The Cranes journey into raising Suri alpacas began about five years ago (fall 2017).  One visit to Hasselbring's Harmony Ranch in Concordia, Missouri was all it took to get their plans rolling for Buttermilk Forty Alpacas.  During their initial visit, the Hasselbrings reiterated over and over that their breeding decisions were data based.  They collected data based on fiber analysis, SHIP reports, and EPD reports for each of animals in their breeding program.  Jennifer is a mathematics teacher (high school, jr. college) and she was intrigued by the use of data to make informed breeding decisions.  She then reached out to Patty, and together they created a statistics based breeding project for her dual credit statistics course.  Jennifer and Patty assigned the project to her statistics students for three years and also presented the project at the DESE's Interface Math & Science Teacher Conference in 2019.  Their project was published in the 2019 Purely Suri Magazine (article follows).

     Missouri Stats Class Learns the Ins and Outs of Suri Breeding.pdf

      After working with their data and researching the animals extensively, Jennifer and Steve started visiting other alpaca farms throughout the state of Missouri, and in Kentucky and Tennessee as well.  They also accompanied the Hasselbrings to various alpaca shows in Missouri, Nebraska, and Iowa to learn the ins and outs of the show circuit and to try a hand at showing a few of their prized animals.  

      From there, they started working here on their "blank slate".  The barn was the first thing built, followed by fencing.  Electricity and water then followed to the barn and automatic waterers were installed.  Their first group of girls (Sansa, Bethany, White Gold, Melinoe) were welcomed to Buttermilk Forty on October 15, 2022.  Their fifth girl, Cleopatra and her cria, Alexander Helios (born 8/19/2022),  joined the farm later in January of 2023.  Their first group of boys (Einstein, Illumination, and Hollywood) were welcomed to Buttermilk Forty on Dec. 19, 2022.  We have now grown our herd to 18 alpacas - 7 boys and 11 girls.