Sometimes a career change takes on the appearance of “another day at work.” After 30 years of building bridges, highways and tunnels, Bob, a retired construction engineer, is now building his dream - a ranch: buying equipment, clearing land, planting pastures, building barns and sheds, erecting fences. Meanwhile, Louise, mother of their four children and a retired EMT, is feeding, training, birthing, administering meds, and caring for their “second family.” This may sound like parallel careers, but the difference is in the animals - ALPACAS!

After purchasing 20 acres of New England Prime “Rock and Woods,” our ranch was under construction, but what do we raise? Our thought process eliminated many forms of livestock as too big, too bothersome, too dangerous, but once we actually met an alpaca, the answer was obvious - We fell in love with Alpacas! These friendly, peaceful, “Huggable” animals are easy to care for and require a relatively small area of land.

Our ranch came together quickly as we cleared 3+ acres in June ’98. While the barn was erected that summer, Bob, Louise and many wonderful friends were busy making pastures, erecting fences, etc., and most importantly - selecting our alpacas.

Our alpaca ranch officially opened on Nov. 17, 1998 with the arrival of our six alpacas and a guard llama. During the first year, our original 6 animals grew to 38 through acquisitions and the birth of 12 cria. With this first year came a wealth of excitement, experience and knowledge.

The millennium saw our alpaca herd grow to 60 including the birth of 20 cria. We added pastures, several buildings and doubled the size of out barn.

2001 saw the arrival of 21 beautiful cria.

In 2002, we continued to complete pastures and fences and birthed 28 beautiful cria.

2003 saw the arrival of 23 cria (3 from agisted females). We have already delivered the first 2004 cria - a beautiful female named AAR MEINA, born March 4, 2004. We are expecting another one any day, with about 40 due this year (30 ours and 10 from agisted females). We are starting the construction of our new home and hope to be moved in by Thanksgiving 2004!

From the beginning Bob has been intrigued by the Alpacas beautiful colors and Louise has been captivated by their unique, individual personalities. We have selected our alpacas for correct conformation and, fine, dense, lustrous fiber, but with the additional prime accent on Color and Personality.

Bob & Louise are the proud parents of their four children - two sons and two daughters. Jason is a Graduate of VA Tech, Structural Engineering. He is presently working as a Consultant Engineer locally and assisting with the family business on weekends.  Greg is a Graduate Student at GA Tech working on his Doctorate in Geo-Technical Engineering. Their twin daughters are Kim and Kay.  Kim is studying biology and Premed at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio.... while her twin sister Kay is a PFC in the Army Reserves as a Paralegalist.

We invite you to explore our web site, contact us and visit our alpaca ranch! We look forward to assisting you in any way possible.