Alpaca Information and News

Happy Birthday Alpaca Avenue!

On November 1st, 2009; www.AlpacaAve.com was registered, and just a few days later the first soft release of the website was uploaded.

Around December, 2009; Tons of updates, content and pages were added to the site.

In about March, 2009; A new design was released to make the site more user-friendly and capable of viewing more content.

And now, 1 year later; Another new design will be released within the month and tons of new content and more to come will be arriving weekly for the growing audience of Alpaca Avenue.

I want to thank everyone for visiting, supporting, giving feedback and asking questions on alpacas and on my website.

My goal for this year was to make constant blog posts involving important alpaca news, updates, etc. Well it has taken a while but I think I am finally going to start. At least monthly.

The commercials below are both great and awesome commercials that star Alpacas! The Stanley Steemer commercial is fairly new as of 2010 and the other one is a bit older. But both are neat, and its nice to see people starting to involve alpacas into things people see everyday.

Here is the other alpaca commercial.. Which is a superb alpaca farming rap for a insurance company.

Once a year, hundreds of alpacas grazing on the Enchanted Acres Ranch in Benton City, Washington get sheared.

Usually the prized wool is bagged up to be spun into soft yarn, while the coarser hair, from the leg and belly, is often just thrown away.

When referencing to the leg and belly fleece, “It’s coarser so we don’t typically use it for the end product.”  Brenda Trammell said, Owner of Enchanted Acres Ranch.

Until this year, when Trammell found out that the extra fleece could be used in relief efforts to soak up oil that is pouring into the Gulf of Mexico. Environmental experts say the alpaca fleece, and other animal and human hair is one of the best ways to clean up and absorb oil. One of the organizations leading the charge for collecting hair and fur is called Matter of Trust, a non-profit in San Francisco, who Trammel read about online.

“Well we thought, this will be a perfect use for it and we can send it off and we can really do some good,” she continued.

“This is just an awesome project and all of us farmers in the Tri Cities are excited about being a part of that,” Sandy Sanders said, owner of Yakima River Alpacas. “It’s just a great way to use those products that we’re always looking for something to do with those.”

Now there are several breeders in eastern Washington who are shearing, bagging and donating fleece  to volunteers in San Francisco and New Orleans.

Those volunteers will then stuff the fur and hair into nylon booms, or use it to make hair mats. So far, 450,00 pounds of alpaca fleece and other fur and hair from dogs and humans have been donated. Sindee Mc Whorter at The Grooming Retreat said she grooms roughly 15 dogs a day, collecting several pounds of fur.  And if Fido’s haircut can help soak up some that oil, so can yours. So far, 370,000 salons across the nation have signed up to collect human hair clippings, including many right in our region.

“One foot of hair will make a one foot by one inch by one inch mat which will absorb one quart of oil,” John Thurston said, from Matter of Trust.

“I think it’s pretty cool because anything we can do locally to help the gulf would be awesome,” Mc Whorter said.

From shaving to shearing, it’s a new way to help clean up the Gulf Coast.

RESOURCES & DONATION SITES:

1. MATTER OF TRUST
Salons, groomers, individuals can sign up to donate hair and fur clippings and nylons for our Oil Spill Booms at

2. ALPACA OWNERS AND BREEDERS ASSOCIATION (AOBA)

http://www.alpacainfo.com/

3. SUNSHINE AND SHORE FOUNDATION

http://www.sunshineandshoresfoundation.org

The following is a list of upcoming alpaca events/shows for late April.

April 23-25, 2010

MAPACA Jubilee in Harrisburg, PA.

April 24-25, 2010

2010 California Classic in Pleasaton, CA.
North West Alpaca Showcase in Pasco, WA.
The Great Midwest Alpaca Festival in Madison, WI.

April 30 to May 2, 2010

Great Western Alpaca Show in Denver, CO.

I have started a Alpaca Avenue youtube channel.  I am going to be posting random short videos of my alpacas on it a few times a week to almost every day.  I am hoping to start getting short clips of other farms alpacas to add more variety.

If you have a short clip, or want to record a short clip of your alpacas and send it to me so I can post it online that would be awesome – and it would be referenced/linked to your farm.

Here are a few videos from the youtube channel.

