Posted by: Lois Lindemann on: August 19th, 2008 
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This week I met a surprisingly friendly Peruvian alpaca. Not that I had to go all the way to Peru to do this, I only went as far as the Mayfield Valley, which is on the western edge of Sheffield.
Mayfield Alpacas is a 45 acre farm where the owners breed alpacas (obviously) for fleece and they are also open for visitors. Sadly staff shortages meant the visitor centre was closed on the day we were there, so I can’t tell you about the entire Mayfield experience, we’ll have to try that another time. However there were some young alpacas in a field near the road, so went to have a look at them.
These alpacas not only produce high quality fleece, they are also very good at posing for photos, especially if you bribe them with a handful of grass!
Links:
Mayfield Alpacas
What’s the difference between an alpaca and a llama?
My Flickr photos of the alpacas
Alpacas – the best pyrmaid selling scheme since… well, whateer the last one was.
It now costs more to shear them and tranport the fleece to a wholesaler than you get for the fleece. Unless you sell direct/via the net. Or give the fleece away to me 🙂
Not a pyramid scheme – it’s a in the US for 20 years. Alpacas have been declared livestock by the US Dept of Agriculture. The fleece is gorgeous and used in the fashion industry. In the US it is still a cottage industry and yes, hard to sell the raw fleece, but we are working on that and getting better. But take the time to get the fleece cleaned and processed into yarn, and you have a beautiful product to sell. Get the yarn made into socks, swweaters, scarves, whatever, and you have a beautiful end product to sell. Yes, there is profit to be made from the fleece, but not for a lazy person who expects to sit back and have people come clamoring for their fiber. Just as in any other business, they need to work at it and market their product. If they are not willing to do that, then don’t buy alpacas and don’t criticize those of us who are working at making it a successful industry.