Milagro Moon Ranch: Why We Chose Alpacas

We were looking for a farm animal that we could handle and is easily

managed. Alpacas are relatively small and docile for livestock, and

the

two of us working together can take care of all the routine care our

animals

require – nail trimming, shots and the like. They don’t take

down or leap

over fences. They create communal “poop piles” that

make cleanup quick and easy. They don’t smell, rarely spit or kick,

and are not aggressive. And birthing and breeding are generally

uneventful (though it is essential to be prepared when it comes to

birthing). Most importantly, we harvest a wonderfully useful resource

from our animals each spring without having to “harvest” the animal in

the process.

We wanted an animal that would be easy on the land. The East

ountain area of north-central New Mexico is predominantly a high

desert grassland receiving less than 15 inches of precipitation per

year. Our property is located at 6,800’, and in the little over

seven

years

we have been here, we have gone 12 months with less than an inch of total precipitation to

receiving

than 4 inches of rain in less than 3 hours. In other words, we can never be sure

what the weather

will do,

so water and the grass it nourishes are precious. Five of our 10 acres

are good pasture, and the

alpacas

are easy on the land. They have pads, not hooves, so they

do not tear up or compact the soil

like horses

and cows. They are easy on the grass – they do

not snip it down to the roots or pull up the

roots as they

graze. Still, we control the amount of time

they spend on pasture to ensure that we do not

overgraze.

What to do with the poop? Relatively high in nitrogen but low in undigested vegetable matter,

alpaca poop can be directly applied to most plants without

burning. We

mulch all of our trees and shrubs with the poop and

waste hay gathered

during daily clean up. Composted with grass

clippings and leaves, the

manure and hay quickly turn into a

nutrient-rich, earthworm-abundant

soil

that we use to enrich the

clay soil of our ranch. Each fall, our

vegetable

garden is piled

high with alpaca mulch, gradually restoring

through the

winter the

nutrients that generate the abundant harvest of

tomatoes,

squash, green chiles and other vegetables the following

summer. The

degraded pasture land we

inherited when we bought our

farm has been

“terraced” with alpaca mulch to hold precipitation

and

restore nutrients to

the soil. With our herd of 1

alpacas and 2 llamas,

all of our manure

finds

it way back to the land.

And, of course, there is the FLEECE! First and foremost, the alpaca is a fiber animal. Coming in 16
different natural colors, and producing some of the softest and finest fleece available, the alpaca is an
animal of opportunity for the fiber artist. It is wonderful

to behold a year’s worth of growth slowly falling away
from the animal as it is sheared in the spring.
Unbelievably soft and practically ready for use just as
it is right off the animal, the raw fleece and roving are
sublime for felting, spinning and processing into all sorts
of products. Alpaca fiber can also be successfully mixed
with other fibers, including sheep wool, mohair or silk.
We have our prime fleece processed into roving each
year.

The roving provides many opportunities. We both learned to spin from Beth

Orel

at Good

Fibrations

Edgewood

and now spend our abundant free time

(!)

spinning on our Ashford and Louet spinning

wheels

roduc

ing

a variety of two-ply and single-ply yarns in natural and dyed colors.