Life Changing Alpacas

 
Southern Alpacas Stud, in the South Island of New Zealand, is an international alpaca business. Nic Cooper and Linda Blake import alpacas from Australia and USA, export alpacas to UK
and Europe, and sell fibre products worldwide.
“I just liked the animals”, Nic says. “I had no idea it was going to be life-changing when I bought my first alpaca in 1989 !”
Nic still has most of the original alpacas, though several are retired to the geriatric paddock, having made their contribution to what is now an alpaca stud running 200 alpacas.
The 12 ha (30 acres) farm of owned and leased land is on the edge of Christchurch, just 20 minutes from the international airport.
 


Fine Fibre is the Aim
Southern Alpacas Stud aim is breed alpacas that provide ultra-fine fibre throughout their life. Nic is a senior alpaca judge in New Zealand, and has an eye for an excellent alpaca.
He has chosen and imported studs from Australia and USA to drive improvement in the herd.

Testament to this success is rows of colourful ribbons and champion show photos adorning the walls of the Alpaca Gallery. There are soft handling 14 and 15 micron fleeces on display, and yarns, duvets, hats, scarves and baby booties made from fibre grown on the farm.
“I firmly believe that the future of the alpaca industry in the Western world is in fine fleece”, says Nic. “We simply cannot compete with the volume and labour cost of the traditional fibre producers from South America. We can utilise the extensive farming expertise that exists in New Zealand, and Australia, and produce alpacas that capture the niche high value fibre market. Ultra fine fleeces command a huge premium in the world, for high added value garments.”

Fibre Products

Linda transforms their fine fibre into saleable form. All alpacas are cleaned and fibre tested prior to shearing. Their fleece is separated into three product related categories as it is shorn, and weighed and recorded. Then each fleece is classed and further cleaned by hand.
 
“We have sales for all our own fibre, white and coloured, and we buy in fleece to meet our orders from crafters and small manufacturers. We’ve developed and built up these markets ourselves with a reputation for very high quality alpaca. We’re in a joint venture with a yarn manufacturer, producing fine yarns in alpaca, with a touch of merino, in 2 ply and boucle, in a natural ecru colour and also in bright hand-dyed yarns,” explains Linda.
Southern Alpacas supplies fibre retailers in USA and Europe with clean, washed, carded, alpaca fibre; they send fibre direct to crafters worldwide who order direct from their webshop; and the speciality yarn is marketed by the manufacturer in Japan, USA and UK.
Seminars and Support

Nic regularly seeks alpaca knowledge at alpaca conferences around the world and Linda is an educator, so holding seminars is part of their business. Linda runs a specialised neo-natal birthing course, a real “hands-in” course, to assist alpaca and llama breeders to manage births successfully.
Nic is a trainer for the fledgling Across-herd Genetic Evaluation system, developed jointly between the New Zealand and Australia alpaca associations. AGE is an alpaca breeding values system used by progressive breeders to enhance genetic gain from their herd.
“We have been on the learning journey about alpacas and fibre and know how difficult information can be to get,” says Nic. “So we endeavour to pass information on. We write articles, and Linda puts a lot on our website, which has over 40 pages.”

Farm Facilities
This is Nic and Linda’s third alpaca farm, purpose-built for alpacas for ease of management. The northern part of the farm has their home, office and Alpaca Gallery. Backing onto this is the main barn and undercover working yards, with soft rubber matting in the mating pens, an inside cria care area, and a wireless connection for their portable computer.
A series of raceways radiate out from these yards, so any paddock can be accessed easily for animal movement and farm equipment, like dung collection machines and tractors.
The southern part of the farm has a fleece building for shearing, fibre cleaning and classing, and storage for bulk orders of fibre. A large commercial greenhouse was converted into a series of undercover grass pens, great to prepare alpacas for shows and for shearing, and for acclimatising imported shorn alpacas that face seasonal change.
With the move to frequent importing and exporting, the western side of the farm is now double-fenced, and approved as a government isolation facility, with its own yards.
Studs and Services

These facilities streamline the effort required by Nic and Linda to not only manage their own herd, but also agisted alpacas (ones owned by others), and international alpacas transiting from Australia to England. Numbers go up in summer, with birthing of cria, and females who come for maternity care and/or mating.
As well as on-farm matings, stud services are offered “mobile” with studs travelling to females locally. Many studs are co-owned with other NZ breeders, who manage them in their geographic region for 6-8 weeks at a time. Together, the breeders print an annual stud booklet, detailing their 30 studs, their fleeces, their show awards, and the proof of their potency - their progeny and their awards.
“They are keen boys, who do a good job, and don’t they know it,” laughs Nic. “They see me appear at the head of the stud raceway system (where each stud has his own double-fenced paddock to prevent fights) and they eagerly wait by their gates with a ‘pick-me’ expression. Once their gate is opened, they run along the raceways to the mating yards, faster than I can keep up.”

Co-operative Effort
 
So how do this couple keep up? With international links, the working hours extend through the days and into the nights. Contractors assist with farm and animal work, a reliable vet service is 10 minutes away, and new and prospective breeders and international agricultural students come for hands-on experience and learning, which assists in practical tasks.
Nic and Linda increasingly spend more time in the office and less in the paddock. For instance, marketing and sales of alpacas traditionally occurred at shows; nowadays Southern Alpacas sell many of their own and their clients’ alpacas via their website

Southern Alpacas Stud has formed strategic alliances with overseas breeders and works with a group of like-minded breeders throughout NZ, to give regional support to clients, providing studs and other services, and assisting with sales. This Alpaca Services Network uses the tagline - Sales, Studs, Services, Seminars, Support. 
Another “S” word that comes to mind for this business is success. Linda and Nic attribute their success to their professional business skills they bring from corporate life.
“As an educator, I love learning and I’m customer-focussed, so I am always passing knowledge on to assist our clients to be successful in alpacas too”, says Linda. “Nic is an accountant, and continually re-invests in the industry. He is a strategic planner and is visionary, preparing our business for the future. Who would have thought that a lifestyle purchase of one male alpaca 18 years ago would lead to an international business?”
Who indeed?  This couple really do run a full-service farm - if you want help, assistance, and advice, about huacaya alpacas, and service and support for you in your alpaca business, chances are, with their years of experience, this couple can provide it.
 
First appeared in Hummer Country in December 2007
Nic Cooper and Linda Blake