keeps us physically/intellectually fit as we sing and the alpacas hum along!

Sure enough, when I visited, there was classical music playing in the alpaca barn, and Charlie and Annie were calling back and forth to each other while the animals milled around them. It was a happy scene.

I can't wait to show you more alpacas, and tell you some of what I learned in my visit to Riverboat Alpacas. It's going to be Alpaca Week at the Zickblog.