To all our readers, friends, family and others, where ever you are and whichever time zone you are in have a wonderful time tonight and may all your dreams come true in 2007.



Adrian Stewart

Having spoken with a good number of alpaca breeders this year it appears to have been a pretty good year all round. The bigger breeders have had an exceptional year and one told me that November had been his best month ever with sales of $700,000. Now that's impressive by any standards.

I can't see the New Year being much different and the competition is getting stronger by the day. With each new alpaca farm coming into the business buying good genetics and most have some idea about how to market their alpacas.

Alpaca sales are now at a dead halt until the spring when everyone wakes up and starts to think about cria arriving, breadings and of course shearing and shows. The merry-go-round of life in the alpaca business.



Adrian Stewart

As 2006 draws to a close and all the regional and type conferences have been completed. Not forgetting the National Type Conference in Reno. The national vote is almost upon us.

Like most votes there are those for breed standards who will never change their minds and those against breed standards who will also never change their minds.

Then there is the middle ground all those people who have yet to make up their own minds one way or another.

But what we all must do is actually participate in the vote when it comes. I don't know if the vote will be close or a slam dunk for one side ....but I do know that the proportion of members who normally vote on AOBA issues has been steadily declining.

This is a big issue so let us all make sure it is determined by the full membership and not just a sub set of the membership.

Adrian Stewart

Not a cloud in the sky and such a change from recent weather,

The alpacas are starting to appreciate the shelter offered by the loafing sheds.



And the routing of rainwater from the barn roof to the irrigation pond is working very well.



Now the pond is full all year round maybe I should put some fish in there or a duck or two....then again maybe not.

The alpacas were glad to see the end of the rain and soon dried out but not long after the winds arrived and as I type up this account of the day we are being buffeted by a howling gale.
Roll on spring.....

Adrian Stewart

The last few days of 2006 are now slipping away and the weather has finally improved. To be honest it couldn't really haven't gotten much worse.

The alpacas are now starting to dry out and in my human imagination I believe they appreciated the shelter that was provided by the new loafing sheds.

I have moved two of my more quiet geldings in with the females as i am sure they were being dominated by the bigger boys. They don't look to have integrated with the females yet and are keeping themselves very much separate for the time being.

The herd is due for a round of CDT vaccine but I have decided to use an 8 way instead and really must get started on that tomorrow morning once i have checked the dosages and weighed everyone.



Adrian Stewart

Christmas is all but over, that weather is attrocious, but having grown up in the UK today we celebrate Boxing Day.

Boxing Day is a holiday celebrated in Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. It falls on December 26th, which is also St. Stephen's Day.

St. Stephen was a little known saint who achieved eternal fame by being the first Christian to be martyred for his faith, and he met his death by stoning.

Boxing Day is so called because on this day it was the customary for tradesmen to collect their Christmas boxes or gifts in return for good service throughout the year. Also, it included giving money and other gifts to charitable institutions, and the needy.

The holiday may date from as early as the Middle Ages, but the exact origin is not known. It may have begun with the Lords and Ladies of England, who gave Christmas boxes/gifts to their servants on December 26, or maybe by priests, who opened the church's alms (charity boxes), and distributed the contents to the poor and needy.

In England, this day has become part of the celebrations, of being with family.

A day to visit other relations, and to have a rest from the day before, to play fun games. Some families, buy a new board game each year, but still bring out the old favourites.

For some it is good to have the 2 days, as on one of the days you can visit with your parents, and the other day your inlaws.

St Stephen is the patron saint of horses, so Boxing Day became associated with horse-racing and fox hunting, which is of course now banned. Other sports are also held on this day like football and rugby.

I have had so many emails asking me what we eat on this special day, we always have the left over turkey from the day before, but we always prepare fresh vegetables and roast potatoes and all the trimmings.

I know you are all going to ask me what are 'trimmings' well they are things like tiny sausages rolled up in bacon strips, chestnut stuffing for example, also cranberry sauce and bread sauce...a few little extras on the plate to make the dinner special.

Enjoy your Boxing Day

Adrian Stewart

A very Merry Christmas to all our friends.

The livestock are cosy
With hay in the stall
The children are spending
Too much time at the mall
But soon we will gather
Together in thrall
Thank Heavens for Christmas
New Year, and all

Adrian Stewart

The new alpaca show rules have given AOBA affiliates the choice to either remain with the existing scoring system of 50/50 where points are awarded by judges equally between conformation and fleece.
Or adopt the 60/40 split sometimes known as the International Standard where 60% of points go towards fleece and 40% towards the conformation of the alpaca.

