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| Our Foundation Stock! Altiplano Alpacas LLC was formed in April of 2005, but it wasn't until the arrival of three lovely, pregnant females from Tucson on the evening of July 31st that the business truly became alive and running - running and pronking, that is! No sooner did these three females get off the trailer than they ran & pronked across the pens into the crisp early evening air of Santa Fe. They loved that it was much cooler than Tucson! We later learned that it can't get too cold in these parts for alpacas. They love our winters, especially those frosty winter mornings when the temps are in the teens and 20's - perfectly suiting them! And for us humans, there is nothing like seeing the sun rising across the pens on a crip morning with alpacas cushed everywhere, simply watching the slow dawning of a new day. You can't help but love feeding or mucking at this hour - it's a great way to awaken and truly helps you keep it all in perspective. Very important in the Foundation Stock is bloodlines!!! We learned from many people in this business that it is imperative that new breeders buy the very best bloodlines, quality of fleece and correct conformation that their budget can afford. We did a lot of online research and talked to numerous people at seminars and shows (including attending the Snowmass sale in Phoenix in both 2005 and 2006) to learn what it is that is the best or "elite" alpaca. We are very happy with the three females we purchased for our foundation herd. If you were to equate these girls with cars, we bought two Cadillacs and one Maserati. The blood lines are (not in any order): Yupanqui, Royal Fawn, PPeruvian Accoyo's Apollo, Royal Peruvian Eros, Royal Peruvian Apollo, PPeruvian Leon, PPeruvian Felix, & Snowmass PPeruvian Drambuie. Combine those with PPeruvian Victor, Dom Lucilio, CL9 Altair, and PPeruvian Alladdin, and PPeruvian Hemmingway, we have seen stunning offspring! Suffice it to say, we couldn't be happier with the outcome of our initial investment, and look forward to a time when we will be able to pass on the great results of our breedings to customers, not to mention building our herd. At present, we still agist at AlpacaWorks, only now with 9 alpacas instead of three! Owners Susan & Kent Sasser couldn't be better people to learn from and entrust ones precious alpacas with. Our business relationship has grown into friendship, and we look forward to many years ahead as friends and doing business together in one manner or another. Since that day in July of 05, we've had two sets of births, in 06 and 07, and have gone to our first shows. We quickly learned that winning is great fun! The shows really are a good time - you talk to so many people, learn from vendors, and learn so much more about alpacas. We are also so pleased that the judges think as highly of our animals as we do! Last week we took our first Color Championship for our yearling Ariana, and are thrilled beyond belief. Ariana is from the first crop of crias, born in 2006. We're still whirling from that win, a sure testimony to the fine genetics of Maserati mom, Moonshadow, and sire, AFR Dakota. I guess that's also testimony to the advice that you purchase the finest genetics and phenotypes (one follows the other!) that your budget permits, at least if you want to do well as a breeder. We will retain as many of our alpacas as possible to build our herd, but have decided to put our first-born girl, Sonora, up for sale, as much as we really hate to part with her. She is the finest animal we have at 16.7 microns, but she is the oldest and is ready for breeding, and most people looking for a female prefer a pregnant female. We expected to have our own ranch by the time we reached 9 alpacas, as agisting that many is a bit costly for "young" breeders just starting out. Sonora just took another 2nd place ribbon last week herself, again evidence that the judges think these animals are quite special indeed. Too bad we have to reduce our herd size right now as we'd love to keep her if we had a ranch of our own. Bred to Altair's Vito, she will have a spectacular cria for sure!! We tried to sell our Placitas house in this summer (07) so as to purchase the AlpacaWorks ranch, but the market was not right for selling this year. If the housing market improves in 2008, we will sell our lovely Placitas house and purchase the Sasser ranch, and agist their alapcas and those of our friends, Que Sera and Milagro Meadow - more or less switching roles. We hope the housing tides turn in our favor in 2008! We very much look forward to that day so we can also provide a place for people like us who live in subdivisions that preclude livestock to be able to agist their alpacas. And we will make it our priority to give our customers the same quality of caring service that we have received. That is SO important to the new breeder - to have an experienced person, or persons, to mentor them, whether it's through the original purchase or through agisiting. And that is so much of why this business is as wonderful as it is - not only are the alpacas magnificent animals to care for, but the people in it are pretty magnificent as well!
|  | News/Events Births, Milestones....Sept 11, 2009: Our most beautiful boy yet, Altiplano's Rico Gold, son of Travesura's Altiplano Treasure,and grandson of 4Peruvian Altiplano Gold, was born to our Moonshadow, our Peruvian female from the Royal Fawn and Felix lines. His fleece drapes in gleaming bundles over his entire body! Treasure has passed on his extreme brightness & bundling to this boy and we couldn't be more delighted! What a happy note on Sept. 11, a sad day in history. March, 2010: We're in the processing of acquiring half ownership of Travesura's Altiplano Treasure so we can continue breeding to this wonderful herdsire. We have heard that all of Treasure's crias have fleece like Rico's! We look forward to co-owning Treasure with Windrush Alpacas, Clovis, NM, and helping our fellow breeders take advantage of this male's fabulous imprint on his crias. April, 2010: If we do not sell several of our animals beforehand, we will take a big part of our herd to Nebraska for the Hartmann auction. We must reduce our herd size until the real estate market turns around and we can sell our house and buy ranch property. Until then, the herd size MUST be reduced. Our loss is very much your gain! We will be selling or sendin: Inka, Gizmo, Vencedor, Color Champion Ariana and her daughter, Anika, Gizmo, Gracie & Sienna. The girls will be bred to Treasure! Who could resist such a fantastic deal as that?! What a winning combo!!! More News....  | | ||
