Big Rock Alpaca Farm Logo 98×80
Big Rock Alpaca Farm Logo 98×80

2011 Fall Open House

Our fall open house is rapidly approaching.  Along with our usual compliment of activities we have tentatively scheduled the Adams County 4-H Fiber Club Sheep to Shawl team to be onsite doing a demonstration on Saturday November 19, 2011 during the open house.

Along with Jeannas Passions soaps and The Sock Lady, this year we’ll also have some hand made jewelry available.

Check out our open house special on alpacas.

More details

Hope to see all of you this weekend.

100% Baby Alpaca Bears

Open house detail missing

If you’ve picked up one of our open house cards for this year you’ll find that I forgot to put one small detail on the card.  Our ADDRESS!  Well you found the right place, our address is:

186 Big Rock Road

East Berlin, PA  17316

At least you got a neat picture of one of our alpaca.  Don’t forget to bring the card along to get your 10% off a store item or an alpaca.  We’ll let you keep the card.

More details of the open house available on our events page.

The next version of the cards will have the address on.

Off the chart cuteness factor

Our latest addition was added to the herd today!

Snowfox had the cutest little girl cria today.  She’s medium to dark brown with two white socks on the front feet and a white stripe across her forward.

We have not selected a name yet.  Any one that sponsors her before she’s named will be given the opportunity to help name her.

Sponsor our new baby alpaca

This is the perfect time to try out our Sponsor an Alpaca program.  Right now this post is the only way this new baby alpaca can be sponsored.  Once she’s named she’ll be added to the sponsor an alpaca page.

East Berlin Colonial Day 2011

[Update 9/9/11] – I just talked to our friend Sharon at Jeannas Passions, and she has graciously allowed us to place some of our open house cards at her shop inside the Yesteryear Family Restaurant located at 130 West King Street, East Berlin, 17317.  While you’re there check out some of her great soap and maybe get a quick bite to eat.  Those of you that were out at our open house last year may remember Sharon as she had some of her great soap her at the farm.

[End Update]

Our setting up at the East Berlin Colonial Day has been washed out by the remnants of Hurricane Lee.  It’s been raining here now for about 3 or 4 days, don’t even remember.

We were coming through East Berlin earlier today and the bridge over the Conawago was closed by PEMA until they could inspect it.  We did go back a couple hours later and it was open.  But the river was still quite high.  Here’s a picture up the creek from the bridge.

If you would like to join our email list we’ll keep you updated as to happenings here at the farm.  You’ll also get discounts at our online store and reminders of our fall open house.

 

Join our email list here:

Name:

PAOBA Breeders Showcase 2011 Results

We were pleasantly surprised by Peekaboo at the 2011 PAOBA Breeders Showcase.

Peekaboo at PAOBA Breeders Showcase
Peekaboo at PAOBA Breeders Showcase
She took first in her juvenile multi female class.  We couldn’t believe it.  And we weren’t even the only one in the class.

 

Interested in becoming a sponsor of Peekaboo?  See our Sponsor an Alpaca page for details.

MAPACA Jubilee 2011 – Debut of Handspun ROX yarn

MAPACA Jubilee is coming up April 8-10, 2011.  This is the 15th year of celebrating the jubilee with alpaca, fiber and fun.  The schedule is packed full of activities for everyone.

One of the new features we like this year is the MAPACA Member store.  It’s an area designated for farms to consign products made with fiber from their own herds.  This will be the debut of our Handspun ROX yarn.  This is the yarn created through our hand spinning offer.  We have been getting beautiful yarn back from hand spinners across North America.

After MAPACA the yarn will be available at our online shop and other events that Big Rock Alpaca Farm does.

Here are a couple shots of the hand spun yarn we will be offering at MAPACA.

Fowl Resources

Here are some resources pertaining to keeping chickens, guineas and other fowl on a small farm.

How to build a chicken tractor is an article I wrote on building a chicken tractor.

Books on Amazon (affiliate links):

Chicken Tractor: The Permaculture Guide to Happy Hens and Healthy Soil

Gardening with Guineas: A Step-By-Step Guide to Raising Guinea Fowl on a Small Scale

Storey’s Guide to Raising Chickens, 3rd Edition

Holy Shit: Managing Manure To Save Mankind,  I haven’t read this one but I read The Contrary Farmer (Real Goods Independent Living Book) also by Gene Logsdon and it was very good.

There are many good resources available.  I own the first three of these books and feel comfortable recommending them to any first time chicken or guinea owner.

This list was first publishes as a resource for a talk I’m giving on keeping chickens and guineas on an alpaca farm at Brown’s Orchard while we’re there for our Alpaca Valentines. Here is a link to outline I used for the talk on Farm Fowl.

Alpaca Valentines

Valentines Day is coming February 14th!  This year get your loved one something unique, get them something alpaca!

February 12, 2011, Big Rock Alpaca Farm along with our friends from Paso Ligero Alpacas will be at  Brown’s Orchard North in Emigsville located at 3100 North George Street, Emigsville, PA 17318.

Brown’s will be having seminars throughout the day on different topics related to gardening.  We will be there with several alpacas for viewing and several unique alpaca products offered for sale.

Alpaca Sale! Barn Too Small

The barn is too small so somebody has to go!!!

We’d love to keep them all but we just simply don’t have the room.
We’re offering a great group of 7 male alpacas for just $2400!  Six of them are suris and one is a huacaya.  But that is not all we’re offering, take delivery before Christmas 2010 and we’ll throw in 5 hay bales of nice orchard grass hay per alpaca FREE!!! Take all 7 alpacas and get 35 bales of orchard grass hay, it may not be enough to last until spring but it would get you most of the way there.
This would be a great group for someone that just wants some fiber animals.  Some of the males are still intact, but at this price they come with no guarantees, but you could use them for breeding if you want. If you don’t want all seven alpacas, we’ll break the package up so you can mix and match them.  The only stipulation would be that JJ & Thomas stay together.

All 7 of these pictured alpacas plus 35 bales of orchard grass hay for only $2400!!!

Rose’s Cimmaron ROX

JJ Cuddly ROX

WRSR Peruvian Maxim

Smith-Haven Integrator

WRSR Peruvian Dakari

BPAF Peruvian Franklin

Cass’s Thomas the Tank

2nd Cutting Orchard Grass Hay

Don’t want 7 alpacas, select the ones that you want for $375 each and still get the 5 bales of free hay per alpaca.  Remember, alpacas are a herd animal so unless you already have some alpacas to add more to, you should purchase two or three from this package.

Big Rock Alpaca Farm Open House November 2010

When:  November 13,14 and 20, 21 2010  12:00 Noon to 5:00 PM all days.

Where:  Big Rock Alpaca Farm
186 Big Rock Road
East Berlin, PA  17316

We plan to have a lot of exciting things going on at our open house this year.

As if Peekaboo and Thunder Storm aren’t enough to come see, here are some of the things we’ll have:

  • A tractor pulled hayride
  • Bourbon red turkeys and guineas to view
  • Antique tractors for viewing
  • Hand spinners spinning alpaca fiber
  • The Sock Lady with her antique sock knitting machine (Sundays Only)
  • Jeannas Passions, Homemade soaps, lotions, lipcare and bath products
  • Our farm store

As we get more details pulled together I’ll update this page.