True Colors Alpaca Farm News Articles 

Here are a couple of newspaper articles we have had written about our farm.  Enjoy!

Article Number One:

Pair has passion for alpacas

Staff photo by Erika Strebel
By Erika Strebel
estrebel@beloitdailynews.com
Published: Friday, April 15, 2011 11:39 PM CDT
Couple finds unique livestock brings them joy

Ken and Laura Adams care for 41 other alpacas like Dee Dee at True Colors Alpaca Farm in Caledonia. The couple has been raising alpacas for four years. In addition to boarding and showing alpacas, the couple also sell handspun alpaca yarn and items made from the fiber like socks, scarves and stuffed animals.

CALEDONIA, Ill. — Plenty of people have been stuck in traffic on the Kennedy Expressway in Chicago.

But few of them can say that they were stuck in Chicago traffic with an alpaca — a shaggy llama-like mammal prized for its fleece.

Ken and Laura Adams are one of those rare exceptions. The two were on their way to WCIU’s studio in Chicago to do a show on exotic pets with their alpaca, Most Wanted, in November 2010.

“We were driving around on the northwest side of Chicago with an alpaca,” Ken said. “Laura’s on the phone and we’re running late.”

They missed the show, but they weren’t disappointed by the experience. They got to show off Most Wanted in the city.

People from the TV station and even the bank across the street had to take a look the furry creature.

It was just one of the many adventures of the Adams couple had since they first started raising alpacas four years ago.

Ken and Laura’s 7 1/2-acre farm, True Colors Alpaca Farm, is home to 42 Suri alpacas. Suri alpacas are a particular type of alpaca characterized by their long, silky coat, in contrast to Huacaya alpacas, which have puffier coats.

On average, alpacas live for about 25 years. Females weigh about 150 pounds; males weigh in at about 200 pounds. They breed year-round and have an affinity for snow, which is understandable because they are native to the Andes Mountains.

“They love it,” Laura said. “We’ve got boys, like Santino, that will lay out in the snow and be covered. You won’t even know he’s out there until you see this white thing get up and shake off.”

Alpacas are grass-eaters. In fact, Laura lovingly calls them “biological lawn mowers.” They are specifically designed to trim grass: They have a hard palate and no teeth on their upper jaw and only have teeth on their lower jaw. They also eat hay and a grain supplement.

Alpacas are pretty quiet animals. In general, they make a humming noise. If they are distressed, they squeal.

Alpacas by nature are so laid-back that people can actually enter their pens and romp around with them. At True Colors, people can schedule free visits in advance just to hang out with these furry guys.

“They’re advertised as the huggable investment,” Ken said. “When (people) come out, they expect to be able to hug them and touch them.”

Once the Adams let visitors into the pen, they will be greeted by the curious creatures.

“They have to check you out,” Laura said. “They all have different personalities, but they’re very smart and gentle.”

At one point, the Adams had 32 Boy Scouts roaming the pastures with the alpacas.

“They were chasing the alpacas around in circles and we screaming at them, saying ‘Don’t chase the alpacas!’ so they stopped finally, but then the alpacas started chasing them.”

Many visitors ask if alpacas spit. In general, they don’t, said Ken and Laura, unless you get in the middle of two alpacas in a spat over food.

They stress that alpacas are not pets — they are livestock.

“They’re not really pets like a dog. So if someone buys one and thinks they’re going to follow you around, it’s not going to be like that,” Laura said. “They’re catlike; they have their own agenda.”

Out of the 42 alpacas at True Colors, 17 are owned by the couple, while the others are boarding animals, or animals owned by other people who pay the Adams for their upkeep. Some are owned by people who show alpacas but don’t own a suitable home for them or farmers just starting out who are looking to start their own farm but don’t have a place yet. The couple charges $4 a day to board the animals.

Selling and boarding the animals account for a majority of the couple’s profits.

The average show alpaca at True Colors costs between $5,000 and $10,000 for a male and between $10,000 and $30,000 for a female. Show alpacas are bred for conformation qualities like straight backs, legs and teeth.

Fiber alpacas, which are usually bred just for their fleece, usually run for an average of $500. An example of someone who might buy one of these animals would be someone who makes handspun wool.

