Our first blue ribbon!

As luck would have it, Kelley took O'Ryan into the ring for her first ever show and guess what? We won first place in a large class of fawn yearlings! We started raising alpacas only 2 years ago so this was quite a pleasant surprise. To this point, it has truly been a team effort. If you are considering raising/showing alpacas, I'd strongly recommend you get to know the breeders you are buying you foundation stock from and get involved in your local alpaca community. There are many people out there with years of experience and this community is very willing and eager to help you succeed. We teamed up with April and Richard Angotti of of Benvenuti Alpacas (www.benvenutifarm.com) to get started with nice moms. Our breedbacks were carefully planned and we were able to stay focused in the Snowmass (www.snowmassalpacas.com) line. The Angotti's have some really nice Herdsires including one (Giacomo) who took 2nd at the Nationals this year. We went with his brother (Riccardo) who also has been in the ribbons at every show. Anyhow, I can't tell how rewarding it was to enter our first show, with our first Alpaca and come home with a blue ribbon in a very stong color class!

It all started as a 4H Alpaca Project..

Looking back on it, this 4H project for my daughter had been quite an odyssey. It all started back about 2 years ago in January of 2004. My neighbor suggested we 'adopt' a little alpaca down the road. Since we have plenty of space on our 7 acre ranch, I thought it would be a good idea for my daughter to raise one for the upcoming county fair. My wife, daughter and neighbor went down the road to look at the alpaca, and fell in love with them, especially a little boy (cria) who was just 3 months old. His name is Lightning and he was our first alpaca. Turns out, you can't just have one alpaca (they are herd animals and will die from stress if left alone) so we also brought home another little boy name 'Keeshon'. Actually, we had to wait about 2 months to bring them home since they were still nursing. Our daughter was required to ride her bike up to the other peoples ranch and check her alpacas and begin the bonding process. In the meantime, we built temporary fencing (5 Ft. Non-climb) and began the educational process of learning everything there is to know about alpacas. During the 'bonding' process, my wife came to me with a twinkle in her eye... She said, you know honey...I've been looking for something to do with all my nursing knowledge (she is a retired RN) and these little alpacas could be a great way to use our property AND teach the kids about raising animals! I said I'd give it some thought...and she went shopping (for alpacas). Within a month we had purchased 3 more 'show quality' alpacas and now had begun the journey into alpacas...