Littered with alpacas and Miniature Sicilian donkeys, the mirage Alpaca Farm in Washington has a uniquely Lilliputian atmosphere, alpacas also being the miniatures of their larger regal cousins, the Andean Llamas. Although these good-natured beasts have not attempted to tether any giants, they do have intelligence, and even more importantly a sense of family. Walk onto their turf and they will gather round you, nudge you and treat you like one of their own. Obviously these animals are well taken care of, for they have no fear of humans. So there is no excuse to avoid the Alpaca Holiday Tour farm owners Audrey and Bill Rhoades are hosting this weekend, Dec 4-5, during which they will show off their facilities and describe all they do.

“We run a bio-security farm as much as we can,” Audrey explains. “People who have been with other livestock have to disinfect before they can go in. We are worried about parthenogenics from other farms. The mortality rate here is so low because the animals are [our] first, second and third [responsibilities]. We pride ourselves on that.”

Each animal on the farm has a purpose and a place, although the donkeys nearly lost theirs when Bill declared they could not afford to build another barn for them. His decision obviously did not stand. After Bill joined the little herd for a moment alone, crowded and loved by them, he found it hard to say goodbye. He walked back into the house and declared they were building another barn. Now the herd is 22 strong, all with the same sort of persuasive dispositions, which make it impossible for the Rhoades to do away with them. Besides being family, the donkeys are clipped for their mane, and the hair is available for antique plaster restoration.

Beside the donkeys’ area are the older male alpacas that trot up to the gate when Audrey walks by. They are kept away from the yearlings because in the wild they’ll castrate each other, fighting over females. The Rhoades keep the male’s fighting teeth blunted to protect the young alpaca stud-potentials, as well as other males in the herd.

The Rhoade’s alpacas are a mixture of Huacaya and Suri, the latter being the rarer breed, constituting only ten percent of the global alpaca population. The Suris have a long dreadlock type of fiber, versus the light and lofty Huacaya sort. “The Suri fiber makes exquisite shawls,” Audrey says with pride. “It has a draping quality. In Milan, Italy, their fiber is purchased by some of the big fashion houses. It has a luster like a pearl. The Huacaya have a sheen.”

The Rhoades began raising alpacas in 1995, but they had plenty of experience with fiber producing animals before then, all of which are all pure bread and registered. As we walk from one of their traditional wooden barns to the livestock hoop house, basically a big green house with a foundation, the music of National Public Radio follows, which the Rhoades have playing in all their barns for the animals. In the hoop house, the white and natural colored angora goats are penned next to the Columbia ramlambs and Merinos.

Mohair is shorn from the angora goats, not to be confused, Audrey warns, with angora fiber that is from angora rabbits. Some of the goats are slaughtered for their hides and meat, which is USDA Choice, butchered, custom cut and flash frozen. The Rhoades share their goats with Julie Patterson of Kelly Corner Farm in Chichester, who bought into half of the original herd. Since then the herd has grown and both women share their care. Julie and Audrey jokingly call each other “Alice” and the “Mad Hatter” respectively, thus their business, “Mad Alice’s Angoras” - a fanciful name which fits in with the Lilliputian population.

The farm’s Columbias are the largest white-faced sheep in the world. Audrey says the U.S. government developed the Columbias early in the last century to produce more pounds of wool and meat from feeding them in open ranges, rather than with expensive grains. She also feels it is one of the better ways our tax dollars were spent, developing the all-American breed.

Audrey explains the Merino lambs are known to have the finest wool in the world. The Rhoades also do some crossbreeding between their natural colored Merino ewes and Columbia rams to get a larger market lamb from the Merinos, as well as additional pounds of very fine wool. If the cost of shearing them was not so expensive they could shear twice a year and get two crops of fiber from all the fiber-producing animals on the farm.

Next there is Samson, a Huacaya stud kept in his own pen. He is sturdy and brown, and was born on the farm. He turns in the wind, sniffing for females. “One thing we are trying to do is put a lot of good solid bone on our animals by breeding them well,” Audrey offers, between making cooing noises at her handsome stud. She says the alpacas can live up to 25 years, and that Samson had a girlfriend that produced into her mid twenties. The female breeders are pregnant 11 months out of the year, and need strong frames to carry them through.