Laura said that alpaca farmers are close; they help each other out and generally don’t compete with one another.

But both Ken and Laura said the toughest part about their business is seeing the animals go.

“We do get attached,” Ken said. “It’s the hardest thing when we have to say good bye to them.”

“But if they’re going to good homes, it’s OK,” Laura said. “It’s a little tough at first, especially when you raise them from a baby.”

Alpacas are prized for their fleece, which is seven times warmer than wool and hypoallergenic, Laura said. On average, a single alpaca produces 5-10 pounds of fiber at every shearing, she said. They collect a total of roughly 150-180 pounds of fiber from their animals, Ken said.

After cleaning the sheared fleece, Laura hand-spins the fiber into yarn.

“I just enjoy doing it,” she said.

She sells it for $7.50 an ounce at farmers markets and craft shows. Laura will be at the Cherryvale Mall Craft show Friday, Saturday and Sunday during mall hours.

Laura also felts the fleece into items like purses and stuffed animals. She also sells scarves, socks and rugs made of the fiber. All the fiber gets used, down from the softest fuzz to the rougher locks from their legs, said Ken.

At first, for Ken and Laura, raising alpacas was just a far-off dream. Neither of them grew up on a farm. The two of them, originally from Palatine, Ill., worked municipal jobs in the Chicago suburbs. Laura worked for the police department in Arlington Heights, Ill., and Ken worked for the public works department in Gurnee, Ill.

“We thought he was going to be there forever, retire from there.” said Laura.

“At the time, that was the game plan,” Ken added. “It was a secure job and everything.”

But then, after 18 years of working for the Village of Gurnee, Ken sustained a back injury when lifting a manhole cover. It left him unable to do much of the work he did in underground construction, and he ended up losing his job.

“I got a settlement and we took the settlement and invested in this. Laura had always wanted to do it and that was the opportunity,” Ken said. “We could have done one of two things: We could take that money and blow it, or we could do something we always wanted to do. We just never thought it would happen.”

So, after doing their research, they bought their first alpaca, Gingersnap, boarded her until they found a place in Caledonia, and started their business.

“We just basically dove in with both feet,” Ken said.

The best part of the alpaca business, Laura said, is the lifestyle.

“We both get to be home and do this, we’re profiting from it,” she said. “It’s the best job I’ve ever had. It doesn’t feel like work.”

And it helps that their furry business partners are great company.

“We just like being with them,” Ken said. “We’ll just go out and hang out with them. If you’re having a bad day and just hang out with them, that bad day will just go way.”

Article Number Two:

Caledonia farm owners enjoy, make profit from alpacas

The Adamses say they hope to expand their alpaca business

By Betsy Lopez
RRSTAR.COM
Posted May 17, 2011 @ 12:02 AM
Last update May 17, 2011 @ 06:36 AM

CALEDONIA — Ken and Laura Adams traded in their Island Lake home in the Chicago suburbs almost five years ago for a 7½-acre horse farm in rural Caledonia.

Having no formal agricultural background or training in breeding, they researched breeding, sales, boarding and looked for mentors who knew alpacas well enough to share secrets.

Once in the country, they made upgrades to a roughly $420,000 property they purchased off Illinois 76, near Illinois 173, and converted it into an alpaca farm.

It’s a dream that Ken, 55, a former Gurnee public works employee, says Laura, 51, who worked as a medical transcriptionist and clerk, wanted to see become a reality for several years.

“She would clip ads for alpacas out of magazines,” he said, noting Laura began saving them in the early 2000s.

The duo, owners of True Colors Alpaca Farm, have seen their local business take a positive turn despite a soft economy. On Saturday, the couple had a mass shearing of the 43 alpacas.

The business will spin the fiber into yarn, which will be sold on site. The couple are considering the addition of a store to the farm in the next year.

“With the economy having been so bad, it was slow, but now sales are picking up. People want this lifestyle,” Laura said. “We do mentor and teach people.”

In July, the Adamses will teach a class for Rock Valley College on the business of alpaca farming. Interest in the business is leading people to the farm on a weekly basis.

“People who are coming out are interested in this business and interested in buying,” Ken said.

