Avalon farm to host open house for National Alpaca Farm Days.
By Jeni Jewell
Wednesday, September 23, 2009 at 5:18 p.m.
Read more: Local, Avalon Farm, Alpaca
WEST BRANCH TOWNSHIP -- Their coats are as soft as cashmere and nearly as expensive. They're cute and cuddly, but what are they?
Members of the Cameliad family, these 200 pound farm animals are cousins to the llama and the camel. Still don't know?
They're alpacas, some of which live on the Avalon Farm in West Branch Township. They're bred for their fiber, which sells for around two dollars an ounce. Each animal produces an average of five pounds of blanket fiber a year; that's $160 per alpaca.
What makes the fiber sought after?
"It's more rare, first of all," said co-owner, Carole Van House. "Secondly, it's exceptionally fine and has a brightness to it. And also, it has elasticity because of the crimp that's in the fiber."
Carole Van House and Donna Pearrie, owners and caretakers of the alpacas, are opening their farm this Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 a.m. as part of National Alpaca Farm Days. Click here for a map to their farm.
They hope to teach people about the gentle farm herd that prompted them both to quit their professions 14 years ago and breed and raise the animal.
Alpacas really like kids, which is why 4-H groups are starting to raise them.
"I don't think it's really developed here," Van House said. "But we hope to do that. And the thing that's so appealing about them is that they're raised by a 4-Her and there's no slaughter."
Carole says alpacas aren't hard to care for and don't really get riled. Mostly they graze all day, except for a few cias, or baby alpacas, that run for a few minutes, then stop to rest.
It's part of the reason they fell in love with the soft animal and breed them for other alpaca farms in the Midwest.
