So you wanna start a fiber business?

Cool, best of luck to you. I hope you know more about it than I do! If not I hope you are ready to learn.

I'm writing this up today because someone asked me for details on my “alpaca operation” and I wanted to put the reply in one place so in the future I can link others to it rather than typing it out again and again. Does that sound lazy or smart?

Smart right?

It should. I grew up working in the construction business and one of the first things I was taught was that if I was on a job site and moving my hands should not be empty. Because something needed to be carried to wherever I was headed and why walk there twice? You never do anything twice if you don't have too. So with that in mind lets blog on.

We are here to talk about “Operation Alpaca” and I already told you I don't know much about the fiber business so all I can really offer you is some common sense and perhaps my experience.

“Uh.. .so if you live on an alpaca farm how do you know nothing about the fiber business?”

Good question. My wife knows about the fiber business. I mostly build barns and fences and more barns and more fences.

So how did we get here? Well 7-8 years ago my wife started selling hand spun and hand dyed alpaca fiber (predominately alpaca though she also does some other fibers as well. She mainly focused upon alpaca because it sells well.) She did the work for this at night, after work, and I thought of it as a hobby. For years that was all I saw.

On a given day we'd both go to work and then we'd come home and I'd cook dinner (yeah, I do the cooking. We're like really progressive and I'm an awesome cook) and then she'd head out to her workspace to do the fiber thing and I'd head out to the garage to uh..

Drink beer and work on my motorcycles. True story.

Then one night after dinner but before beer + motorcycles she said

“I am thinking about buying some alpacas. What do you think?”

And I replied:

“What's an alpaca?”

And she filled me in.

Now comes the important part and the part where some real advice can be given. I had been running my own business for 15 years at this point (damn I am getting old.) Anyway the basics of any business are similar. The first thing I asked her was:

“Well how much do these animals cost and what is the product you can make with them?”

Showing me the product wasn't difficult. She had our guest room filled with the stuff and had for years at this point.

What she did next is the part that is worth hearing. She broke down the profit on her products over the past several years and showed me her costs in terms of time and raw material. Purchasing the alpacas would allow us to harvest our own raw material at a lower cost.

Then we figured out the value of the raw fiber sold without any modifications and checked that vs. the cost of maintaining the livestock for a given year. It's profitable but significantly less so. However this is an important step and well worth doing. I was now aware of the fact that if my wife had the time to add value to this raw material through her labor we were in a good spot and if she did not have that time the project was still sustainable and profitable. Marginally profitable but hey, we would not lose money.

Not losing money is really cool.

She was able to show me that she was earning a profit and what the increase in profit with the livestock would be through a very boring and tedious gimmick that we call the miracle of accounting. That's quite important as well. If someone asks about the viability of your operation and you can hand them the books you are rolling in credibility aren't you?

One other thing she did which is also important. For several years she spun/dyed fiber that she purchased from a 3^rd party. This allowed her to improve her craft and learn the market for the product without any significant expenditure. She actually was earning money the whole time.

That “earning money the whole time” bit is a big deal because when I asked her:

“So uh.. what do these alpacas cost anyway?”

she was able to say:

“I want to put about 5 thousand into the ones I am looking at now. However I have the money set aside in a separate account. It's the profit I have earned off selling the fiber all this time.”

and I had to say:

“Oh, wow .. cool. Uh.. yeah. Sounds good to me. Hell, you earned the money.”

And that was that.

So what does this mean to you dear “Person who wants to start a fiber business”?

See if you can get your feet wet in some manner. My wife did this buy buying various fibers from 3^rd parties (mostly she found the raw material on the internet and had it shipped in) and then did her dyeing/spinning and increased the value of the product. Can you do that? Are you planning on selling finished products or fiber modified in some manner? If the answer is “Yes” then of course you can. You'll just be doing it at a lower profit % than you would be if you had your own livestock to harvest the raw material from.

This is good. It allows you to learn the market and start working in it without a major expense/commitment. That is more useful than you'd think! My wife started out mostly spinning fiber. She was really into it. I know, those wheels are not cheap!

However she largely stopped spinning some time ago. She makes more money dyeing and selling the raw material to others who want to spin it themselves. You learn that by getting out into the market and seeing what happens. If you can do so without literally “buying the farm” that is a bonus. Buy the farm when you know what you want to do with it!

Anyway I hope that is helpful to someone and if you want to ask me any other questions or just yell something at me I can always be found on /r/homesteading on Reddit.

-J

So.. a few people asked me for some info on the solar project I recently finished up in my barns.  I have been begging off getting it done and keep telling them I am chopping firewood.  Well gentlemen, the proof is here:

I still have more to go but I'm done for this week!

I'm going to do what I can to explain the simple 12 volt DC system I installed in my barns and I want to reiterate that I am no solar expert.  I am a guy who has been building motorcycles for far too long and let's face it.. a 12v DC light is the same thing whether it's in a barn or on your bike ; )


Let's start with the panel and it's elegant mounting arrangement:

This panel is a Coleman 18 Watt 12 volt solar battery charging kit. The link I provided goes to Home Depot and the price is 90$.  I have seen the kit as low as 80$ elsewhere on the internet.  I purchased mine at Tractor Supply (for 110$ actually but I was impatient.  Polar Vortex is on the way and breaking ice with a hammer is no fun.) 

So why this particular panel?  Mostly because I am new to solar and piecing together the various bits needed is a new thing for me.  This is my first time out.  I was wiling to pay a bit extra to get a panel + charge controller that I knew would function and do the job.

Also I had figured I could get my lights/bubbler running for less than 300$ this way and running grid power out to the barn was going to cost me at least that much in wire.  Not to mention digging the trench!

