Uh Oh the wife wants to raise Alpacas.

[haha]

Is your wife looking for something to do? Is life looking like a giant blank slate right now and she has no idea how to fill the time ahead?

Time to start brainstorming buddy!

Audrey

Promote the idea that she have an affair. It will likely be cheaper, less annoying, and easier to wind up than raising stock.

Ha

 

[ladelfina]

Urgh.. just coincidentally... a few days ago I'd heard about a farm near Radda in Chianti that raises "cashmere" goats, sells goat milk cosmetic products, spins the wool and has it hand-woven into shawls, sells baby goats, and even RENTS goats.. www.chianticashmere.com

I figured it would be a fun day trip.. maybe pick up some gifts..

DH, OTOH, started talking about what a great idea it would be to raise goats! He's been carried away with this for a couple days now... (Hook: The breeders claim they will buy back the wool you produce if you buy goats from them and set up your own operation.)

I think when the economy gets wierd these fads seem more atttractive. I know in the '30s in the US the rage was chicken farming. Around our area of Italy there was (in our friends' lifetime) first chinchillas, then nutria (a beaver-like rodent), then ostriches.. but none of them ever made any money for anyone. The non-native nutria escaped and naturalized themselves in a swampy area, where to this day you sometimes see squashed ones on the road..

I gather the nutria are big pests all over the world..
"Nutria Control" offers recipes to help with this environmental issue:
http://www.nutria.com/site14.php

Al.. wanna snag that for the RE Cookbook??

 

[dumpster56]

Promote the idea that she have an affair. It will likely be cheaper, less annoying, and easier to wind up than raising stock.

Ha

Classic!!

 

[FinanceDude]

Promote the idea that she have an affair. It will likely be cheaper, less annoying, and easier to wind up than raising stock.

Ha

I won't have much luck with that, my wife grew up on a farm............

 

[laurence]

Phew! We got two cats when we first got married. 7.5 years later, I'll miss them when they go, but I'm glad the WILL go before we retire and start traveling. We can't go for more than a weekend getaway without making arrangements. If my kids ever ask for pets, it will be in the fish/turtle/hamster variety.

 

[HFWR]

They'll be no tribble at all...

 

[Khan]

"Who put the tribbles in the quadrotriticale?"

 

[Empty Pockets]

I grew up on a livestock farm, raising cattle & hogs. Believe me, there is no quick easy way to make money. If there was, somebody would already be doing it. Anyone familiar at all with the commodity markets ? That's what you're getting into at it's most basic level. The Chicago Board of Trade doesn't care if you're cost of production is higher than their bid price. Alpacos ? Might be hard to see anywhere.

If you're looking for a hobby, more power to you. If you want to make money....don't quit your day job.

Getting someone to take care of your livestock is a whole lot different than finding somone to feed your dog or cat.

 

[bssc]

Nutria are a big pest in Louisiana. My ex-gf used to talk about how they would tunnel and undercut the levees.

 

[DRiP Guy]

Alpacas are a ponzi scheme...nothing more, nothing less/ You buy expensive animals and *THE ONLY WAY YOU MAKE MONEY* is to breed them and sell the expensive offspring to someone else who then must, in order to make money, find someone even dumber than himself to sell to...and the cycle continues.

Think about it like any other investment, what is the true value of the animal based on selling in anything other than a ponzi setup...you can sell some wool, you can butcher them and sell some meat and maybe even a few pelts...IF YOU ARE LUCKY you will cover the cost of their feed...their is no justification any other way.

The only way the whole system works is you must find someone even dumber than yourself to sell to....if you get in early enough, maybe you can make some money. I don't think its early enough anymore.

So you are saying it is just "alpaca - lies"?



A paper on the topic: - caution, PDF:

http://aic.ucdavis.edu/research1/alpaca_RAE.pdf

 

[Lusitan]

So you are saying it is just "alpaca - lies"?

 

[WanderALot]

I don't know about farming, but I do know that alpacas taste pretty good!

 

[Jane_Doe]

Phew! We got two cats when we first got married. 7.5 years later, I'll miss them when they go, but I'm glad the WILL go before we retire and start traveling. We can't go for more than a weekend getaway without making arrangements. If my kids ever ask for pets, it will be in the fish/turtle/hamster variety.

Laurence,

Just a quick note on this one: Although you didn't have it on your short list, you may be interested to know that Rabbits can also be very long-lived. We found out the hard way!
(made a heck of a great Easter that year, tho)

Jane

 

[LeatherneckPA]

I don't know about farming, but I do know that alpacas taste pretty good!

Interesting. I've never heard of them being eaten. I thought all they were good for was pack animals and wool. Do they taste like venison, or do they have a distinct unique flavor?

