About Alpacas
There are many, many rewards of living the Alpaca Lifestyle!
About
Alpacas
Easy to Care For
Alpacas are about the easiest livestock you can own. They are inexpensive to care for. Compared to a cow or horse who often eat a bale of hay a day, alpacas generally eat a bale a week and only a cup or two of grain each day. Alpacas need monthly worming and yearly vaccinations to keep them healthy and strong. Having a toenail and a padded foot rather than a hoof, alpacas are gentle on the land. Weighing in at about 160 pounds as an average, alpacas are easy to work with and can be quickly trained to lead on a halter. They are easily fenced. Fences are to keep predators out; you rarely have to worry about keeping alpacas in. They are herd animals and want to be with each other. Alpacas also have the wondrful habit of making a communal dung pile. This makes barn clean up easy and quick. Alpaca "beans" are similar to deer "beans" and make the best natural, organic fertilizer and compost for your gardens.
Investment Opportunities
Alpacas offer a nice alternative to the tradition investment possibilities that exist, especially in today's rather unstable market. Since the Alpaca Registry is closed to imports and alpacas deliver only one cria per year, alpacas will remain rare and valuable in this country for a long time. Quality females bred to well-matched males yield cria that are in demand and can be readily sold, sometimes at a higher value than the price paid for the dam. You can keep your original investment (dam) and sell a cria or sell the dam and keep the cria or keep both and build your herd. Any way you choose to run your farm, there are tax advantages that you can partake in.
Healthy Lifestyle
Having alpacas forces us to make the time to do what we want to do and should be doing everyday. Doing morning and evening chores just takes a few minutes, but it gets us outside in the fresh, clean country air at least two times a day. We are active raking up the poop piles and feeding out hay. We also seem to always make time to simply watch and be with the alpacas. There is nothing more serene and peaceful than watching cria frolic in the pastures as the sun sets. Raising alpacas gets us outside, encourages us to be active, and enables us to take time out of each day to relax in a stree-free environment.
Tax Benefits
Owning alpacas and operating a working farm has many tax benefits. There are even tax benefits if you agist your alpacas at another farm and let your herd multiply in size (tax free compounding) to increase your investment. The alpacas themselves can be depreciated on your income tax returns. Feed, tractors and other equipment, barns, outbuildings, etc. can also be depreciated. Many alpaca farmers build their herd before retirement so that alpaca farming can supplement their incomes when they are in a lower tax bracket and still benefit from all of the tax breaks that are available to farmers. We recommend meeting with an accountant who is knowledgable about farming and alpacas before you begin your alpaca adventure so that you can take full advantage of all tax benefits that are available to alpaca farmers.
Luxurious Fiber
You don't have to be a fiber artist to enjoy the incredible harvest of warmth and softness that comes off an alpaca every spring! Much like sheep, alpacas are shorn without any harm to the animal one time a year, usually in the early spring. Raw fiber can be sold to spinners and fiber artists or it can be sent to mini mills (and there are many right here in NY state!) and be spun into yarn. Other options include sending your fiber to mills to be made into products like warm, thick socks or sent to national and regional co-ops to be made into fine quality garments. There is nothing more satisfying than giving holiday gifts that are unique, one-of-a-kind, and made from your own alpaca's fleece!
Wonderful Pets
Easy to train and fun to be around, alpacas make nearly perfect outside pets. They are friendly, curious, and best of all they provide an easy to care for and very safe pet. Since like white tailed deer, alpacas have teeth only on the bottom of their mouths, they cannot hurt you if they were to bite. Since they have a soft pad with a toenail, like a dog and not a hoof, they cannot badly injure you if you were to be kicked. Once you gain your alpaca's trust, you can easily train them to come when called (or for a shake of the grain!) and walk on a halter and lead. Many alpacas enjoy going for walks around the farm, being in parades and even going through obstacle courses! Unlike other livestock, young children can safely work with alpacas without danger of being seriously hurt.
Visit Us!
If you'd like to learn more about alpacas, their luxurious fiber, the enjoyable lifestyle they provide and the potential for a lucrative investment, plan a visit to our farm. We have over a decade of experience raising alpacas, nearly 70 alpacas for you to see, and expertise and experience in showing, breeding, birthing, marketing and fiber and product sales. Give us a call or drop us an e-mail to plan a visit. We'd love to talk alpaca with you!
Ideuma Creek Alpacas | John & Denise Jacobus | Unadilla, NY | (607) 563-9174 | icalpacas100@gmail.com
Want to see how the fleece from our Ideuma Creek breeding program compares to fleece all over the country? Visit
Alpaca fiber is some of the warmest, softest fiber known to man! It is natural and is harvested without doing any harm what-so-ever to the animal. To see products made from alpaca, visit our on-line store.
Here at Ideuma Creek we are darn proud to own one of the best decorated colored full Accoyo herdsires in the entire country! Invasion has produced some amazing, champion offspring for us his very first year of breeding. To learn more about Invasion and his cria, please visit the following links:
There's always something special happening at the farm! Several times a year, we'll open our barn, our home and our farm store to the public. We give garden tours and educational presentations about caring for and investing in alpacas. If you'd like to find out when our special events will be happening, please join our mailing list and we'll send you an e-mail when we're planning something special here at the farm.
