“This is kind of crazy,” Bob Ciciora says as he gazes from his kitchen window, past the wood deck and the pool house, at the four shaggy creatures peering out from behind a wire fence in his backyard. “But the opportunity presented itself, so why pass it up?”
The opportunity arose when Bob and Tammi Ciciora moved to an unincorporated area just south of Downers Grove and began thinking about what to do with their sprawling property. While some of their neighbors kept horses on their three- to five-acre lots, the Cicioras took the suggestion of a friend and decided to raise alpacas, whose fleece is used in sweaters and other apparel, as an investment.
Though they haven’t made a profit yet, and raising the animals has required a lot more effort than picking mutual funds, they say their venture has paid off in other ways–and eventually will produce a decent income as well.
Raising alpacas is a small but growing business–about 60,000 of the animals, which are related to llamas and native to Peru, are raised by some 4,200 farmers in the United States–but very few of them, if any, are found in suburban backyards. Half a dozen or so alpaca farms are in the Chicago area, mostly near outlying areas such as Wayne and Woodstock.
But the Cicioras are not out in the country. There’s a large subdivision at the end of their street, and a new retail development, anchored by an Ikea store, is under construction a mile away. Even closer, along Interstate Highway 55, new subdivisions are going up.
As out of place as the animals seem, they offer a reminder that the area was farm country only a generation or two ago, and the Cicioras and other homeowners in their unincorporated enclave experience at least a little of that rural life even as suburban development encroaches on the land around them.
Two houses down from the Cicioras, the trees around a large pond provide a home for heron. Deer, fox and even the occasional coyote wander through the neighborhood from nearby forest preserves.
“I call it rural suburbia. We have the best of both worlds here. You’re so close to everything, and yet the people across the street from us have horses,” says Cindy Fish, the Cicioras’ next-door neighbor, who adds to the local menagerie by raising chickens.
Nothing about the Cicioras’ background suggests they’d take up raising livestock in their back yard. In fact, there was a kind of “Green Acres” tug-of-war involved in their decision. After growing up in Elmhurst and living in Bolingbrook for 14 years, Bob had a hankering to move to a rural area, but Tammi, who grew up in the Detroit suburbs, balked at the idea. “I’m a suburban girl,” she declares. “I like cement and malls.”
By chance one day, they drove down a single-lane street off an I-55 exit road and discovered, among a string of old homes with large lots, a place that satisfied both of them. “When we sit out on the deck we feel like we’re in the country, and then we get out on Lemont Road and we’re in the suburbs,” Bob observes.
Bob, 43, has been a professional pilot since 1985. He met Tammi, 40, when she was a stewardess and they were both working for a commuter carrier. They married in 1988, and Tammi became a full-time mom after the birth of their son, Alex, now 13. They also have a daughter, Aimee, 11.
Once they bought their home late in 2002, the large lawn cried out to be put to use. “I kept thinking, ‘What are we going to do with this stuff?’ ” Bob says. “We’ve got an acre and a half back there that needed something.”
Because the Cicioras and their neighbors live in an unincorporated area, there are no local restrictions on raising animals. Bob knew a pilot who raised alpacas near Green Bay and who kept touting the idea to him. So he decided to look into the possibility, visiting farms and exploring Web sites.
The combination of a potentially lucrative investment, the improvements it would require on their property and the opportunity to give their children an example of how to run a business convinced the Cicioras to give alpacas a chance.
They purchased three female alpacas and stud services from Ray Rodriguez, who keeps about 45 of the animals-one of the state’s largest alpaca herds-on a former dairy farm in Long Grove.
One of the animals already had given birth by the time they arrived at the Cicioras last January, but the venture soon suffered a severe setback when another female died within a few weeks.
“That was really hard on Bob,” Tammi says. “He thought, ‘This is ridiculous, what are we putting our kids through?’ There have been times we’ve wanted to give up, but it’s important to show the kids that you see something through.”
The other two animals, Dianna and Loba, have fared much better: Dianna gave birth to a female cria, as alpaca offspring are known, named Brianna last June; Loba, who had arrived with a cria named J Lo, delivered her second offspring, Luxor, in September.
Although the animals eventually will be raised for their fleece, breeding currently is the focus of the fledgling U.S. alpaca industry. Importing alpacas has been banned due to fears of hoof and mouth disease, so the domestic supply is limited. That makes new offspring in high demand by the growing number of people attracted to alpaca farming as both an investment and a lifestyle change.
The Cicioras paid $52,000 for their animals and have sold their first two crias-Brianna and J Lo-for a total of $31,000. “If we keep selling these babies for a good price, it’ll be even more for the kids’ college funds,” Bob says.
Alpacas have a one-year gestation period, and three weeks after they give birth they’re able to breed again. Loba recently returned from a trip to Rodriguez’s farm, where she willingly accepted a male alpaca’s advances. “She was very happy,” Tammi reports. “She didn’t even have to paint her toenails first.”
After the initial investment, the largest cost is $500 a year per animal in livestock insurance; Bob estimates that the actual care and feeding of each alpaca runs between $100 and $200 a year.
But that doesn’t take into account the time and effort required to tend to their small herd. Around 7 o’clock every morning, after the kids have left on a school bus for Downers Grove, the Cicioras sweep out the barn, scoop up manure and fill the animals’ water buckets and give them their feed.
With no large-animal veterinarian in the area, the Cicioras also have to give the alpacas their monthly worming shots, and they clip their toenails every month or so.
As with any family farm, the children help out. Aimee, who has the fondness for animals that seems to be innate in pre-teen girls, has been designated the director of training, responsible for preparing the alpacas to be shown to potential buyers at livestock shows.
Alex has other interests-“If you had 14-year-old girls out here working, Alex would be out all the time,” his mother quips-but pitches in with the feeding and cleaning up.
The animals also take time away from projects more typical of new homeowners. Bob spent much of August through the end of 2003 putting up fencing for the alpacas’ pen and building walls onto what had been the horse stable, putting in time on what would soon be the alpacas’ home at the expense of his own. “The master bathroom is in shambles,” he laments.
If the images of the animals on coffee mugs and computer screen savers don’t make it obvious, a few minutes with the family out at the alpacas’ pen makes it clear that what Bob calls “the alpaca thing” has become driven as much by an affectionate fascination with the animals as a business opportunity.
Loba, a Peruvian import brought to the U.S. in 1991, still has a wild streak to her, but Dianna comes right up to Bob to eat from his hand and allows a stranger to stroke her neck.
“They’re funny looking, but they have their own little faces,” Bob says. “They’re gentle, too.” Tammi adds. “I’m just drawn to watching them.”
The Cicioras don’t have pets, and it seems the alpacas are beginning to fill that role. “They’re getting that way,” Bob admits. “But at the same time we are in business. When we sold the first baby, Aimee was upset.”
A little dose of farm life has made Bob want to immerse himself even more deeply in the rural/suburban lifestyle. “I’d like to have a larger garden, an apple orchard.”
“He’s getting crazy on me,” Tammi says. “There’ll be bees out there. I told him I will not be spinning alpaca fleece. I draw the line there.”
