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About Us
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About Rustic Lodge Alpacas.
We purchased our first Alpacas in 2004. Two wethers.
Very shortly afterwards we purchased our first two breeding females. They
were suppose to be heavily pregnant, 2 years later we finally had cria
on ground from these girls. Ironically, they both went into labour on
the same day producing two Suri cria's. One male and one female. Sampson
& Deliah.
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Alpacas
are no doubt addictive. Ask anyone who has two Alpacas if they want more?
Not long after purchasing our initial two females,
we went on to purchase 4 more breeding age females (actually 5 but one girl
wouldn't get on the float for the trip up here).
Then we purchased another 5 breeding aged females
from a herd dispersal and we were well on our way to establishing our farm.
It hasn't been all smooth sailing and we have suffered
some serious losses on farm. One death was caused by our own dog attacking
and fatally injuring an Alpaca. *Fingers crossed* we now seem to be on the
right track. We have certainly exeperienced the high's and low's of owning
these wondeful creatures.
Before purchasing our initial females, I studied a good deal in relation
to genetics. Fortunately I had done a fair amount of colour genetics research
as we previously bred solid coloured Shih Tzu's (including blacks). I wanted
to check backgrounds and stats against the liklihood of breeding grey and
black animals. I must of got something right because our first two cria's
born here were grey's. We have since had success with breeding Suri cria's
as well.
Personally, I like both the Huacaya or Suri's. Both
have their benefits. So for me it's an easy decision tosimply have both.
Allan prefers Huacaya's but from a business point of view, breeding Suri's
seems in my opinion the wiser option as they have continued to hold their
value, are rarer and the quality of Suri's being bred in Australia continues
to improve in leaps and bounds.
Happily we now have our own herd's name on some lovely
Suri cria's as well as some gorgeous grey Huacaya's. We have recently re-evaluated
our breeding goals. We do still wish to breed for both grey and black Suri's
and Huacaya's but, we have over the years, got a little off track. So we
intend to sell some of our animals and to replace them with 'grey' stock.
I was a Committe Member for the Australian Alpaca
Association Qld Region in 2006. We have also recently become members of
the Australiasian Alpaca Breeders Association.
Thanks for reading,
Rebecka (& Allan) |
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