life... on the farm: Alpacas and the oil spill

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Alpacas and the oil spill

I recently came across some video's showing how the hair/fur/fiber booms can soak up oil. I found these videos quite interesting and thought I'd post them for others to take a look. I didn't realize this, but Matter of Trust is the company that does these booms, and they have been around since way before this most recent oil spill. This isn't a new thing, just a more urgent need right now.

Here are some video clips:

YouTube: Alpaca Fleece to Help in Gulf

YouTube: Hair Booms vs. Conventional Booms (on this one, the alpaca fiber is the second experiment)

2 comments:

Kathryn Ray said...: Matter of Trust is a great organization. I just got my notification for where to send our donations yesterday. It feels good to be able to help, however small it may be.; June 5, 2010 at 9:38 AM
Anonymous said...: Wow, what a great organization! I had no idea! I will DEFINITELY pass this along!; June 5, 2010 at 12:30 PM

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The Adventure of a Lifetime

Our farming adventure began with the purchase of 3 alpacas in the fall of 2007. This eventually grew to an alpaca farm that birthed 23 cria. While we averaged 20 alpacas on a farm at any given time, we hit a peek of over 30 alpacas. We were involved in every aspect of alpaca farming: from breeding decisions, birthing, to attending alpaca shows, and shearing our own alpacas along with making product from their luscious fiber (hand spinning yarn and knitting product). We participated in 24 alpaca shows, and became very involved in the alpaca community.

In 2013 we added hair sheep to our farm.

Throughout this process we continued to tweak and revise our business plan. Our business plan evolved over time, and in 2013 it became clear that our goal was to raise grass fed animals for human consumption. While the initial plan was for this to go along side of alpaca farming, we slowly came to the conclusion our adventure was going to take us somewhere else.

In 2013 we began to sell off our alpaca herd to begin our new adventure with grass fed sheep and cattle.

Our adventure is still unfolding, so please, join us in our adventure of a lifetime as our journey unfolds.