[AlpacaTalk] Re: Sent to Alpaca site...held, not posted by site...
--- In AlpacaTalk@yahoogro
<aemoss17@..
wrote:
> Alpaca meat..the crias and their fleeces would be appropriate for
meat..from
> a meat industry point of view..but since they are much MORE
valuable
as
> fiber animals with the ultra fine cria and tui fleeces...the meat
market
> would make for an income loss for a farmer.not gain. In other
words..these
> young , more edible animals are much more valuable alive than on a
BBQ.
Allison, it seems that fiber isn't ever going to be viable on
its own, with its wholesale value limited to only a few $s/lb. Even
assuming everyone could get the fiber processed and sold as their own
yarn, you are looking at perhaps this sort of scenario:
Process 5lbs/head and get 3.3lbs yarn back, output say $85/lb x 3.3
= $280/head less processing 5 x $32 = $160: margin per head (before
other costs)= $120. That wouldn't cover annual keeping costs, let
alone allow for capital costs and overheads.
So some sort of economic model is needed that gives some basic
production value for an alpaca. That is why folk are casting about
for other potential products: perhaps not so much as an alternative
to fiber, but in addition.
I don't know if alpaca meat is going to be an acceptable product in
principle for consumers (and clearly it would be anathema to many
alpaca producers), but if it did ever take off, the requirement would
be for animals no more than about 2 years old: of course the younger
the animal, the better the fiber too. So a possible model to consider
might be one rather more akin to sheep (albeit with a slower
turnaround rate): rearing production animals, that are taken to about
2 years old, for fiber + meat + hide, and sourcing them from
breeding flocks (which could be in the same ownership, or separate
ventures).
The trouble is that if anything along those lines were ever to be
viable, you would have to be looking at sale prices for production
and breeding stock closer to that of sheep as well - the typical
alpaca can't be worth $000s on any rational agricultural basis.
Richard
Maidstone Kent
UK
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posted by Chaddo at 9:43 AM
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