About Us

Pucara International is the American arm of Pucara Alpaca Stud Australia

Currently Alan and Jude run two farms in Australia with about 350 alpacas. Pucara Australia has been the sole source of income since 1996 for them. According to Alan “That means you think differently about things. You need business goals and you have to work hard and take calculated risks! And as a New Zealander, Sir Ernest Rutherford once said, “If you haven’t got much money to do it, you’re going to really think hard about it! “

Pucara Australia has covered a lot of ground in just a short time getting an intimate knowledge of alpaca farming and the industry world wide. They have visited at first the U.S. , then Canada , New Zealand and Peru . They have exported alpacas to Canada, New Zealand and the U.S. They have imported from the U.S. and Peru. Jude has judged all over Australia, in Canada, New Zealand and the U.S. and attended the International Alpaca School in Peru . She is a qualified wool classer via the Melbourne School of Textiles. Alan whose greater family came from the dairy industry has served on the National Committee of the Australian Alpaca Association (AAA), chaired the Marketing, National Show and National Conference and sat on several other committees like the Import and Show Committees. He also spent 3 years working with his good friend Mike Safley at Northwest Alpacas helping to author and organize the Studmaster Program and the Ideal Alpaca Community which is revolutionary in its concept in an exotic livestock industry. Pucara Australia has an international quarantine on their Australian farm and has just spent two years helping develop successful embryo transfer in alpacas. In the end this is informational wealth that Jude and Al want to share with their clients.

And so why with all this behind them would Alan leave his beloved beaches that the Pucara Farm over looks, and Jude leave her close family, to live and raise alpacas in the U.S. ?

Back in 1995 they started buying alpacas from US breeders, searching for prepotent genetics. At that time Peru was not open to Australian imports. They purchased alpacas from NGG, AOA, Northwest Alpacas, Morning Sun Alpacas, Gorge Alpacas and visited many more. They had a working relationship with Snowmass Alpacas, Northwest Alpacas and several others via herdsires like Hemingway, Peruvian Don Julio, Peruvian Drambuie, Accoyo Pluro, Mister Antonio and a highly select group of huacaya females. Alan and Jude participated in the Peruvian imports as well. They selected males like Accoyo Pachacuti, Accoyo Legend, Accoyo Legacy, Accoyo Macusani as well as many huacaya and suri females for themselves and on behalf of partners like Snowmass Alpacas. In fact it was Alan who selected Legacy in Peru for their partnership with Snowmass Alpacas.

Pucara exported all their suris and huacaya herdsires back to Australia in 1997. It was always their plan to keep mating all these females to their ARI registered males, which they did. The cria were registered with the ARI and are now being imported back into the US . Jude is excited, “These genetics have been tremendous for us in the Aussie show ring. And now with embryo transfer being available in Australia it meant we could leave some beautiful ET replacements of these genetics at home whilst bringing a really nice group of the original and bred girls back to the US .”

Both Alan and Jude agree the US market is booming and its directly responsible to breeders who have a strong vision for the future. “Registry closure, a strong ARI, good marketing and exceptional energy from US alpaca breeders has created a wonderful industry that we want to be part of” says Alan. So here now, after twelve years of visiting the US, for the first time Pucara have bought Muddy Valley Farm and have close to 100 suris and several huacaya grazing its gorgeous pastures in the wine country of McMinnville , Oregon.

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