Update
October 31, 2007
Hello Visitor
Lazy M Suris now has 43 alpacas and 6 llamas and is being reborn as Lazy M Permaculture Oasis. Everything you read after this update is from our old website and is several years out of date, or more, but historically true!
We started Lazy M Suris in 1996 with the purchase of our first suri alpacas. Our ten year plan was to breed carefully chosen suris to build a herd whose fiber could hold its own with the finest luxury fibers of the world. We planned to participate in the breeding and showing industry as family obligations permitted.
Over the last ten years we have learned a lot, and our fleecs have won many ribbons. We have contributed to the industry with our 1997 pioneering electron microscopy study of the scale structure of suri fiber. You've probably seen some big farms using our research, and research that builds on ours, to market their animals. We discovered that increased scale length is correlated with a greater fineness, a softer hand, and greater luster.
After ten years we were pleased with our accomplishments, and ready to set new goals and write a new farm plan.
The farm's founders have a long histoy of interest and involvement in organic gardening, sustainable agriculture, ecology, and permaculture. (See Permaculture) Before the alpaca farm we had a fruit tree and edible plant nursery.
AS we began rewriting our farm plan we thought about how much we spend on irrigated orchardgrass hay that we import from a farm over a hundred miles away. We asked ourselves how we could produce more of our forage onsite. We hit on the idea of planting trees for browse to extend the forage season at both ends. We saw that trees could provide additional benefits in the form of wind protection and summer shade for the alpacas, improved wildlife habitat, increased moisture retention for better summer pasture growth, and as other potential yields. Drawing on our knowledge of permaculture, we envisioned a multistory polyculture of trees, shrubs, vines, grasses, and forbs. We applied for a USDA SARE (Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education) grant for an intern to research what trees would be nutritious, non-toxic and site adapted. The grant is also paying for us to collect samples of leaves and twigs of various tree species at different times of year, and have their nutrient content analyzed, so we can compare forage value of our proposed browse species with our current pasture plants and with purchased hay.
We planted our first trees this last spring, and had ample demonstrations of customer approval before we excluded the animals!
Reducing outside inputs and recycling materials produced onsite are goals of sustainable agriculture and permaculture (advanced sustainable agriculture). What we are trying to do overall is create a forest garden ecosystem in which the alpacas are an integral component, and from which we draw off yields in plant foods for us, forages for the alpacas, and fiber for sustainably produced, chemical-free luxury yarns.
Please check back in with our website as we add new sections on permaculture, sustainable agriculture, our fiber research, our fiber business, our wonderful animals, and much more. Meanwhile, please give us feedback at our weblog http://alpacapermaculture.blogspot.com/
sustainably yours,
all of us at Lazy M Suris