Thunder Mountain Alpaca Ranch

We started our ranch in 2010 with five foundation females and two herdsires, and we currently live and play with seven beautiful Huacaya alpacas. They are all lovingly cared for every day and watched over at night by our livestock guardian dogs, "Daisy" and "Delilah", and our guardian llama "Big Hunk". We also have a Navajo Churro Sheep named "Baaarney", a pair of peafowl, a small flock of chickens, two barn cats and a cute but annoying house dog.

We shear our alpaca once a year (in late April or early May) and sort the fleeces by color and quality. The very best couple of fleeces make the rounds at fiber shows for several months collecting winning ribbons, and then are returned to us for sale and processing.

Alpaca fleece comes in 22 natural colors. Our harvest this year includes white, light biege, light fawn, medium fawn, chocolate brown, bay black, rose gray and silver gray. These fibers are natural colors, and will not fade like dyed fibers. The natural colors also accept dyes well, so you can create your own colors.

All of our fleeces are available for sale (unprocessed) if you order before or immediately after shearing. Customers may visit the ranch at any time of year to select and reserve specific fleeces, which will then be collected and delivered at shearing time. Prices for raw blanket (prime) fleece are $3/oz or $45/lb for the prime (blanket) fleece, and $2.00/oz or $25/lb for leg and neck fiber.

Once monsoon starts (usually early July), we begin to process the fleeces. We tumble the fleeces to remove dust and vegetable matter, then we hand wash the fleeces in fresh Thunder Mountain rain water, air dry them, and put them through our drum carder to produce roving batts. Washed and Carded Roving sells for $4/oz or $60/lb.

Some of the fleeces are packaged and sent to a professional fiber mill to be made into yarn and returned to us. Finished 100% alpaca yarn sells for $8-$9/oz.

We also have handwoven alpaca rugs, runners, saddle blankets, yoga mats, and seat warmers.

For a LIMITED TIME, starting in July each year, we have Peacock Feathers for sale in our store, and at the Farmer's Market. Full feathers sell for $4 each or six for $20. Call to arrange for shipping - these guys are almost five feet long!

Ranch Tours are available by appointment only. We also sell AWESOME alpaca socks, hats, scarves, gloves, mittens, finger puppets, felted soaps, alpaca plush toys, sweaters and assorted other farm-themed fun stuff from our ranch store (The Barnyard Boutique), at local festivals, and at the Palominas and Sierra Vista Farmer's Markets.