Golden Pine Alpacas

By Barbara Patterson, Golden Pine Alpacas Farm

Like the changing of the seasons, the time to trim the alpacas’ toenails comes around every three months, give or take.

That schedule changed at our farm this year with the addition of concrete paving stones around the feeders, barn entrances, and a heavily used alpaca walkway.

After giving it a lot of thought, my husband Pat came up with the idea of creating an abrasive surface for our alpacas to walk on, which we read more...

By Barbara Patterson, Golden Pine Alpacas Farm

There is something about watching alpacas graze and pronk in the beautiful lush green pastures of alpaca farms in Western Washington or Oregon that makes me feel a pang of envy. These charming pastoral scenes featuring such fortunate alpacas are prevalent in alpaca publications and Facebook videos.

In contrast to this idyllic vision lies our Golden Pine Alpacas farm, located within the arid area of eastern Washington known read more...

Here's a nifty idea Pat came up with for easily weighing alpacas in our barn. We don't have the space to put in a permanent weigh station so this works great for us. The lightweight movable wall slides over to the scale, providing a barrier that the alpaca won't challenge. A swinging gate closes off the front of the scale, the alpaca's weight is noted, the gate is opened and we lead the alpaca back to its stall.