Lovely story on how dreams can come true, and in this case, with alpacas.

Visit the main homepage of Alpaca Avenue for information on alpacas!

Linda Gardner from Blue Moon Ranch is having an Alpaca Fleece Giveaway, which is a big opportunity for a current or a  new spinner/knitter or anyone that would like some alpaca fleece to get a free fleece.

Click right >here< to read the Giveaway details, rules and everything you need to know about it and entering.

Blue Moon Ranch’s sites:
Twitter @BlueMoonRanch
Etsy – http://www.etsy.com/shop/bluemoonranch
Website – http://www.bluemoonranch.net/
Blog – http://bluemoonranch.wordpress.com/

It is almost January – So the December weather is basically over.  The second week into December was 20 degree weather and was really bad, packing water, freezing grounds/roads.  Slipping and falling.

Just this morning was freezing weather again!  Having to pack water to the chickens, alpacas, goats, sheep, horse and dogs.  Normally here, winter weather hits its peak during January and kind of dies of through February and turns into lovely rain during the next couple month.

When will Mother Nature get that packing water isnt fun?  Maybe she needs to come try packing water around to animals after blasting the world with cold.  Not only is her cold blasts bad for farmers, but its also bad for drivers, slick roads, car accidents.

I know a lot of people say that global warming is a hoax because we are still getting cold weather.  My view is that global warming isnt a instant thing where -whoo- all of the sudden the world is hot.  It is just natural warming of the earth that is being enhanced by the human race.

All I have to type right now.  And possibly for a while.. I need to start thinking of things to blog about more often.

The field that the alpacas are in shares part of the fence line with the horse/goats.  I have never noticed either the horse, or alpacas be interested in the other.  Except now I think the horse made some new friends, yesterday when I looked out the horse had her head over the fence and the alpacas were all around her and they were just standing there as if they were having a ’secret’ meeting or something.  After all this time why now are they actually noticing each other.  I would love to put the horse and alpacas together but everyone says to not put them in the same field cause they might get kicked, and then I was like – Wait a second, The goats are with the horse (they got into the horse field one day when someone, left the gate unlatched..), and she does not kick them, so why would she kick alpacas, so I am almost wondering if it would be easier to put them with the horse and goats.  The horse minds her own business when its feeding time, the goats go on one side of the barn and the horse goes to the other, there is an extra spot for the alpacas.  It would be so cool to have one big family.  But I would rather keep them with my sheep once I get them back from my grandma’s house (where the Ram is).

Decisions. Decisions. Decisions.. I best get to thinking on what to do, because I am getting my sheep back this Sunday, I think.

Now that its fall and everything is dropping, including some of  the lovely apples that I didn’t have the time to pick (But of course I have time to go out and collect them off the ground with a bucket, boy am I making lame excuses).  So I went out with my buckets and picked them up and now they are making great treats for the horse, goats and alpacas!  I started out by throwing them into each field for the different animals the other day, but today I decided I wanted to feed them by hand to the alpacas.  So I started off making my rounds to the horse, then the goats, and then the alpacas.  Took an apple out of the bucket and waved it around and called them over.  Hershey, “the leader” walked up, sniffed the apple, looked at it and then out of no where just spat at it!  I was very offended.. Here I am feeding you a treat out of my hand so you don’t have to bend your neck to nibble it off the ground and you spit at it and for all I know you meant it to hit my hand!

Well, I know from now on that at least Hershey likes to eat apples off the ground.  But I successfully fed an apple to Snickers, and I believe he appreciated my offering to eat the apple in style out of my hand and not like all the others off the ground.

Also, One of my fields is being overrun by Gray Diggers!  They are destructive annoying little critters, although they are cute, they must be stopped.  I officially declare war on them! If anyone has any tips or have has success in lowering the population or eliminating them I would love to hear it! (Unless it involves what my Uncle said.. “Just sit out there with a shot gun, and when you see their little bodies just pull!”
Me, Myself, am not interested in shooting little critters, but I can accidentally drop poison or something down their hole. I would much rather keep my grain than my gray diggers. (Note: I have used Rat bars and that has not helped)

Again, comment any tips or suggestions to remove gray diggers if you know any.. I wont be offended if you don’t comment.. because for all I know all the gray diggers that exist are at my house I have so many.