We are Small-But we are Growing
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Lucky Acres Farm is the home of the Gloria and Joe Williams, Stephen, Niki and Lily Schaffer. We are a small alpaca farm located in the upstate of South Carolina. Please come for a visit, we love sharing our country life style with others. Located half way between Charlotte, NC and Atlanta, GA in Townville SC.
We are just 3 miles from I-85 at exit 11. Take route 243, go 1.5 miles. Turn left onto Milford Road (the second left), go 1.5 miles. At the stop sign, go straight. This is our shared driveway. We are the log cabin on the right.
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Miss Scarlett and Miss Mammie are the latest addition to our farm. We had learned about a fellow alpaca breeder who had lost six of her alpacas to a neighbor's dog attack. We also knew that several other alpaca farms had donkeys to protect their herd, so we brought home two. They are a wonderful addition to the pasture. Miss Scarlett is very friendly and Lily can feed and pet her anytime. Miss Mammie is not as hands on, but loves to "sing" to us whenever she sees us outside. After feeling at home we hope that we can halter and lead one or both of them. Lily wants to ride a donkey and they are certainly large enough for a child to ride.
We have our alpaca boys divided into two pastures, older boys ready for breeding, and young boys or junior herdsires. Both groups have a gelding for company, and now they each have a donkey for their protection. Our girls have Mr. Pebbles our big llama in their pasture. Now we sleep a little better at night knowing that we have done all we can to protect our alpaca herd from preditors.
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This is Cinderella. She is the third generation of this line on our farm. She was born to Cinammon Girl, Candy's first female cria raised on the farm. She is also the first cria of our herdsire Alejandro on our farm. Her mother is small and she was just 13 pounds at birth. There was no problem with her birth and we saw her when when she was already running. She has done well and is very playful and smart. She is very petite and appears delicate, but don't let that give you a false sense. She is the boss in the pasture. I have watched her chest butt Mr. Pebbles, their guardian llama and he only drops his head to look her in the eye. It is a pleasure to watch the activity at dusk on most nights. I tell Joe it is time to watch the alpaca circus with the capers in the pasture.
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This is Talena, Tabby's newest cria. She our second cria this spring born about a week after Cinderella. She is a big girl at 20 pounds and growing fast. Her mother has a lot of milk and is very attentative. It is a pleasure to watch the two young crias pronk in the pasture. Sometimes the little ones are so playful that they get the older ones to going with them. We were blessed with the last 5 of our little ones being female. It is a pleasure to watch them grow into beautiful healthy strong alpacas.
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These are Tabby's two daughters Tessie Snowhite and her latest one Talena. We had hoped that Tessie would have a cria this spring, but as it turns out she was not pregnant. She is always interested in a new birth and tries to adopt the cria. Whenever a new cria is born we put the baby and mother in a seperate stall for feeding a lactation stimulator for a few days and to weigh the cria. We did this with Tabby and Talena as well. After a couple of days we noticed that Tessie acted strange, not eating and going to her knees when approached by others. We called the Vet and he did ultrasound and found she was not pregnant but could find nothing wrong with her. After much thought and observation we concluded that she was just bent out of shape because she now had to share her Mother with a new little one. After we allowed Tabby and Talena to join her she was fine again with no problem. Alpacas are so smart and each has their own personality. The girls do stay in family groups as well as being part of the larger herd.
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We were asked to participate in the first time upstate SC farm tour for the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association. We were very happy to do so and Joe made this picnic area for guests to enjoy. We had a wonderful day and our guests said they did as well. It is a pleasure to try to bring a positive experience for anyone who is interested in learning more about our farming way of life. Many families were taking advantage of this experience and visiting the farms on the tour. I hope this will become an annual event.
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The SC National Heritage Corridor sponsored a bus tour that visited our farm as part of the "Apples and Alpacas" tour. We have been fortunate this year to have several bus tours make a visit to our farm. We love having people come to see the alpacas and educating them about our lifestyle. We serve refreshments and give them a visit with the animals. Everyone said they had a good time and were extremely complementary in their comments. I hope they all enjoyed the experience and will come back to visit again.
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