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ALPACAS – for the love of it! by Edna Carr We have always had animals of one kind or another at our home, from cats and dogs to mostly sheep, even when we lived on the Main St. of Cornish Village. At various times we have also had race horses, milk goats, chickens and a pig or two. We built our home in 1968 on 100 acres of fields and woods in the hills of Cornish and have always had a flock of sheep, as many as 50 at one time. At the time we built our house, there was a 24 X 24 camp on the property (the original large house and barns had burned in 1911), which we moved and used as a barn, adding a wing on either side as our animal needs grew. About six years ago we built an attractive barn, connecting it to the woodshed, which is connected to the 2 car garage that is connected to the house. It is great to be able to go from the house to the barn without going outside in bad weather. 
In 1999 we purchased a llama, "Waldo", as a guard animal for our sheep and grew to love that
type of animal. At one time, we seriously considered having more llamas, but, because of
their size, our attention turned to alpacas. In 2004 we purchased our first two bred females,
which were soon followed by two more bred ladies. The summer of 2005 we were presented with
three adorable male crias. (One of the girls turned out not to be pregnant) As they say,
alpacas are truly addicting. At present, we have six females who had six beautiful crias
this Summer and Fall (three boys and three girls), two Geldings, one young male and "Waldo"
who lives with the boys.Now that our herd has grown to 15, the Moms and Babies reside in the new barn and the boys and "Waldo" are in the "lower" barn, plus we have room there for our weanlings. We have five separately fenced pastures that are accessible from courtyards that open from the barns and the rest of our property is in hayfields and woods. We are fortunate to have a neighbor who takes care of the hayfields and cuts and bales the hay. We take what we need and he has the rest for his Herefords. Also, I should mention, with the help of our family, we turned half of our garage into a small farm store and last year opened up the dark, dirty woodshed next to it to enlarge the store. That’s it – I can’t get any bigger or I’ll be in the barn. The store is open weekends from June thru December and we hold special events for the public during the year. These are very well attended as the alpacas are a big attraction. Last Fall we sold our remaining sheep and now we’re "all alpacas". We may have the dubious distinction of being the oldest alpaca farmers in Maine, or possibly the USA, but we love it and our main regret is we didn’t take up the alpaca lifestyle sooner. |
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