The kit consists of the panel pictured above and a 7 amp charge controller, which basically cuts off power to the battery when it has reached full charge.  I ran the power cord from the panel into the barns by digging a trench in the dirt floor and putting a 1" PVC pipe in it.  I then ran the wire down that and buried it with just the end of the line sticking up through an elbow connected to the pipe inside.

Oh!  The elegant mounting arrangement.  Yes, that is the best available in homemade saw horses.  I am a carpenter by trade and we typically make these things on each and every job so for me this is a quick and simple task.  I happened to have a few in the shop so it seemed a good stand for the panel and the panel fit well.  Anything at all would do.  I anchored the saw horse to the ground with2 pieces of rebar that I hammered 2 feet into the ground and nailed down onto the legs of the saw horse. 

So.. what else is there to this mess huh?

What we have in this poorly shot picture is a 12v Marine Deep Cycle Battery that I purchased for 94$ at Wal-Mart.  The white box next to it is my bubbler.  This is basically an air pump (like for an aquarium) that cycles air through my alpacas water troughs.

The charge controller and a 10 amp automotive fuse is also in there.  Basically the power comes in from the panel.  That line goes to the charge controller.  Then it is clipped to the battery.  Power comes off the battery from 2 additional lines.  Pass through the 10 amp fuse and down into the barn to power everything.   I housed in all in an 8$ Rubbermaid container, also from Wal-Mart, just to keep the water out.  The barn is enclosed but who knows.. accidents happen.

I also drilled 4-5 holes (1/2" IIRC) in the bottom of the container and then dumped 2 inches of pea gravel in there as well.. a simple drainage setup in case I dump a beer in there.. or miss with a hose.. or whatever else!

So where does it go from there?

Here we have 2 lines of 14/2 electrical wire.  This is common household wiring  You can buy it at any hardware store anywhere.  14/2 is the lightest gauge approved for 15amp residential 120volt circuits.  I wired my own house with 12/2 and 20 amp fuses but for my purposes in the barn the 14/2 was just fine. 

I ran two lines down simply because I have 2 16'x24' run in shelters on either side of the switches pictured here and wanted lighting in each of them.  I used two switches because I am running 3 lights off one battery and the bubbler is on 24/7 all winter.  I wanted to be able to switch off whichever shelter we were not working in to conserve charge if needed.  Thus far I can run all three lights for 4-5 hours a night and keep my bubblers going fine.. but who knew when I wired it up.

From there the wire runs directly to the lighting fixtures:

What you see there is that same 14/2 stapled to the header on my barns hallway framing and an  8 Watt LED bulb screwed into a very standard porcelain lighting fixture.   The fixture you can also buy anywhere and if they want more than 2$ for it they are overpriced ; )  The LED bulbs were the one thing I could not source locally.  I purchased 3 of them from the link above.

Oh.. and they work.  Well.

I took this pic in the daytime but I'll try to run down again after dark and get a better shot at night.  I was unsure how much light I would get from these 2 bulbs but it's more than enough!  This is a 16x24 foot shelter and one is sufficient.  I only have the 2nd to light up a hallway where we store grain etc.

SO what's a "bubbler" do you might ask? 

It makes bubbles.  It gives the big llama:

Fizzy water.. which he digs.  

You don't want to tick off the big llama.  He'll .... well honestly he won't do anything.  He's a gentleman.


It also keeps the water circulating in my buckets which means they will not freeze and I don't have to smash the ice off each morning.  I dig that. 

So.. does it function?  Yep.  I've been running the bubblers (two of them) for a few weeks now just as a test.  Tonight is our first solid freeze.  It's supposed to get down to 20 degrees.

However the bubblers have been running 24/7 for weeks with no issues.   The lights went in a few days ago and are lit up right now.  My wife is doing alpaca work apparently.

I have run the lights for 5-6 hour thus far at most and still had sufficient juice to keep everything going.  Frankly the bubbler is a greater draw than the lights.  Those 3 LED bulbs draw 1.8 amps.  The bubbler draws 2.4.  So I COULD easily keep the lights on 24/7 with this system but I'd likely run out of juice in less than a day with the bubbler going as well.  I could fix that by spending another 94$ on a 2nd battery.  For those of you looking for lights for a shed/barn/etc .. yeah, this will do it.

Now with that said you can certainly find cheaper components.  I researched it myself and found a few likely candidates.  I choose to go this way for two reasons.  It's very portable.  I have the two shelters where my system is now and a third about 20 acres away from the house that we only use in warm weather.  I intend to relocate this portable system up there in the spring and build a new one for the main barn.

That's reason one.  Reason two?  I didn't know 100% what I was doing.  Buying the kit got me moving and helped me get myself started.  I hope this write up helps someone and if I can answer any questions ask away either here on on /r/Homesteading on reddit. 

-J

Starting is the hard part... it's never done so finishing is easy.

My wife and I bought some property a few years ago and I have been threatening to start a blog to post about some of the things I have built, fixed, broken, etc. out here for quite some time now.

I haven't done it.

Many people have asked me to and I keep telling them I will. So I am.

Today was my first day off.. meaning yesterday was the day I finished buttoning us up for the winter.  My house is done enough.  I still have to paint inside (just primer right now, looks like a new condo) and my barns are done enough.. by which I mean my wife wants another 16'x24' addition put on one next spring but for this year I am done.

My fencing is done too.. by which I mean I have 3 acres to fence up next year but I'm done for now.

Lot of "done for now" huh?

So today, on my day off, I decided to take pictures of the solar lighting setup I installed in my barn yesterday.  I didn't do that.  I split wood instead.. because it's my day off and I had ought to do SOME work right?

Tomorrow is my 2nd day off. So I will take the pictures and post them and explain what I did.  I hope it can be of some use to those of you who read it.

-Jack