Investing like you owned the company:
The national alpaca herd is still relatively small; around 100,000 individuals, compared to 100 million cattle. Because of the relatively small size of the national herd, making a leap into alpaca at any scale (whether you own 5 or 500), entitles you to one extraordinary ability – to do it your own way. Let’s think of each alpaca as a share of stock in a company. If each alpaca is a share, then to the best of my knowledge, no single stockholder controls more than 3% of this “business”. The last time I studied the basic principles of corporations, 50% plus one of shares had to be held by a single entity to be counted as a “controlling interest”. This comparison is simply to make the point that no one party controls the destiny of the alpaca industry. Quite the opposite. In the business world, a shareholder, even a small shareholder, is generally entitled to vote on shareholder business and such but has no direct say over anything; a whisper lost in a tornado. In the alpaca industry, you can do what you see fit with each and every share you hold.
Years ago, I dedicated a portion of my herd to trying to make a purple alpaca… I made a purple alpaca. I dedicated a portion of my herd to making a harlequin (super-spotted) alpaca… I made a harlequin alpaca. I wasn’t told to do it, nor was I following some guidelines of how to succeed in the alpaca business. They were objectives; one was to create a spotless grey alpaca that was purple tinted, the other was to create an alpaca with every color possible with as many spots as possible – these objectives could not have been more diametrically opposed, yet they were achieved on the same little farm. Now imagine that I was the CEO of Widget Corp, and I walked into a board meeting and said “Here’s what we’re going to do… we’re going to retool our limited production capacity to try to make two super exclusive, technically challenging widgets at the expense of making the inexpensive, profitable, ubiquitous widget, and we are very likely to fail or at least spend significant vital resources in this attempt.” I imagine that I would be fired as CEO of Widget Corp, but in essence, this is what I’ve done (what many people do) in the alpaca industry. Rather than being scolded for my vision, I’ve received support from other breeders out there trying to produce interesting alpacas. How interesting!?! An industry, and a livestock industry at that, which inherently supports the radical producer. Alpacas are a haven for people that want to “do it their own way”.