Sheep to Alpacas

We at Summer Hill Farm have raised Jacob sheep for fifteen years. We came from the city of Modesto and got into rural farm life after loads of research and two sheep who came with the house. Our family members own The Farm at Rainbow's End in New Jersey, but we have never been out there to see their alpacas. Instead, we came to own alpacas in February 2018 another way -- by also working on an alpaca ranch called Heart & Soul. We adore sheep. They're beautiful, sweet creatures. But working with and owning alpacas has also been a breath of fresh air after all these years. They are so different from sheep that it was like starting all over in learning, like when we moved to Penn Valley from Modesto. We also expanded this year with other sheep breeds: Icelandic, Romney, and Navajo-Churro. We hope to provide fiber to people with all tastes and preferences. We are also breeding our girls and hope to grow in the alpaca industry. Just one thing: it's hard enough to wait five months for lambs to be born. How in the world do we wait a year for cria?!