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Anyone with a rabbit thats lived too long, I have a recipe for rabbit chili.

Alpaca tastes just like chicken.

 

[WanderALot]

Interesting. I've never heard of them being eaten. I thought all they were good for was pack animals and wool. Do they taste like venison, or do they have a distinct unique flavor?

Both DW and I thought that it tasted a bit like pork. Pretty good flavor. I think I've only eaten venison once and don't remember what it tastes like.

 

[laurence]

Laurence,

Just a quick note on this one: Although you didn't have it on your short list, you may be interested to know that Rabbits can also be very long-lived. We found out the hard way!
(made a heck of a great Easter that year, tho)

Jane

Yes, DW knows, she had a bunny named Bugs (original, I know) that she got as a little girl. I missed meeting it by months.

 

[Nords]

Just a quick note on this one: Although you didn't have it on your short list, you may be interested to know that Rabbits can also be very long-lived. We found out the hard way!
(made a heck of a great Easter that year, tho)

Ours is turning six years old in a few months (we think) and I hate to ask-- but how long did yours live?

 

[laurence]

I know it wasn't directed at me, but Bugs lived 16 years.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Having read Nords occasional comments regarding "after the bunny dies..." it seems there may be a mismatch between expectations and reality...sooo...

http://www.mybunnyfarm.com/Rabbitrecipes/index.htm

5-12 years seems to be the consensus range, with a top end possibility of 15-16 years for a well-cared for bunny that was spayed or neutered early in life.

 

[wabmester]

5-12 years seems to be the consensus range, with a top end possibility of 15-16 years for a well-cared for bunny that was spayed or neutered early in life.

Why is that? Just due to lower cancer risk of the gonads, or something else?

 

[laurence]

Why is that? Just due to lower cancer risk of the gonads, or something else?

Definitely a lack of testosterone which leads to driving bunny cars too fast, shooting bunny guns while drinking bunny beer, picking fights at the carrot juice bar....

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Thats exactly it. Hell, this bunny was once seen riding on the hood of a truck, pistol in one hand and a 5th of whiskey in the other.

Probably wouldnt have happened if i'd been "fixed" earlier in life.

Actual answer is that everything lives longer if you remove the reproductive goodies. Lots of reasons. Reduced urge to roam, reduced possibility of contracting a shared disease, prostate/hernia/cancer benefits, sexual and territorial aggression and reduction in mood swings.

In translating these benefits to our own human experiences, its obvious that a lot of undesirable interactions and resulting exposures/reactions would occur.

My dads doctor once told him that men would live a lot longer if they had their testicles and prostate removed at a certain age rather than prescribing viagra...but who the hell'd want to live longer?

 

[Nords]

I know it wasn't directed at me, but Bugs lived 16 years.

#%^.

Ours receives excellent care and was neutered around eight months of age-- during his incarceration. He'd been picked up for reckless hopping down a Waimanalo road, although he swears the carrot-juice container wasn't open.

The oldest we've seen is a 12-year-old bunny with dual cataracts and the equivalent of Parkinson's. It didn't look pretty but it was able to navigate its turf and do its bunny business.

If our kid gets her way she's leaving the coop in three years, five months, and a week. We just thought it'd be nice closure for the bunny to check out at the same time. Doesn't look like there's much chance of that happening! Unless, of course, something scares the cardiac crap out of him in the middle of the night...

 

[Non sequitur]

If your bunny expires TOO soon, there might be hope.

A man is riding his Triumph motorcycle along a highway and sees a rabbit jump out across the middle of the road.

He swerves to avoid hitting it, but, unfortunately, the rabbit jumps right in front of his bike.

The rider,a sensitive man as well as an animal lover, stops to see what has become of the rabbit. Much to his dismay, the rabbit is dead.

The rider feels so awful that he begins to cry.

A beautiful blonde woman driving down the highway. She sees the man crying on the side of the road and pulls over.

She steps out of the car and asks the man what's wrong.

"I feel terrible," he explains. "I accidentally hit this rabbit and killed it."

The blonde says, "Don't worry." She runs to her car and brings back a spray can.

She walks over to the limp, dead rabbit, bends down and sprays the contents onto the rabbit.

Amazingly the rabbit jumps up, waves a paw at the two of them and hops off down the road.

Ten feet away the rabbit stops, turns around and waves again.

He hops down the road another 10 feet, turns and waves, hops another ten feet, turns and waves and repeats this again and again and again until he hops out of sight.

The man is astonished. He runs over to the woman and demands, "What is in that can? What did you spray on that rabbit?"


The woman turns the can around so that the man can read the label. It says...

" Miracle Hair Spray - Restores life to dead hair and gives long lasting wave."


I didn't make this up.