The Rural Voice, 2004-07, Page 16A breed apart
Durham -area breeders among pioneers
of alpaca farming in Ontario
Story and photos by Keith Roulston
Frank Malone is surrounded by alpacas looking for a treat of pellets.
As Frank Malone takes a
stranger into the field of 23
alpacas on a farm south of
Varney the animals hold back. It's
because they don't know the man
who's with their caretaker, he says
and decides on alternative action.
He heads to the barn and comes
back with some of the pellets he
gives the animals once a day to
balance their diet. Immediately the
animals surround him, -eating from
his hand. As the -photographer begins
to snap pictures, the curious animals
come closer, some even sticking their
noses into his camera bag, but they
quickly back off if he approaches
them.
Malone has come to love the
animals. He saw them on a television
12 THE RURAL VOICE
infomercial several years ago and got
interested. When he decided he
wanted to purchase a pair he talked to
Kathleen Brown, the owner of
Halcyon Farms, where the animals
are kept and she decided she wanted
some too. Today she owns the bulk
of the herd.
Alpacas are still a rare sight in
Ontario. The internet website
www.alpacaseller.com lists only 16
breeders with animals for sale in
Ontario compared to 81 in the prairie
provinces. According to the Canadian
Alpaca Breeders Association
(CABA) there are 510 breeders in
Canada.
CABA says there are now about
15,500 registered animals in Canada.
It's quite a growth from the arrival of
the first few animals in the late
1980s. The real birth of the industry,
however, dates back to a January 2,
1992 747 -cargo plane load of 362
alpacas from Auckland, New
Zealand. After being quarantined in
New Zealand, the animals were
dropped off at quarantine facilities in
Alberta and Quebec where they spent
another 150 days in quarantine before
being released to six on-farm
quarantine facilities across Canada
where they had to be held for another
year and a half before they could be
released for sale.
Since then there have been
additional imports from Chile, Peru
and Bolivia as well as Australia and
the U.S.
One of the attractions of the
animals is that they need little care,
Malone says. While they get a few
pellets formulated to camelids like
alpacas and llamas, generally they
get along on grass, preferring short
grass at that. In winter they eat hay,
but not a lot. One horse eats as much
as eight to 10 alpacas, Malone says.
He feeds about four small bales of
hay a day to 23 alpacas in winter.
Alpacas are used to a low protein
diet, having developed in a
mountainous region of South
America with poor quality scrub
vegetation. In fact the CABA warns
that lush Canadian pastures, high
protein hay or feed supplements can
create a coarser fiber in the animals'
fleece. Since the micron
measurement (fibre diameter) is one
of the selling points of both animals
and their fleece, it can affect their
value.
In mid-June, Malone was •
preparing for the shearing of the
alpacas at Halcyon farm. In a shed
sat a new shearing table. The table
tilts so the animals, which weigh 100
to 180 pounds and stand just about
three feet at their shoulders (though
their long -upright necks make them
seem taller) can stand beside the
'table and be strapped to it. Straps
hold down the feet so they animals
can't kick. The table is then flipped
so the animals are lying on the table-
top. One side of the alpaca is shorn,
then it is turned and the other side
gets clipped.
The main fleece comes from the
the body from the front shoulder to
hip. A shearing can produce five to