Alpaca Farm Girl

September 28, 2012 By Katy

Visitors learn about alpacas

This weekend we will open the barn doors of Fairhope Alpacas (in AL) to the public for National Alpaca Farm Days. Both Saturday and Sunday, September 29 and 30th, 2012 we will host an Open House from 11am – 2pm.

Feel free to come by and meet the alpacas in person. Get all your alpaca questions answered. If you don’t live near the Gulf Coast, visit this website to find a farm near you that is participating in this fun weekend.

What Does A Guanaco Look Like?

August 9, 2012 By Katy

Photo credit ODD ANDERSEN/AFP/Getty Images

Above: A baby Guanaco is nursed by her mother Hannah in their enclosure at the zoo in Berlin.

Guanacos I’ve encountered in real life haven’t always been this peaceful or cute. But the guanacos I have been seeing on the internet lately have been uber precious so I wanted to share some of these wonderful pictures with you. It is really rare to see a guanaco.

Jim transported a guanaco male once. He said the animal was a big boy, his topline came up to about Jim’s chin (and Jim’s over six feet tall). Jim thinks the guanaco must have weighed at least 500 lbs and it took three men to load him. Guanacos are much larger and wilder than the domesticated alpacas we are used to handling on our farm each day.

According to anthropologist Jane Wheeler, the domesticated llama that we know today and whose primary use is as a beast of burden (think pack animal) descended from the guanaco. Both are members of the camelid family.