Alpaca Business Plan Part 6 - Herd Growth

Herd growth has many facets:
How many alpacas do you want?
How many are you planning on breeding every year?
How many will you keep?
How many will you sell?
What is your expected production rate?

What is the ideal number of alpacas for your farm? This could be the maximun number the land will support or the number of females necessary to produce the amount of alpacas you want to sell or the number of fiber boys you need to make product.

I first figured out how many alpacas I could reasonably support on the land. From that number, I worked on the number of females and males that would be ideal for my sales goals. Remember goals are just that, goals, so have a fall back plan if you don't make the sales you were expecting.

Northwest alpacas has a great herd growth calculator. You type in the number of alpacas you have now and it estimates the number you will have in future years.

You can see that the cria add up faster than you think. So have a plan in place to sell as you are growing. This does two things, it puts you in the marketplace and makes you practice marketing and selling. You learn what works and what doesn't before you find yourself in a position of having to make a sale. It also brings in new bloodlines if you buy to replace what you sell. If you don't plan on that, then it puts money in the farm budget.

Now is the time to think about what to do with the boys you will be getting. Will you show them, sell them as fiber boys, or keep a fiber herd? Just something to think about.

I would like a herd of 10 breeding females. If I get 50% boys, then I will need to sell 5 boys a year. I also need to sell 5 females to keep the herd at the ideal size. The females sold could be yearlings, pregnant maidens, and/or the production females. I also have some older females, so am planning on when they will retire to have a replacement in place.

As I am growing to that size, I am selling the females that don't fit my business plan and most of the boys. The number can't be written in stone because while statistics say there will be a 50/50 spilt, I have had years with all girls and ones with all boys. It works out in the long run, but to plan year to year for it is tricky.

An update on the crias at HomeSpun Alpacas

Tank is our middle child. He has been putting on about a pound a day and is a strapping male. Tank is 4 weeks old in this picture.




Teddy was very ill and had to go to the hospital. They inserted an IV - I got to help - and after he came home we took it out too. This is the result. A happy, healthy cria. Thank you Puget Sound Veterinary Group! Drs Scott and Jackie worked hard on stopping this little guy's diarrhea. Everyone there was very patient with me calling and wanting updates.

This is the newest cria. He does not have a name yet, but we are working on it! He is a cutie too.

Alpaca Business Plan Part 5 - Business Products & Services

The business products and services section is where you talk about what you are going to sell. First identify what your products and services are going to be. This may be repeated in the section on marketing, but it is a different slant than what we are focusing on here. Are you in the business to sell and promote fiber boys, fiber products, raw fiber, breeding females, herdsire services, or future herdsires? Huacayas or Suris?

Tell about your criteria for each one. What do you consider a herdsire? What would you consider to be prime blanket? Not all blankets are created equal, the 17 micron fleece will bring more per pound than the 35 micron fleece. What are your standards for an acceptable X?

Address anything unique about your services or products. Think of the people who raise organic vegetables, they detail what is unique about their product and show how it fits into a healthy lifestle.

The following is what I put down as my business products and services:

HomeSpun Alpacas will sell huacaya alpacas for the breeding market. We will also sell fiber and products made from their fiber such as yarn and blankets. We will focus on black.

Our fiber goals for fineness are detailed in the long term goal section.

Breeding Females
Breeding females should be the ones with fine crimpy fiber and correct conformation. They have easy births and plenty of milk. Their crias are healthy and strong.

Breeding Males
The breeding male alpacas also have the fine crimpy fiber and correct conformation. They produce crias that are consistently better than the dam and themselves. They come from a line of alpacas that produce healthy crias. Their fiber stays fine even with the onset of breeding and age.

Fiber Products
The fiber that the alpacas produce is warmer than sheep wool and generally considered stronger. It has been marketed as rivaling cashmere, and the truly fine fleeces do with a micron under 20. There is a wide range of fiber produced by an alpaca. The blanket is the prime and the most marketable. The neck is second. The leg and belly are thirds. Each of these kinds of fibers has their use in the market place.

• Prime The prime fiber is used for blankets, sweaters, scarves and hats. It is soft and able to be worn next to the skin.
• Seconds This fiber is used for socks and things that are not worn next to the skin. It is also used as felt.
• Thirds Thirds are used for rugs, insulation, and as weed barrier.