There are arguments on both sides and some breeders want to adopt the 60/40 split on the basis it will help us move towards becoming a fibre industry more quickly.

Those in favour of the 50/50 split say that an emphasis on fleece will be at the expense of conformation.

Its a tough call and I can see the merits in both arguments although they all contain some pretty big assumptions. The obvious thing to me is that we need to be consistent or it is going to be very hard to make comparisons between alpacas that win ribbons under different rules.

On balance this is a cop out by the AOBA board and show committee and puts the onus on deciding down to the individual AOBA affiliates that organise the shows....

So what should an affiliate do? Follow the guidance of its members or the wishes of its customers who attend the shows we organise each year?

Its going to be controversial whatever the affiliates deiced to do.

Adrian Stewart

The shortest day of winter is now behind us and the lighter nights are now returning, if ever so slowly. This means its time to "pony up" to the great AOBA marketing machine.

There is a growing number of alpaca farms that question the value you get from AOBA and that's a healthy thing to do.

For my money AOBA still offers pretty good value for money. But as with all advertising and promotional activity if your alpacas are not what the customer is looking for then you will not feel the benefit, so to speak....

If you decide to use the farm and ranch guide on top of the AOBA subscription and Magazine then you will be spending about $500 in total.

All that does is get you on a level playing field with about 5,000 other alpaca farms now you have to discover a way to differentiate yourselves from the herd if you get my drift....

There is no shortage of ways to spend alpaca advertising dollars so shop around and over time you will discover what works most effectively for your ranch..

Adrian Stewart

In the UK charity Oxfam have been getting people to buy alpacas for 20 UK pounds.

You donate 20 pounds on behalf of a friend and Oxfam buy a poor farmer somewhere an alpaca.

To promote this Oxfam/Mastercard commissioned a video for TV……which features the roughest alpacas you have seen in a long time…set to the music “you’re gorgeous”….

What a shame they didn't consult the UK alpaca industry first....

If you click here you will be taken to www.youtube.com a site owned by Google and you can watch the TV Commercial featuring alpacas.

Lets hope the same thing doesn't happen here in the USA....


Adrian Stewart

If you have alpacas then you may already know that they can take to eating some strange things and on the farm recently someone has started eating the foam insulation on the water pipes.

My solution to this problem is to wrap the insulated water pipe in a spiral plastic sleeve as used by garden nurseries to protect small trees. This works well but there are one or two areas where I needed another solution.

So I bought a spay of deer repellent and liberally dosed the foam insulation on a water pipe near the entrance to a pasture.

Later that day as i took the females into this pasture I had forgotten all about the spray..... but the alpacas came to a sudden halt as soon as they smelt the spray and were very wary about even going into the field....so no chance of them nibbling on this piece of pipe....I think I may be a little more sparing with the deer repellent next time.

Adrian Stewart

Another sub zero night and morning....so the morning was spent making sure the alpacas all had clean water and the warmer the beter. By the time I came into the house I was frozen stiff.

All the alpacas look fine and even when its this cold far prefer to be outside than in the barn which is kind of odd but true.

The other strange behaviour is that the alpacas have abandoned their poo piles and started doing it everywhere and I mean everywhere...I just can't figure out what has changed but the usual latrine type behaviour has been abandoned.



Adrian Stewart

When I awoke this morning at 6.30 it was minus 10 degrees Celsius and everywhere was covered in a severe white frost. All the alpaca water pipes were frozen and I can look forward to a few burst pipes once the thaw arrives.

Mac and I worked outside for a couple of hours but the alpaca poop was frozen to the ground and showed no signs of moving.

I very stupidly tested the ice on the pond and with a stomach churning creak and groan it broke and I fell through into the freezing water below..... luckily for me the pond is only 12 inches deep at that point......



The forecast is for a gradual improvement in temperature...lets hope so.

Adrian Stewart

I saw this topic come up on the Alpacasite the other week and no one appeared to have anything useful to say.

However, in the Oregon Small Farms Newsletter which I featured on Friday there is a great article that talks about the use of Se fertilizer and the subsequent take up in cattle and sheep.

Nothing on alpacas but its interesting to see that this is an effective way of increasing selenium in forage and secondly its interesting to read that at least for cattle farmers it looks like it is more cost effective than mineral blocks and injections.

Food for thought as I sometimes say. Check it out click on the link open the PDF and read the article.

Adrian Stewart