This is a Suri alpaca...
Several weeks ago a woman stopped by and asked about our alpaca. Dawn works in the area and had noticed our 'boys' in the field. She told me that she had just gotten 2 Suri alpaca crias (babies) and would really like to get a Huacaya (which is the type we have). I told her that Wayne wanted to get a Suri someday. Dawn had gotten hers for a really good price and offered to get me the name of the person that sold her the 2 young alpaca. They are not show quality but are good fiber animals. With the economy being the way it is, many breeders don't want to deal with 'non-show' quality stock and sell them for next to nothing.
A couple weeks later Dawn called and told me that she was getting 5 more alpaca--1 Huacaya and 4 Suri. If we were interested we could buy one of the Suri from her for a very low price. They were planning to go to western NY to pick them up, but their plans of using a horse trailer fell through. They could use their truck, but didn't have a cap to fit the back. We just so happened to have the cap to Matthew's truck (which has died and gone to the junk yard). We told them they could borrow the cap if they liked. The cap was picked up and they went to get the alpaca. The new alpaca were bigger than the 2 babies so they could only pick up 3 of the 5 on the first trip. On Thursday I recieved an e-mail "All 5 of the boys are on our farm. Do you want to try to come to see them on Monday?" We didn't see how we could purchase another alpaca at this point, but we thought it'd be fun to go see them and visit a bit with Dawn and her husband
Today we went to see the 'boys'. Dawn and her husband had a proposition for us...would we be willing to trade the truck cap for one of the alpaca? Would we?!?! Well, it was Matthew's truck cap, so we did have to talk to him, but we'd let them know. Matt's all for it (as long as he gets some of the profits from the fleece!) so if all works out as planned, we'll soon have another alpaca on the farm. Saturday Rachael and I plan on going to help them with the shearing. Dawn told me that if we help, then we can have the fleece from 'our' alpaca without paying the shearing fee (if I give her a handful to spin).
The next step is to get a quarantine pen set up for the new boy on the farm...which is where all the fencing from another 'blessing' comes in. We were driving by a place that used to have sheep and goats and noticed that all the animals were gone and the fencing was really good quality. Wayne and I stopped one day to ask if the owners would be interested in selling some of the fencing to us. To make a very long story short...the house was empty and the seller was about to close with the new owners. She wanted the fence gone by the beginning of the next week. We could have all the 'no climb' goat fence and posts for a very low cost...the catch being we had to get it down and off the property before the following week. Three teenage boys of our own and 3 of their friends started tearing it down that afternoon. By the following day we had the equivalent of approx. 3 rolls of fencing and over 60 wooden fence posts stacked neatly behind the alpaca barn for less than 1/2 of a roll of new fencing!
It's amazing how God not only meets all of our needs but often He surprises us with totally unexpected gifts...like a Suri alpaca! We are abundantly blessed!!
Peter arrived this afternoon and is settling in nicely. He's had a busy day--sheared, immunized, toe nails trimmed, and then moved to his new home. He'll be in private quarters for 2 weeks and then we'll introduce him to the neighborhood alpacas. (They were really checking him out as I walked him to his new pen--surprised they don't have sprained necks!)
I also thought you might like to see our budding artist with one of his creations.
