DUVAL, Sask. – Don and Lynn Hilderman started raising alpacas right around the time the Canadian diversified livestock industry was reeling from a collapse in ostrich and other specialty livestock prices.
“Our timing was perfect,” recalled Lynn with a laugh.
Despite the carnage in similar ventures, the couple from Duval, Sask., remained undaunted. They had done three years of homework and were confident there was money to be made in raising the animals for their fibre.
“My husband is a paper and pencil kind of guy. It had to make sense to him,” said Lynn.
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Eleven years after purchasing their first pair of bred females, Country Vista Alpacas continues to make a solid contribution to the farm’s bottom line.
The original concept was to find a livestock sideline to augment the grain farm Don was operating with his two brothers.
Today, the couple is moving out of grain farming, relying on the revenue generated by Lynn’s alpaca business and Don’s off-farm income as co-owner of Strasbourg Agencies Ltd., an insurance, real estate and financial services firm in Strasbourg, Sask.
Lynn grew up on a commercial cattle farm near Silton, Sask., and wanted a business that would satisfy her craving to work with livestock. But the couple ruled out cattle because they didn’t want to take a lot of land out of production.
A Western Producer article on alpacas sparked their interest in the animals. She discovered they were low maintenance, kid-friendly critters. The couple have three children that have since moved off the farm.
Alpacas are small and easy to care for, are not butchered for their meat and do not require a lot of land. Retrofitting the grain farm to host alpacas was as easy as hauling in an old granary and fencing three acres of land.
“Alpacas are way, way, way easier than cattle,” said Lynn.
They require two percent of their body weight in food per day at an average daily cost of $1.50 per animal.
The big expenditure was in acquiring breeding stock. When she first started scouring the classifieds, a pair of bred females was selling for $50,000. Lynn wouldn’t divulge what she paid when she made her first purchase on Dec. 31, 1996, other than to say it was a lot less than that.
Alpacas are easy to care for because they are small, intelligent and co-operative.
“They almost know what you want and they do it,” she said.
They respond well to a calm, soothing demeanor, so working with the animals is more like therapeutic meditation than a chore. At times she just sits back and enjoys their company.
“To watch these guys play at sunset is amazing. They prong like mule deer.”
But the alpacas are more than pets. As one of the pioneers of the Canadian alpaca industry, Lynn is gratified to see it morph from a breeding industry to one where there is money to be made selling fleece.
“We have done a lot of hard work in the past 10 years and are producing some exquisite socks and blankets and yarn. Some of the yarn is to die for. It has such a buttery soft feel to it.”
A recent article in a Canadian alpaca newsletter to which Lynn subscribes said an average animal can deliver $1,200 worth of hats, vests, slippers, scarves and sweaters from the annual shearing, although Lynn noted that returns are highly variable depending on a variety of factors.
She markets most of her product through the Canadian Camelid Fibre Co-op, a national organization that provides mills with quality assured and uniform classes of fibre.
The co-op separates the product from its members into nine colours, six grades and two lengths, and sends it to mills for processing.
The Hildermans can use their fibre credits to purchase product at wholesale prices for the small retail outlet they opened on their farm this fall or they can request a cheque from the co-op.
Lynn is doing a bit of both. She wants to kick-start a small agritourism business on their farm where she plans to host workshops and sell merchandise made from her 36 animals.
But while the fibre side of the business is starting to blossom, it is still a breeding stock industry.
“That’s where you make the bulk of your money,” she said.
Breeding stock prices have come down over the years and there have been some “mini crashes” in the decade that the Hildermans have been in the industry, but nothing like what happened to the ostrich sector in the mid-1990s.
You can still get a decent price for good breeding stock. Fibre males will sell for $300 to $1,500.
Breeding stock females will fetch $5,000 to $20,000, and stud males will generate $7,000 to $30,000, depending on conformation, fleece quality and character, pedigree, colour and age.
Lynn said the industry has been evolving at a reasonable pace and will continue to do so. She can’t envision it ever being saturated with breeding stock in her lifetime because the animals only produce one baby a year.
“We are looking for alpaca breeders. We need a lot more to meet the demand of the fibre industry,” she said.
