Kathleen Bucher

Spirit Valley Alpacas  was established in 2014. We bought five alpacas. This consisted of one male and 4 females!  We had a lot to learn as we dove in headfirst!

We found that contacting other farms and learning from others is ideal! We found that this community of alpaca owners are very open to helping and being mentors!

We had our first cria (baby alpaca) three weeks after we brought them home to our acreage in Exira, Iowa.  We named him Spirit, and the farm name then followed!

While in Iowa, we began building our business based on educating others about these beautiful animals.  We encouraged farm visits by school groups, 4-H groups and individual families!  We also attended festivals and made appearances here and there.  We enjoyed visits to the local nursing home, where the residents loved meeting our girls!

We began making items from their fleece, again educating people on these marketable products!  Shearing is done once a year and each alpaca yields between 3 and 8 lbs of fiber.  This can be made into yarn, corded yarn for weaving, can be felted and/or used as filler for pillows and pet beds!  The fiber is hypoallergenic, has a great insulation factor, is naturally fire resistant and repels water.  The products made have these properties and are very durable!

We moved back to our home state of Wisconsin in 2019 and are working to build the same here in the beautiful driftless area!  The rolling hills and beautiful rock formations make for great agri-tourism!  We look forward to meeting many people being able to share our love of alpacas with all!