About our Alpaca Farm
2010 – 2011 were wonderful show years for us! Many Color Championships, Reserves, and a basket full of Blues! We could not be happier for our small farm. In March 2011, we sold our Farm and have been completing major renovations on our Richmond home. We will have limited show appearances during our transition but hope to be back in full force by Winter of 2013! We have gone VIRTUAL – we have alpacas at several wonderful farms located in VA, NC & TN. You can see us at many locations!
Instead of spending time traveling to shows, we’ll be home working on renovations and promoting the alpaca industry on a much more local basis. Teri will be launching her very popular farm event at Graves Mountain Lodge, Syria Va “Let’s Get Naked © from Toes to Clothes – a fiber festival celebrating shearing various animals to processing fiber to creating clothes to wear. www.LGNFiberFestivalFireweed Farm Alpacas is a small breeding operation with Big Ideas! Although we only own a relatively small number of our own alpacas, we act as a broker for many of the other small breeders who we’ve helped over the years to start their own breeding programs. By helping our clients sell the production of their own breeding programs, we can help ensure their success in the alpaca industry and also offer prospective buyers the sort of selection that can usually be found only with a much large breeder.
Teri Phipps is the Farm’s General Manager. Teri honed her special event and conference planning skills as the Conference Chair for the AOBA 1996 National Conference, and by helping to stage and organize the 1995 Denver Symposium on Importation, the 1996 National Fiber Co-op Forum, and the 1997 Mid-Winter Conference. Teri has trained as a Cooperative Extension Small Acreage Management Consultant, and is also a professional shearer and transporter.
A Commitment to Education: For more than sixteen years, Fireweed has pioneered beginning and continuing education for breeders, with classes like hands-on fiber education, TTeam Training© clinics, and neonatal labs and herd management seminars hosted by Dr. LaRue Johnson of Colorado State University. The couple has written a very popular book that is the companion manual for their “Alpaca Buyer’s Clinic: Getting Started with the Building Blocks of the Alpaca Industry.” They’ve hosted a number of classes at Fireweed Farm, ranging from an introduction to basic reproductive and herd management to shearing, fecal and parasite clinics. In 2009, Teri debuted a new fiber & shearing festival “Lets Get Naked”© and “Toes to Clothes”©. With such continuing education, as well as pre- and post-sale consultative services, Teri and David are committed to their customers’ success.
Clinics: Teri and David host a number of classes at their Farm, including their acclaimed "Alpaca Breeder’s Clinic: Get Started With The Building Blocks of the Alpaca Industry," Neonatal Labs with the renowned Dr. LaRue Johnson, and herd management topics such as shearing and fecal/parasite clinics.
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