Samson is penned outside the barn in which live Desdemona and her newborn cria, as their infants and young ones are called. Her cria was only born the Friday before last. Awkward and spindly, she trots along side her mother towards the bigger pasture, where the majority of the herd congregate and socialize. Over 100 alpacas romp about the pasture with their crias of different ages. They take care of their youngest and most fragile just as any community of people do, if not better in some cases. Audrey explains if a smaller cria is getting hassled, any mother in the group will get in between and correct the offspring of another.

Their larger cousins, the Andean Llamas, bring more money than alpacas in South America because they provide more meat and fiber, and are used as pack animals. The smaller Huacaya and Suri alpacas are known as “the sheep of the Andes,” and are also eaten there. On the Rhoades’ farm, each animal has a, name, is DNA blood-typed, has a microchip implanted behind the left ear, and are listed with Alpaca Registry International, so they may be easily identified. The alpacas come in 22 natural distinguishably different colors. From that selection any combination of colors can be had. So there is no need to use any dyes for the garments and other products the Rhoades sell, unless one has a preference fluorescent purples, greens and so on.

Audrey has seen the excitement of those who buy their alpacas and breed them. They learn to take fiber, prepare it, spin it and then learn to weave, knit, or crochet with it. “Gets you back to the way things used to be. Waste not want not,” she says. People are proud of themselves when they can say they are wearing the fiber of an alpaca that inhabits their own back yard.

“We can help people get started with an alpaca investment, raising breeding stock, and help them at a 4H level or above,” Audrey explains. “We try to make everything as simple and as easily understood as possible. We don’t allow new owners to take animals home who don’t know how to properly take care of them. They are encouraged to attend our whole heard veterinarian days, where every animal here goes under the nose of our veterinarian, Dr. Donna Peck, because sometimes she can pick out something we simply didn’t see. We also teach them how to catch their alpacas and hold them properly to do routine veterinary work, like annual boosters, or clip their toenails and so on. We also teach them basic care skills by letting them do some of the feed chores with us, which makes for much better owners and happier animals. [We teach] the routine by example and participation. If they want to learn how to process their fleeces, that’s part of our service.”

Audrey says they will also board the animals during winter, but only for their own clients. It’s important not to overcrowd any form of livestock, and especially during the cold winter months when the weather may be too extreme for the animals to go outside. The limited acreage currently owned by the Rhoades determines the amount of animals they keep. The animals in their pastures need adequate shelter and room to exercise while being protected inside from the elements.

Audrey credits the New Hampshire Lama Association, established on February 2, 1991 in Madbury, N.H., with opening the doors to llamas and alpacas in New Hampshire, and providing educational services and support to new owners.

One of her Huacaya studs, Quintano, was featured on the cover of Alpaca Magazine in 2002, as well as on an Alpaca Owners & Breeders Association publication. Studs currently being used for breeding are kept close at hand in separate pens until the end of December. The Rhoades have two Suri studs, William and Cinque.

The Rhoades also have a studio and gift shop in their compound of barns and fields.

In the studio is a loom with a warp in progress. There people may escape their day-to-day life and spin, knit and crochet, Tuesday through Saturday, noon - 5:00 p.m.

In the gift shop are yarns, sweaters, fur toys, capes, fibers, and spinning and weaving supplies. There are sheep’s wool mattress toppers, blankets and pillows. Their comforters and quilt batting are 70 percent alpaca and 30 percent wool, which are less than half the weight of down or wool comforters. They are great for people with circulatory problems whose skin is affected by heavy blankets, and are also warmer.

“I cannot wear my buffalo plaid hunting jacket with an alpaca sweater under it and do chores in the winter without having to take my jacket off,” Audrey says. “If you have cold feet, put on alpaca socks and you won’t.”

Of the Alpaca Holiday Tour coming up this weekend, Audrey warns, “We don’t run a petting zoo. In fact we don’t sell to petting zoo operations. We have a lot more respect for the animals than to subject them to groping hands.”

However, one will be nudged and loved by the animals, which are as curious about us as we about them. There is even a pair of peacocks, a couple of very stately turkeys and a gentle horse waiting to welcome the crowd.

The hours for the Alpaca Holiday Tour at the Mirage Alpaca Farm in Washington are from 9:00 a.m. until 5:00 a.m. The tour is free, and there will be hot chocolate and cookies shaped like the farm’s animals.

The following are other alpaca farms in the area that are also participating in the Alpaca Holiday Tour: Hidden Hill Farm Alpacas in Antrim, Starry Night Alpacas and County Store in Warner, and Someday Farm Alpacas in New Ipswich, where Sleeping Monk Farm is also located.