Exotic
animals: boom or bust in the Arkansas Valley?
by Elizabeth Medina
Clyde lifts his muzzle and sniffs Dan Jones. Dan returns the sniff. “Sniffing to llamas is like a handshake to humans,” says Jones, owner of Spruce Ridge Llamas west of Poncha Springs. After their handshake, Jones settles a pack on Clyde’s back and prepares the llama for a short pack trip into the San Isabel National Forest.
Jones is one of many exotic animal owners and breeders that dot the agricultural landscape of the Arkansas Valley. Originally imported from other countries, ostriches, llamas, and alpacas find home in the high, dry climate of Southern Colorado to their liking.
Because these animals are easy to raise on small acreages, some exotic-animal owners and breeders rushed into the livestock business like gold miners stampeding to mining claims. And like mining, exotic animals have both boomed and busted.
In the mid-1980s, ostriches, from the ratite family of flightless birds, were booming.
“It was kind of a carpet bagger mentality. A lot of people got into the market to make money and then got out quickly. It became kind of an unplanned pyramid scheme. The first guy selling the eggs made a lot of money. Then as the seed stock market dropped out, the last guy had nobody to sell to,” says Scott Cotton, Colorado State University extension agent for range management and livestock in Pueblo County.
John Notany, a past president of the Rocky Mountain Ostrich Association, got into the business in 1991 but quit a couple of years ago. “It was too much work for too little return,” says Notany. “The market was never completely developed. We even developed our own meat label through the association, but it was difficult to get the product into the grocery stores.”
Even though ostrich meat is nutritious and low in fat and cholesterol, it never caught on in Colorado. According to Notany, the biggest demand for ostrich meat now is on the East Coast, a surprise to Notany who thought the Colorado market would be good because of its young population.
“It reached a point where you could no longer own five acres and have an incubator in your garage to make money. You had to decide if you were really in and begin raising birds on 50 to 100 acres, becoming a real livestock grower, or get out,” says Notany.
Cotton agrees, saying that many people who got into the ratite craze had a “quick dollar mind set rather than the kind of mind set to build an enterprise over the long term.” By the end of the 1990's, the market was so depressed that owners had a hard time giving the animals away. Cotton tells the story of a truck accident on I-25 outside of Pueblo in 1997 involving 20 ostriches that were on their way to California. Several ostriches were killed in the accident, but 12 animals were taken to a local vet for treatment. When the ostrich owner was faced with the vet bill and the cost of additional transportation for the birds from Pueblo, he told the vet to keep them. The vet didn’t want the birds either.
Unlike ostriches, llamas, from the camelid family, are raised in the U.S. for utility and fiber rather than meat. When Jim McConaghy’s wife wanted to go backpacking but couldn’t carry a backpack anymore, she told her husband that what they needed was a llama to carry the gear. They bought a couple of pack llamas in 1989 for their own use. The McConaghys, owners of Antero Llamas north of Salida, now own 43 llamas.
McConaghy breeds, raises and rents llamas as pack animals. “We’ve rented our llamas for as long as an entire season to a couple who hiked the Continental Divide Trail from Mexico to Colorado,” says McConaghy. Hikers who want to rent the llamas for backpack trips receive a couple of hours training on how to care for the llamas. Then McConaghy takes them on a short hike, teaching how to lead the animals. He will trailer the animals to the trail head or hikers can rent his trailer and take the animals themselves.
When the llama industry was booming in the late 1980's, McConaghy says show animals could sell for $170,000. “They still can sell in the tens of thousands of dollars, with the average price for a llama at the Oklahoma City Celebrity Sale in April running around $5,000,” says McConaghy. However, the price of an average llama has dropped 60 percent since the early 1990s.
“Llamas came into the U.S. from three or four other countries with uncontrolled importation. A lot of animals became available in the world market and the quality went from exceptional to run of the mill.” Cotton says success in the llama industry right now depends on marketing. The llama rancher needs to be able to develop his own market, have good animals and do a good job selling them.
