On a recent and (rare) dry, sunny October afternoon, the Renton Reporter caught up with Beth and Randy Brealey, two alpaca farmers, who live in Renton, as they prepared to go to the Fiber Fusion Northwest festival in Monroe.
The two-day festival features alpaca, wool, mohair, llama and angora fleeces as well as classes, workshops and contests.
The Brealeys have been raising alpacas since 1998. Prior to that Beth was in the mortgage business and Randy was a land developer. Randy first spotted and fell in love with alpacas when he encountered them at a party in Monroe, thrown by one of the original Nordstrom daughters.
“She had a lot of exotic animals and he saw the alpacas and said, ‘what are those?’” said Beth. “And she told him what they were and he said, ‘that’s what I want to do.’ So he quit his job and we got the last importation group of animals from Bolivia.”
The Brealeys got three lots of animals they bid on in something similar to a sports draft. The alpacas then spent three months in quarantine before they made their way to Chelsea Farms.
“We’ve got about 160 alpacas,” said Beth. “Suri and Huacaya are the two different breeds. We have mostly Suri, which is probably 5 percent of the entire population of alpacas, the rest are Huacaya. So ours are a little bit more rare than what most people have.”
The Brealeys also have chickens, ducks and goats, from which they harvest goat’s milk, cheese, yogurt, soap and foot cream. The soap smells surprisingly good, like a men’s cologne.
The fiber or fur from the alpacas they send out and have socks, sweaters, coats, blankets or yarn made, which the Brealeys sell in their shop Fiber Alley, located on their property. They also sell the raw fleece as roving, which is ready for a spinning wheel.
There are aplacas of all sizes and ages loping around Chelsea Farms. They make a sort of soft braying sound and on this afternoon were grazing in the pasture.
The Brealeys often invite school groups and retirement centers out to visit the farm and learn about their alpacas. Chelsea Farms sits on 20 acres, just beyond Fairwood off of Petrovitsky Road. The couple also has a substantial vegetable garden from which they sell to the public, in a tiny food stand they call the Daily Harvest.
Everything on their farm is organic and Beth likes to brag that nothing goes to waste. Even the feed bags have been turned into spiffy tote bags she sells to customers.
Randy is growing barley sprouts fodder from hydroponic beds and hopes to produce 600 pounds a day to replace the expensive hay he currently feeds his animals.
When asked what makes a good fiber, Randy said it’s a combination of factors.
“Primarily genetics,” he said. “So it’s a combination of genetics and environment. Their environment has some impact on it – what they eat and what the weather conditions are like and all that, but primarily it’s genetics.”
Suris have been in the U.S. for a little more than 20 years and the industry has really been making strides with the quality of their fleeces, said Randy.
“It’s a pretty concerted effort on the part of North American breeders to produce the best they can,” he said.
With Suris the primary factors are lustre, lustre and lustre, Randy said. With Huacayas, their fleece is more like wool and it’s crimpy. Huacayas are the alpacas that resemble teddy bears in the face.
Every year for the last weekend in September, alpaca farms open their doors to the public for National Alpaca Weekend. The Brealeys participate, but say the community is welcome to come check out their farm anytime as long as they call ahead first to set up a time.
You can reach Chelsea Farms at 425-413-3900.
