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 April giving me morning kisses. She was born on April 1st, but by no means an April fool, hense the name. 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 on our farm of Patton, a herdsire from Carrell Farms. Her mother is small and she weighed only 12 pounds at birth. There was no problem with her birth and we saw her when she was geting checked out by the others as I was leaving for work. 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 most friendly cria we have ever had. She always comes up to talk and give kisses with people whenever we enter the barn and somestimes the pasture. Joe says she is the sweetest one yet.
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Joe took this picutre in early April showing most of our alpacas, girls in one pasture and the boys across the fence. We really liked how it shows so many of them and of the new cria April. If you look close you can see the equines in the lower pasture. All that is missing is the goats and they are not in the picture. Spring time is a wonderful time on the farm with new grass growing nad new crias pronking. Time for flowers to bloom and to plant the vegetable garden. Sometimes the little ones are so playful that they get the older ones to going with them. We were blessed with the last 2 of our 3 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 daughters Tessie Snowhite with her new cria Thunder and Tabby's new daughter Tulip.These two little ones were born 3 days apart and are always together. It is very hard to tell them apart but Thunder has a very small brown spot on his back. This is Tessie's first cria and she had no problem and is an excellent mother. Tulip is a very nice alpaca, both were sired by Patton from Carrell Farms. Both of these births were in the afternoon, very unusual for our farm. We were concerned about the late hour, but both seem to be doing very well. I think perhaps it was because of all the rain showers and wanting to give birth when the sun was shinning. It is a great joy to watch them all playing in the pasture.
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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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