Pucara Update

Well it seems like the alpaca economy is looking a little brighter! I looked at my email folders yesterday and realized the 2010 leads folder is three times as long as the 2009 folder and its not quite may! It has resulted in some sales and leasing for the barns. Its nothing substantial yet but I am amped enough to relay the good news. It will relieve some management burden and we are sure there looks like more to come.

Most of the enquiry so far has been for much cheaper purchasing and some leasing but its the volume of interest that is encouraging. Mind you it takes three times as long to close on deals worth three times less what they used to be but as my late mother always reminded me “ a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”. I never really got that saying because we lived in the suburbs then and I had no interest in sparrows or blackbirds!

Ever since I embarked on the campaigns I previously told you about things have gradually improved. For several months I was getting 500 unique visits to our Alpaca Nation website some converting into serious leads mainly at the bottom end. The banner adds on there also lifted visits to our own website by 400% at times. It has been costing Pucara  $3000 a month just on Alpaca Nation but its proving to be worth it. Also because it is  the start of breeding season there has been lots of interest in breeding males, the point being when people contact me I tell them all about our sales program of females.

We had a seminar two in March and had our biggest turn out in two years. It was only 12  attendees ( we don’t like many more because we cannot form a relationship with individuals with more people than that and we qualified these 12) although we did turn away four people for the next seminar. All but one couple will be purchasing clients in one form or another. One client purchased a young female from Barn 2 be it at a low price. I also leased the mother to another client for two years. We’ve also sold a male from Barn that we suggested the barn retain. He sold for $15,000.

Plans keep going ahead  for the Premium Reserve auction and Pen Reserve sale  shindig we are holding on farm here on the Labor Day weekend in September.  …here is a link… http://www.pucara-alpacas.com/premiumreserveauction.html  where it is  briefly described . We are building a website to host all the info and animals. It has created a huge buzz in the industry. We are not sure how many barn alpacas will be in it. It will depend on what happens at auctions between now and then and how many ribbons we can get on alpacas before then. The most important thing is that so far people in the industry are pumped about the fact we are having such an event and it is drawing heaps of interest. Huge success with our show team so far has added to that interest.

The first major of the auction of the year was a beauty held by our good friends at Snowmass Alpacas. One herdsire they sold fetched $675,000!!! They averaged approx $20,000 per alpaca if you take out the top three and bottom three prices. A great result. I featured on that weeknd giving two two hour long seminars plus I did the color commentary for the auction. The energy there was amazing. It wasn’t a big audience but they were committed. Approx 250 breeders were in attendance. The father of owner Julie Skinner kept track of my commentary and he worked out that I may have managed to squeak out $200-250,000 more worth of bidding from comments that I gave when bidding slowed down during any lot. I’m not so sure but it bodes well for our auction because Snowmass Alpacas have committed to participate in it.  Julie the owner has also agreed to speaking in a seminar at the Premium Reserve about how she has achieved such stunning success. It is her first public address in 15 years and breeders are genuinely excited. They are already making hotel bookings!

Show season  is here again. As I said above, ribbons count, and more than ever now that we have decided to do the auction. Not just for any alpaca that manages to get some success but also to the mother. The moms are much easier to sell that way. So having said that we are attending six shows in seven weekends. One is in Oklahoma City, The Futurity, a three day drive one way and the Nationals are in Indiana, a four day drive one way for us. The others are mainly local. We are actually taking 40 plus alpacas to a couple of shows!!!! CRIKEYS. We are managing so far after just getting home from our third show Monday. We purchased a huge repossessed trailer last year that can fit about 35 plus we have another smaller trailer so it is the Pucara wagon train! Jude is in melt down just doing entries. There are alpacas from each barn going so its going to be…….fun?

So far we have dominated the shows with our suri team and our huacayas have done well. Just last weekend we won every championship we had an animal entered in. I don’t think that has ever been achieved by anyone! So why is it important?. Its adding value and branding to our farm. We are getting interest in purchases and whilst its not fervent just yet its encouraging.

Tim has  been reporting a fair bit of interest over his way as well. He has had several farm visits from potential buyers however at a very low price points. Better than a poke in the eye with a burning stick I say. The great thing about this is that sometimes you can talk people up or once they go to a show they realize cheap is not good! Then they have to upgrade. At least by selling a few at low prices it helps deal with agistment and care fees.

I suppose you all have seen the surfing alpaca by now. At last I can blend my two passions!

It’s also time to get barn members together for either meeting face to face or a conference call. We have no way of fitting in a visit to Ohio until after our Nationals and shearing a week later in the first week of June. We are attending a show every weekend before then. Barn two are tentatively going to meet in May by at least a phone conference. Obviously there is lots to discuss especially with the breeding season here now. Tim and or I will contact everyone to try and tee up a suitable time once I get the website built and the print catalog done for the Labor Day event...that is probably later July...I'm not sure.