"Vicuña Fine" Alpacas

Stargazer Ranch - Loveland, Colorado

We're All About Alpacas

Thanks for visiting! We hope you find our website informative … or at least somewhat entertaining. Stargazer Ranch came into existence in 1998. Beginning with the starting of the alphabet, we began raising appaloosas and alpacas. (We're probably too old to dream about yaks and zebras.) We manage a herd of about 75 animals that have become the main focus of our daily lives. We've adjusted to many changes since we started over 12 years ago. However, a few things remain the same. We still enjoy the work, challenges and rewards that can only be experienced raising alpacas.

Early in the development of our herd, we set a goal to improve each new generation as much as possible and track our herd's health, nutrition as well as the production of offspring and fiber. The data gives us an accurate view of any issues and progress and we've made over the last decade. The data has provided us a gratifying analysis of our efforts. Among other improvements, our latest test results show our 3rd and 4th generations are holding sub-18micron fiber (vicuna range), for two to three shearing's. We are excited to see what the next ten years will bring. Click here for more information and why we think this is important. …

Raising alpacas can provide a rich learning environment for a growing family as well as provide an income source for more enterprising pursuits. Stargazer Ranch is a full service breeding and board facility and offers a wide variety of alpacas in all colors, quality and price ranges available to new and existing breeders. We are always available to personal mentoring to help your alpaca experience be enjoyable and successful.

Sometimes it's nice to just sit and watch what the alpacas are doing. Would you like to experience an alpaca birth? Be sure to tune into our barn cameras and sign up for our "Labor Alert" and receive an email notification when we think a dam is ready to deliver. Do you have your "online favorite" alpaca and would like to be more connected? Consider leasing one of our alpacas for their annual fiber production.

It's all about the fiber! We love our alpacas and the fiber they produce. Except for a few of the fleeces we plan to show, our entire year of alpaca fiber production is available to purchase with or without processing. Much of our fleece production measures up to vicuña in fineness, be simpler to process and is available to purchase at a better price than vicuna..

Don't hesitate to arrange a visit or drop us a line. We like hearing from our "urban" visitors and sharing experiences with other livestock breeders.

"Vicuña Fine" Alpaca

The statement, "vicuña fine alpaca", is not a reference to fiber from an alpaca/vicuña crossbreeding. We are referring to our alpacas and fiber they produce which rivals vicuna in fineness and the yield, staple and color of an alpaca. Since there aren't any fiber standards that recognize (categorize) "sub-18 micron alpaca fiber", we are simply comparing to a fiber that does. "Cashmere Fine" or "Super Fine Wool" could work as well, We just like the sound of "Vicuña Fine Alpaca".

Once our primary focus shifted from accumulating certain bloodlines and began focusing on developing a uniform herd fineness we have reduced the average Median Fiber Diameter by more than 1 micron per year. Our last herd evaluation even surprised us. One third of our herd of 91 animals, tested at less than 18MFD. The whole herd average is 21.97MFD. That include all ages, colors and country of origin. Also, by tracking fleece weights, we have made significant increases in density as well. Interested in doing the same? We can show you how.



Raising & Caring For Alpacas

Wondering Where to Start...or even if you should start? We can be of some help. We've been where you are now. Today, with the ease of marketing on the internet a lot of advertising claims make it hard to distinguish one alpaca or breeding program from another. The confusion is most pronounced when it comes to evaluating claims of who has the "best quality bloodlines or genetics". While their claims may be true ... for them, will they prove true for you?

After 12 years raising alpacas we've learned a few things we found to be helpful in improving foundation starter-stock to show-stock and seed-stock levels. Click here for more about Staragzer Ranch...