Annual Alpaca Walk for New Year’s Eve
Every year, Florida Alpaca Breeders walk their alpacas on New Year’s Eve in downtown Lake Placid, FL. They also plan to have alpacas in team jerseys appear at the Outback Bowl in Tampa, the Capital One Bowl in Orlando, and the Orange Bowl in Miami. Read the story here.
Love this publicity for alpacas. And I am so glad that it is them and not me doing it. I can tell you from experience – it is more difficult to get alpacas’ feet in a shirt than it is to dress a wiggly 3 year old.
My family will be glad to know that someone else has taken this torch and I can be left to hopefully vegetate and maybe play a game with them this New Year’s Eve. The Artist has long feared that I would put jerseys on our alpacas. I have already named several after football players. BTW, how wrong was it that I told them that my Colt McCoy alpaca was cuter than their Tim Tebow alpaca? I know I’ve lost my mind, but it’s been a rough couple of weeks.
Colt McCoy, High Cute Factor
December 30th, 2008 at 9:31 pm
Lo and behold, we came upon a New Year’s Eve, traveling from the East (OK, howsabout from the geographical center of Florida?). We (2,3,4,6,or 8 alpaca males & me) are located pretty much in the middle of Florida’s 200,000,000 farm acres where very little traffic visits. We do have many, many gators, bob cats, coyotes, eagles, vultures, snakes, spiders, wild hogs, and other things potentially treacherous to all, so it made sense to me to train alpaca males and take them out of here to meet potential buyers, especially in the wealthy South Florida areas. It is working and the alpacas are very well received…everywhere. We are often called by Chambers of Commerce to be guests at large events and by reporters looking for a cutsie story and photos for the local papers. One thing led to another and I found that promoting our industry by taking premier representatives around, is a joy for all, especially during our football bowl games and with alpacas wearing team jerseys. We probably are photographed 10,000 times per event, literally being in more than 250,000 photos so far, carried on twelve tv stations and seen by an estimated 7 million viewers locally and then on CNN both last year and this with tens of millions viewers. We get recognized all over the nation now. Fortunately, we have several Wellington sons with superb fleece and attitude, Hemingway mothers…are great combinations. The secret for fitting jerseys is to slice them down from the underarms…half of the jersey rides on top of the alpaca, the other half hangs down the front and can be further modified to not interfere with walking but shows well in photos. We will be at the Outback Bowl, Capital One Bowl, Orange Bowl, at the Ravens v. Doplhins game, then the BCS Championship and finally, at The Super Bowl. We go early, enjoy the tailgate parties, end up in parades and group rallies and on tv, with many thousands of photos taken as keepsakes for the fans…most who are meeting alpacas for the first time. In two weeks, we will meet over 500,000 fans and be seen nationally by more than 30,000,000. It works for our wonderful industry, and it works well for us. We are documenting the trips in High Definition…making a DVD.
On behalf of the alpaca trade in America, I thank all those who show interest in our fuzzy friends and we greatly appreciate the positive comments.