Tuesday, March 28, 2023
Dreaming of Starting Your Own Alpaca Farm?
If your dream is to start your own alpaca farm, where do you start? Research! There is a lot to know about starting an alpaca farm and about alpacas so before you buy anything, farm or alpacas, do your research.
Good places to get information about starting your alpaca farm, alpacas and their needs are Associations like Alpaca Canada, Canadian Llama and Alpaca Association and provincial groups like Alpaca Ontario.
Local farms are another great resource. Many alpaca farms offer farm tours so you can get up close to the alpacas, view the farm and ask questions. A very important question to ask is do they have a local veterinarian? Some veterinarians have zero experience with alpacas so will not take you on as a client.
Another thing we did when we were starting our research on starting our alpaca farm was look for general knowledge books about alpacas. There are some excellent reference books specifically for alpacas but they are very pricey and not necessary if you don’t have any alpacas yet. This was the first book we got: The Frugal Alpaca Farmer. It was chock full of good information.
Starting our farm was not easy, it took a lot of work, but it was so worth it. We love our farm! Farm life is the best life!