McConaghy still finds raising llamas profitable. He sold three animals in the last two weeks, one as a pack animal, a female for breeding, and another as a guard animal. “Llamas still bring a price that makes it worthwhile raising them,” says McConaghy. He admits that he could work harder at marketing his animals. He’d like to try to convince youth camping programs to use llamas for packing rather than horses. “They’re safer to handle than horses, easier on trails and more sure-footed on rocks,” says McConaghy.
Even so, it’s sometimes hard to convince people to take llamas, who will carry your gear while you walk, rather than horses you can ride, according to outfitter-guide Jones. “Sometimes I get a call from prospective guests who don’t understand that I take out llamas rather than horses. As soon they hear they’ll have to walk instead of ride, they decide not to come.”
Jones started Spruce Ridge Llamas as a guide business, taking people on backpacking trips using the llamas as pack animals. He also breeds and sells the animals. “I thought I would be able to build a business and start crossing over to the camping business, developing a camping experience using the llamas. I haven’t been able to do it though, because of county regulations and expenses,” says Jones
Brett Beasley, U.S. Forest Service forestry technician on the Salida Ranger District, agrees that horses still get the largest part of the packing business when it comes to back country travel. Both Jones and McConaghy have outfitter-guide permits issued by the Salida Ranger District to take trips into the San Isabel National Forest.
“The horse permitees and the llama permitees cater to different types of trips. With the horses, a guest can take a one hour trip. More time and effort are involved in taking a llama trip. Both groups provide a public need, offering a service to a special population, but the horse permitees do much more business.” says Beasley.
A growing demand for llamas is for use as guard animals. McConaghy lent one of his llamas to a friend who was worried about coyotes bothering her children. The llama follows the kids around the yard and keeps coyotes away.
According to Jones, llamas are becoming popular as guard animals for calves, sheep, chicken and goats. “A llama runs as fast as a horse, it has a powerful neck and front feet, can turn quickly, and has a natural mothering instinct,” says Jones. “It’s a social animal and is content with a sheep herd once it adopts the sheep as its own.”
Jones recently picked up six well-bred llamas for free. Even with instances of people giving llamas away, he thinks the market is beginning to stabilize. He sites growing uses for llama fiber as well as uses for llamas as pack animals, guard llamas, even golf caddies.
Today, alpacas are the “Cadillac of camelids,” according to Cotton. A breeding female alpaca can cost as much $20,000 at alpaca shows. “Most people raising llamas are in a profession or own their own business besides their alpaca business. They are people with a six-figure income level. I’ve never seen so many politicians, plastic surgeons and lawyers in livestock production as alpaca breeders,” says Cotton.
Dovie and Bruce Gross, owners of Aspen Alpaca Ranch in Salida, got into alpaca ranching as a way to diversify their income. “We first looked on it as a business adventure, but as time went on we fell in love with the animals,” says Bruce.
Dovie grew up in Texas around livestock. “I wanted something we weren’t going to turn around and butcher,” says Dovie.
They raise two types of alpacas. Huacaya have a short, dense fleece that looks like it has been “crimped”. The more rare Suri have longer fiber that hangs like “dredlocks”. Alpacas are raised for their strong, soft fiber that is used to make sweaters, coats, scarves and other garments. The ancient Incas reserved alpaca fiber for royalty. Garments made from the alpaca’s fleece were only worn by kings and princes.
The boom in the alpaca industry now, however, is not in selling the fiber but in breeding the animals. A relatively new animal to this country, the national herd is still being built. Alpaca breeders expect the demand for their animals to remain high for some time because alpacas only have one offspring a year and because breeders have limited importation.
Worried about the experience of other exotic animal breeders whose businesses skyrocketed only to plummet within a few years, the Alpaca Owners and Breeders Association (AOBA) assigned a member task force to research the question of why some exotic livestock breeds lost value. As a result of the study, AOBA members voted to close the national alpaca registry to importation. This limits the growth of the national herd to offspring born in the United States. During the past six years, according to Bruce, the price of alpacas has increased ten to 15 percent.