Boarding is up from when they started with just one pregnant female and grew to almost seven alpacas in their first few months in the business. The farm is now home to 43 Suri alpacas, 17 of which they own. The others are boarded for $4 a day, which includes feed, shots and general grooming and care.

The farm has the capacity to care for more than 70 alpacas, but to keep the animals healthy and not overcrowded the owners say they intentionally keep boarding under 50.

This week, the couple are awaiting the birth of two alpacas.

Breeding will also begin in the coming days as the farm breeds its males and females for spring and summer births.

Sales of the alpacas generate $500 for fiber male alpacas and $5,000 and up for show alpacas, on average, and Laura sells yarn she spins from the fibers.

Female alpacas run $10,000 and up.

On Saturday, the Adams will celebrate 28 years of marriage. It’s an accomplishment Ken jokes is possible because he “says ‘yes, dear’ to everything.” The couple say allowing each other to chase their goals is important, especially after a back injury left Ken unable to return to the public works job he held for 18 years.

“We don’t miss the suburbs,” he said. “It’s so much nicer out here. We’re out in the country, out of the city, but it’s still close enough to civilization. It’s kind of like having the best of both worlds.”

For Laura, she believes the business is flourishing because they both are on-site daily caring for “our 43 children and two dachshunds.” It helps that the couple hasn’t stopped dreaming, either, she said.

“Someday, we’re hoping to get a bigger farm and more land.”

Staff writer Betsy López can be reached at blopez@rrstar.com or 815-544-3452.

Article Number Three:

Caledonia farm celebrates curious South American animals with Alpaca Days

Bob Balgemann

Wednesday 28 September 2011 - Belvidere Daily Republican

CALEDONIA –Despite what some may think, Alpacas are not related to emus. They are native to the Andes Mountains of South America. Their average life span is 20-25 years of age.  And they are in Caledonia.
 
National Alpaca Farm Days, held Sept. 24-25, drew people to the True Colors Alpaca Farm on Illinois 76 in Caledonia to see and to learn about the docile, somewhat rare animals some confuse with llamas.
 
Ken and Laura Adams own the farm where Suri alpacas, which represent just 2 percent of the world’s population, reside. There are 38 in all at True Colors, 17 owned by the Adams and 21 being boarded there by families in the Chicago area as well as elsewhere in Boone County.
 
Sweet Clover, Dolly Madison, Gingersnap. Each alpaca has a name and each has a distinct personality, Laura Adams said. “We just picked names we liked,” she said.
 
True Colors opened four years ago and Gingersnap, a female, was the Adams first acquisition. She’s the oldest, about 10 years of age, with the youngest being 2 months old.
 
The couple thought about raising and breeding alpacas during their retirement, but got into the business much earlier than expected when Ken Adams injured his back at work. Now he’s running the farm full-time while help from his wife.
 
They were living in a Chicago suburb at the time of the injury and as the decision to make their retirement dream a more immediate reality, they began looking for a farm. They settled on 7 ½ acres on the west side of Route 76, just south of Illinois 173, which was a horse farm at the time. “You can have eight (alpacas) per acre,” Laura Adams explained.
 
There are several large pens in front of a barn where the alpacas – males on one side of an open area, females on the other – spend their summer days grazing on grass and accepting food from the Adams as well. They live in the barn during the winter and Laura Adams said, “They love the cold, they’re cold weather animals. We’re more concerned about the heat.”
 
Annual shearing:  
The animals are sheared each year, with the fiber sold for a variety of uses. During National Alpaca Days there was a table at True Colors Farm with rugs, little stuffed pumpkins, dryer balls, a teddy bear and fingerless gloves, all made with alpaca fiber.
 
Sales of alpacas bring in the most revenue, Laura Adams said, with the second primary source of income being boarding. “These are all show animals,” she said.
 
Information available at True Colors showed the animals selling from $2,000 and up, though there were some Alpaca Days sales for less. Females bring more money.
 
True Colors was chosen as the name for the farm primarily because it reflected the colors of the animals living there. There are 22 colors in all, with brown and white being the colors of choice at the Caledonia business.
 
The Boone County Food Pantry in Capron had a silent auction as part of the local Alpaca Days event with the booth operated by Executive Director Linda Clark and her husband, Ken, along with Linda Seaver.