My wife got her first glimpse of alpacas on animal planet's "That’s my Baby" and fell in love with them. Since that time we have visited multiple farms in Alabama, Tennessee, Virginia, and Ohio and perused the internet to gather as much information as possible about them. We attended the National Convention in Louisville, KY in 2004 and took an alpaca 101 course. At the end of 2004 we purchased three pregnant females from different championship blood lines all bred to herdsires with championship bloodlines with a herdsire whose grandfather was "4Peruvian Legacy" the first million dollar alpaca having sold 1/2 interest at auction for $750,000. Today 4Peruvian Legacy has died. Nicholai our herdsire shears over 6 pounds in his prime fleece and when we breed him with our girls he imparts that fiber and conformation to their crias. In 2005 we attended the Southern Select Show, in Shelbyville, TN and entered Nicholai's fleece in the spin-off that year. He won a blue ribbon as has many of his offspring. In July 2005 in preparation for our first crias we attend the neonatal clinic in Harriman, TN by Dr. Toni Cotton. If that clinic doesn't scare you, nothing will. Fortunately we have since had 11 crias born on our farm with no problems. Our experience has shown us that generally the mom does a fine job only sometimes we may have to help a little. When our first cria arrived my wife was in attendance and took 63 pictures so I could experience the birth when I returned from a business trip to Washintgon D.C. We have since seen multiple births and have found the other new crias already standing and nursing doing fine. This year our training paid for itself when one of our new mom's was in trouble delivering the cria and we had to use the Dr. Cotton's training to deliver the cria ourselve. Needless to say look at the picture below of our newest cria and her mother with one of our other alpaca females just checking over the new baby.
In October of 2005 we attended a Llama parasite clinic in Cartersville, GA and learned to restrict our use of deworming by pasture management and individual animal testing. Every day we seem to learn more and get more attached to our "pacas". We don't expect to get rich at alpaca farming but it will allow us to us a small part of our almost 40 acres outlined below for an ecofriendly product that in the U.S we don't eat. They eat alpaca in South America.
This is a picture from 2004 and therefore doesn't show the improved facilities use for the Alpacas. We have approximately 8 acres fenced off just behind the house for the Alpacas. That acreage is fenced and cross fenced into 6 separate areas with lane down the ceenter. Each area has a small three sided shelter made up by a single metal carport with metal all the way to the ground on the sides and an end we attach to make it 3 sided..
About Us
PECAN LANE FARM
716 Ardmore Highway
Taft, TN 38488
Home: (931)438-2791
Ray's Cell: (256) 656-3272
Wynna's Cell (256) 508-1488
E-Mail: eraybo@aol.com
