Pouring rain turned hardened dirt to sticky mud as Chris and
Susan Hoebich huddled under the Fort Worth, Texas auction tent on a
cold day in 1988. It was certainly the wrong day, Susan decided, to
have worn her stylish patent leather shoes, but the Morgan Hill
resident wasn’t going to give up on account of wet feet.
Pouring rain turned hardened dirt to sticky mud as Chris and Susan Hoebich huddled under the Fort Worth, Texas auction tent on a cold day in 1988. It was certainly the wrong day, Susan decided, to have worn her stylish patent leather shoes, but the Morgan Hill resident wasn’t going to give up on account of wet feet.
It had all started innocently enough. The couple wanted to buy a little piece of land out in the country, somewhere that had room for their grown kids to board horses and where they could throw in a goat or a few chickens if the fancy struck.
Both lifelong city dwellers, they weren’t expecting to fall in love with a 450-acre ranch, complete with a year-round creek, four reservoirs, natural manzanita groves and rolling green hills near Uvas County Park.
Only after the sale did new neighbors warn them of the fire danger the overgrown fields posed, said Susan.
On the advice of the same neighbors, the Hoebichs bought cows to eat the dried vegetation, but their timing was off.
A six-year drought had just begun, and they had to supplement their cattle’s diet with hay, the price of which was nearly eating them out of house and home. Then the beef market took a sharp hit because of new health concerns over red meat.
The couple needed to change course quickly if they wanted to stay afloat, and it was with this very idea in mind that they boarded a plane for Fort Worth, out to make their fortune in the uncharted territory of ostrich cultivation.
Trend animals like ostriches, llamas, alpacas, buffalo and goats, commonly considered alternative livestock, are a boom and bust business.
When the breed is new or the ingredients the animal provides are in vogue, demand and speculation drive prices up, with many investors betting on what could become the next big thing. Some see astonishing success while others lose their investments and then some.
In a breeder’s market, single pairs of alternative animals sell for exorbitant sums as buyers rush to get in on the profits of raising game for breeding stock.
Getting into the market early is critical since supply will soon meet demand, devaluing the breed stock and reducing potential income by shifting the animal’s value to the more stable meat and hide markets.
Wayne and Eileen Ausland have raised alpacas and llamas in Hollister for the last 18 years, selling their stock’s fiber (fur) and stud services, and showing their animals across the western United States.
While llamas are now fairly inexpensive, alpacas, still a niche market, can fetch thousands of dollars apiece.
“My wife wanted llamas,” said Wayne Ausland, “so we got llamas. We started showing them, and when we went over to a fair in Watsonville, they had a display of these alpacas. They’re so much furrier, and when you see a nice little woolly alpaca and you’re a woman, you just want to take it home.”
The Hoebichs heard about the U.S. rush for their alternative livestock through a Wall Street Journal article titled, “Big Birds Make Big Bucks For Texas Ranchers.” While they had seen ostrich farming on vacation in South Africa, the thought of doing it themselves had never entered their minds.
A bird that weighed between 250 and 400 pounds, that could kill a man with a single frontal kick and run 40 miles an hour, hadn’t seemed like the nicest animal to cultivate. Even so, ostrich skin was – and is – the second most expensive hide in the world.
The birds were quiet, their meat was marketable and, even more appealing to the couple, it was still a new item in the United States.
At the Fort Worth auction, three ostrich couples were up for grabs, and when the dust settled, the Hoebichs had a pair of $30,000 birds, some $20,000 in incubation equipment and a new life to go home with.
The couple was lucky. Having gotten into the ostrich industry early, they saw huge profits during their first 10 years in the field. In the first year, their hen produced more than double the average number of eggs – 90 in all – and 45 of those survived to maturity.
The number was considered an excellent yield, and the Hoebichs were back in the money.
“These chicks were worth $2,000 to $3,000 per piece,” said Chris, “so we had more than $100,000 in stock already.”
The couple sold ostriches and ostrich-derived products from San Francisco to Korea, Alaska to Hawaii before the collapse of the breeding market.
“The sort of people who bought in the beginning were people who had an extra $100,000, so they were generally seniors,” said Susan. “In ’98, when the meat business began, they didn’t want to do it. It was fun to breed beautiful animals, but then to catch them and take them to the slaughterhouse?”
Large farmers who didn’t want to run meat businesses loaded and sold their stock through slaughterhouses and meat packers.
Those who got into the business late, having paid thousands of dollars for a single pair of breed animals, found their stock’s value plummeting to less than $1,000 per bird for meat and hide. It wasn’t even financially sound to sell the birds for slaughter.
The Hoebichs slowly sold off their stock. Both are in their 70s. Chris has had a hip replaced, and their only ranch assistant is in his 60s. They keep about 70 birds, selling off the eggs to artisans who make them into lamps and intricate carvings.
They’ve proclaimed their retirement, saying they’ve had a good run, and they’re satisfied.
But across the United States there are scores of small, alternative-based farmers waiting for their own day in the sun. There are those who say goats are the next big thing, according to the Hoebichs.
And the market for the yarn products derived from llamas and alpacas, investors feel, is poised for a breakthrough in the United States – good news for the Auslands.
Eco-friendly and organic food sales have grown exponentially in the last decade, and the sale of 100 percent natural clothing may be what follows.
Smaller cousins of the camel, llamas are commonly used as pack animals in Peru and Chile, and their even smaller relatives, alpacas, are prized for their fine fur, which is spun and knitted into sweaters, hats, scarves, purses and blankets.
Unfinished, it is sold for $2 to $6 per ounce, depending on the fiber’s quality, color and consistency, with each alpaca yielding between six and eight pounds of fiber per year.
However, alpacas and llamas are not consumed outside South America, limiting their potential for profitability to the sales of yarn and, as in horse breeding, the endless cycle of showing and breeding.
Female alpacas must carry their fetuses for 11 months, and the price for them reflects the wait, with non-pregnant ones starting at $10,000 a piece and pregnant alpacas beginning closer to $15,000.
“Males start at $1,000 and have gone up as high as $180,000,” said Wayne. “It’s all in how they’re known. If they’re a popular stud, and you’re going to a lot of shows, it will raise the price.”
Still, the field is a niche market. With just 50,000 alpacas in the United States, said Ausland, it’s hard to turn a profit.
He and his wife have decided to sell off their llama line, and they pool their alpaca fiber with others in a nation-wide co-op that sends the hair for processing in Peru.
He’s convinced that if they wait long enough, the gamble will pay off.
Alpacas are less expensive to keep than conventional breed stock like horses. Gentle with children, they’re also easy to train.
The Auslands’ alpacas even ride in the back of their van rather than a separate trailer on their way to shows.
The couple keeps their pocketbook from dipping by selling off much of their annual stock, keeping their females pregnant almost year-round with two week breaks between birth and their next pregnancy.
“When we started this I wanted to get into a business I could retire on, and while it’s slow, I know that this is working,” said Wayne.