Cindy Cruz, president of Alpaca Breeders of the Rockies, and owner of Wet Mountain Alpacas in Cañon City, says that the AOBA vote to exclude imported animals from the national alpaca registry has helped stabilize the market. “We were concerned with bringing in too many animals too quickly. Now breeders can manage the quality and numbers of animals,” says Cruz.
One of the long-term goals for the alpaca industry, according to Cruz, is to provide quality fiber for the fiber market. “We’ve already seen enhanced fiber producing animals in the U.S. in the last ten years,” says Cruz. She attributes the increase in fiber quality to alpaca breeders being well-educated about the care of their animals and making good breeding decisions.
A top priority for Alpaca Breeders of the Rockies is to provide education for alpaca breeders. The association holds vet seminars to help vets learn about the care of alpacas. They provide seminars for breeders on pasture management, fiber care and neonatal care that include lab sessions where breeders deliver crias (baby alpacas). The AOBA also has an extensive library that alpaca breeders and owners can access.
Colorado State University has a camelid research program that can help alpaca owners deal with accidents and diseases that their local vet might not know how to treat. According to Cruz, most veterinarians can do routine care of alpacas, but specialized health problems could require a vet who has special training in dealing with alpacas.
Even with the alpaca business booming, Kurt Jones, Chaffee County Extension Agent for Colorado State University, says if a potential alpaca rancher comes to him for advice about the breed, he will counsel him about marketing skills rather than how to care for the animals. “This really is a touchy subject. In most of these markets you must be able to sell to other breeders, so you try to get new people involved. You have to sell breeding animals,” says Kurt. “I’m concerned that, just like the early llamas that were selling for large sums of money, it is difficult to sustain.”
Eventually alpaca breeders will need to market alpaca products. “The quandary for the alpaca community has been how to transition from a breeding industry to a secondary fiber industry, and to do so in a way that the fiber industry justifies the breeding and vice versa,” says David Stensland, fiber expert from New York and owner of Craftsman4fiber, a product development consulting service.
“It all works once they (alpaca owners) have made the connection between alpacas and textile products, and can then promote both of them to their customers, the idea being you can’t have one without the other,” says Stensland. The cycle, according to Stensland, is that cute and expensive alpacas sell alpaca sweaters that are luxurious but more affordable than an alpaca. Then alpaca sweaters, because you want to wear them all the time now, sell alpacas.
According to Cotton, alpaca owners and breeders are addressing the challenges of selling alpaca products by coordinating market campaigns on a national level and by high quality control of their animals. Alpaca owners and breeders often “have the resources to do things other ranchers don’t usually have,” says Cotton.
“They have custom trailers and sometimes even fly their animals to shows. At shows I’ve seen swamp coolers in stalls, misters so animals don’t get too hot, astro turf under the animals’ feet so they don’t have to stand on concrete, and temperature controlled water pails. The breeders can crossbreed to get different shades of fiber. There is evidence that shows that high levels of care improve the crimp and quality of fiber,” says Cotton.
So will alpacas continue to boom as the most economically viable exotic breed in the Arkansas Valley? Cotton thinks they will. “Alpacas are more consistently productive, but then they have a high-end entry level. You need at least $100,000 to get in, says Cotton.”
And for some exotic animal owners, it’s not all about profits. It’s about lifestyle and preserving a way of life they think is worth more than gold. They have many reasons for being in the business, whether its booming or busting.
For Jones, even though llamas have not been a “get rich quick” investment, they have provided him with a lifestyle that has enabled him to be a part of preserving the west. “People come out west to enjoy the natural resources, to be outside. With the llamas, I’m able to get people out and help them develop a good land ethic. I’m a part of preserving the agricultural aspect of the west, which has been a life-blood of the west down through history.”