Fall has suddenly arrived after a quick summer and it is again time for Fall Harvest Days at Ashcombe Farm and Greenhouses.  This year Fall Harvest Days will include Sundays as well as Saturdays.  On Saturdays in October, Big Rock Alpaca Farm will be there from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM and on Sundays we will be there from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM, weather permitting.

We will have a couple alpaca along for everyone to see and pet.  Not quite sure who it will be yet.  It will probably be different alpacas from day to day.

Hope to see you there.  If you can’t make it out you can shop for alpaca products at our online store located at http://shop.bigrockalpacafarm.com.

Latest News:  There will also be a friend bringing her spinning wheel to demonstrate spinning alpaca fiber from apx. 9:30 – 12:00 on Saturday!

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It has been a busy week here at Big Rock Alpaca Farm.  Last Friday Thunder Storm ROX was born and today, Peekaboo ROX was born.  And it’s a GIRL!!!!  This birth wasn’t nearly as dramatic as Thunder’s was.  Most of the birth was missed except for the final drop to the ground.  And everyone is doing good.  By evening when I got to weigh her she was 17.5lbs, Thunder weighs 20lbs now.  The pasture is going to be very fun to watch this fall.

Tags: Cria // 1 Comment »

September 3, 2010 Thunder Storm ROX was born at 12:45 to Rose.  There were some small complications and thankful Dr. Anne Parker from Compassion Animal Hospital was nearby and able to assist in the birth.  Thunder’s shoulders were catching on Rose’s pelvis and he was having trouble coming out.  He weighed 16 pounds, which is a nice sized cria, especially for Rose as she’s smaller female.

The interesting things was Snowfox was the one we were watching for giving birth.  She was bred two weeks earlier than Rose so we should have another cria shortly.

Here are some pictures from Thunder’s first day:

Tags: Alpaca Female, Cria // 2 Comments »

Wow where did the summer go!  As you can see from my extensive amount of posts since shearing day back in the spring we’ve been busy all summer.  Well, we were busy, but it wasn’t all alpaca stuff.

We are going to be at East Berlin Colonial Day on September 11, 2010.  We’ll be in our usual location behind the East Berlin post office and food vendors.

We hope to see you there.

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Right on the tail of PAOBA Breeder’s Showcase 2010 we had shearing day.  We again went to Paso Ligero for shearing.  Kim from Paso Ligero is wonderful.  Since we don’t have a trailer she again this year came and got all of our animals and transported them to her place for shearing.  We couldn’t ask for a better neighbor.

It was a long day.  We started shortly after 7:00 AM since we had almost 50 alpacas to shear and the guys doing the shearing were going to another neighboring farm to shear after we were done.  Ian from Big Mount Alpacas had enough animals at his farm this year to have them coming there, instead of him bringing all his alpacas to Kim’s place.

We got lots of great fiber off some wonderful animals.  The shearers did a good job again this year.  I don’t think I’ve seen him yet knick an animal.  I can’t say that for myself, I hit some blood on a couple toenails, but not many.

We now have 12 more blankets and 12 more seconds bags of wonderful alpaca fiber here to work with.  If you are interested we could still use some more hand spinners for spinning the fiber.

All of our short cuts, leg fiber and other waste is being sent to help clean up the oil spill in the Gulf.  Isn’t alpaca fiber wonderful!

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Well PAOBA Breeder’s Showcase 2010 is over.  It was a great weekend.  We got to meet lots of people at our farm stall.  If you stopped by, it was great talking to you.

We had ‘The Sock Lady’ from from Appalachian Sock Company there demonstrating her antique sock knitting machine.  Many people were very fascinated by it (including me).  She cranked out some wristies and a cowl with some of our 100% suri yarn.  She did knit in some nylon for the wristies to give them some more stretch.

Kelly did some spinning of alpaca fiber when she wasn’t running around trying to make sure I had the animals where I was supposed to.  The results weren’t as good as we had hoped for, but when are they ever.  It was a new experience showing in some of the production classes, Best Bred and Owned Yearly Male and Produce of Dam.  the product of dam class was especially neat because Josh handled Gaston for the judges examination.

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We are only planning to do one alpaca show this spring and that show is the PAOBA Breeder’s Showcase in York, PA.  It is being held May 8th & 9th 2010 in the Toyota Arena at the York Fairgrounds.  We chose this show because it is close to our farm and we can meet more local people interested in alpacas.

We are planning to take Gaston and Belle, and with them being from the same dam we entered Snowfox in the Produce of Dam class.  We missed an opportunity a couple years ago to enter a Product of Dam class because we thought it took three offspring, like the Get of Sire class, but it only takes two.  As I’m writing this I’m thinking I could have entered Gaston in the Bred and owned yearly class.  I’ll have to see if I can get him in the class.

If you come to the PAOBA Breeder’s Showcase be sure to stop by our stall and talk to us.

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Information on the hand spinning offer has been moved to its own page.

Are you a hand spinner that loves trying different things? Hand spinning with different blends of fiber? Maybe hand spinning some hand dyed fiber to see how it turns out?

We would like to see how our alpaca fiber blends with other fibers and how it dyes. We just don’t have the time to do the hand spinning to use up our fiber. We could send it out to get processed, as we’ve done in the past, but we’d like to see some more variety.  Even getting it processed at a mini mill means we’d get 4+ pounds of the same thing.  We’d like to get 3 or 4 skeins of something unique.  We may either sell it in our shop, online or in person, or use it in a craft.

What we would like to do is find a couple hand spinners willing to spin up the fiber into yarn for half of the fiber. How it would work is we’ll wash, card and blend the fiber into bats on our Howard Brush Drum Carder.  We’ll send you half of the fiber blend to spin for us and after you send it back we’ll send you the other half with which you can do whatever you like.

This is something new, for us, that we’re trying so we’re open to working with your ideas if your willing to the work with us and give us suggestions.

If this is something you think you would be interested in please let us know:

Tags: Hand Spinning, Products, Store // 1 Comment »

With all this great alpaca fiber that we have around we decided to become a Howard Brush Drum Carder distributor.  We have been using The David Drum Carder, which has three drums, making processing the alpaca fiber faster than a normal two drum drum carder.  We got the fine toothed drum carder @ 90/120 TPI.

The fiber we dyed with Kool-Aid was carded with the David Drum Carder.  It makes wonderful batts for dying or felting, as well as hand spinning.

Visit our online store purchase this wonderful drum carder.

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Online store now open!

As a grand opening special we’re offering these alpaca skier hats for $18.00 each, normally they sell for $22.00 each.? This great price on this great hat is available for a limited time.

Colorful lined alpaca skier hat Colorful lined alpaca skier hat

These fleece lined alpaca skier hats are lined with super soft fleece covered with 100% alpaca in colorful patterns.? The brim is a traditional roll up.? Hit the slopes this winter with this great hat keeping your head toasty warm.? Adult sizes in two different color themes, blue or green.

Click on the title line of the post or here for the opportunity to order.

[Note:  12/21/09,  Special over, price changed back to $22.00]

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