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 Pamelamas LLC
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Pamelamas LLC By Pamela J. Drew Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. I’ve seen those stories on the internet, too, where people fell in love with alpacas and went right out and bought about 26 of them on their first farm visit. And some of those folks have never even picked up a pair of knitting needles! If that’s the kind of heartwarming story that you’re looking for, better keep cruising the internet, because you won’t find any giant leaps into alpacadom here. My story may be one of the slowest progressions to alpaca farming in history. That’s right – alpacas in the slow lane. Somewhere in the early to mid-90’s I saw some pictures, or perhaps an ad, about llamas (the 2 L kind) and llama fiber, and they caught my attention because I’ve been a knitter from high school or before. I discovered Llamas Magazine, and subscribed. My better half, John, indulged me and we went to a couple Maine Llama Association field days. I liked the llamas, but they were pretty big and that scared me. There were some references to alpacas in the Llamas Magazine, and I soon learned that alpacas were a mini-version of llamas, especially bred for their exquisite fiber. Well, this started me thinking that perhaps, just perhaps, alpacas were more "my size." The references to lamas (the 1 L kind) was a little confusing, but didn’t stop me. I soon discovered Alpacas Magazine and subscribed to that too. All of this reading about llamas and alpacas was a welcome distraction from long hours of dealing with people and numbers in my banking job. It wasn’t long from there that we discovered real 
live alpacas right here in Maine. We visited Chase Tavern Farm at every open farm day for
about 5 years. They were probably wondering if we would ever finally buy something. Well,
after looking for land for 2 years (can’t raise livestock on a half acre), finally buying 10
acres only 2 miles from home, building a new house, selling the old house, then building a
small barn, we finally did buy some alpacas! I hope Cindy and Tim weren’t too disappointed
that we only bought 3 geldings to start, after all the visits we’d made.I was still in the tryout stage at this point, but those boys sure won me over! After a lot of soul searching and a mini mid-life crisis, several "should I" or "shouldn’t I" debates mostly with myself but some of them with John, I decided I better keep the banking career for now, but I just had to give alpaca farming a try or I would never know how it could turn out. Luckily for me John went along with my plan. Here’s a recap of our slow progression – one step at a time: 1st year - 3 geldings 2nd year – added 2 maidens 3rd year - 2 babies Then we picked up the pace a bit – we wanted to sell - but not our babies!!!! 4th year - Bought 4 more females – told everyone "don’t get attached"- had 1 more baby 5th year – another baby, sadly lost one of our geldings, our first show (four 2nd place ribbons and a 4th place-Yeah!!) and we made our first sale (double Yeah!!) We now have 11 alpacas, with six babies due in Spring 2006 – and we have our hands full. We are both still fully engaged in jobs off the farm, me in banking and John in auto mechanics. We have found a herd of 11 alpacas to be challenging at times, but certainly manageable. Let’s see if we feel the same way after those six babies join the fray! In only a few years I will have the opportunity to seriously consider early retirement from banking, so that could be yet another step in our slow progression to full time farming. We were newbies once. Actually, we still are, but we’ve got some experience too. What kind of mistakes did we make? – let me count the ways! We made quite a few of the typical newbie mistakes, and they are still fresh in our minds. While none of them were fatal errors, give us a call and let us help you to avoid some of those missteps. We’re easy to find in the Kennebunk/Kennebunkport area from either I-95 or Route 1. |
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