By: Abigail Murphy
An American Airline flight crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center—shattered glass and smoke streaked across the skyline.
Bill Peacock was in Washington D.C. about to retire from his job in the Federal Aviation Administration when the events of 9/11 occurred. In the wake of national anxieties, he and his wife agreed to get away from big cities.
“What we decided to do was buy 25 acres so my wife could have a garden and I could have a tractor,” Peacock said. “When we told our daughter, who was at the University of Georgia at the time, what we were going to do, she said that she would like to raise animals and livestock.”
However, part of the agreement was the livestock couldn’t be harmed to make a profit. This led them to buy a couple of alpacas. Now, Peacock has been in the alpaca business for the past 20 years.
Outside the city limits of Alexander City, Alabama, a gravel road off Highway 259 is marked by a dark green and yellow sign with writing in white text: “Southern Star.”
Peacock starts each morning here. He cleans out the barn, feeds the animals and checks in on the alpacas’ health.
When Peacock started the business, he could sell a breed female alpaca for about $20,000. Once the economy took a turn in 2008, the business never quite recovered and now, he said, “I'm lucky to get $1,000, $1,500 at the most.”
According to “The Alpaca Bubble Revisited,” Peacock’s experience was not an isolated one. The study found the largest price decline was in the years of 2007-2008 with an average loss of $8,000, and the price continued to decline since.
Agriculture bubbles are common, especially with products that can be produced in small groupings, such as alpacas. Additionally, the alpaca industry had little to no agribusiness investors, which caused the bubble to be met with greater severity, according to the study.
To make up for the lost profit, Peacock’s solution was to have a store with alpaca goods and open a kennel for pet boarding on the farm’s property.
“If you have a farm that you're trying to make money on, you have to be diversified,” he said. “It kind of evolves with whatever's going on. You've got to be flexible.”
Originally his daughter, Amber, ran and owned the boarding business. Since her death four years ago, Shelly Turner, manager of Southern Star Pet Grooming and Boarding, recently became the new owner. Originally working at the kennel as a high school summer job, Turner worked with the Peacocks since she was 16.
“Mr. Bill is a busy body,” she said. “He is a hard worker, and he is extremely caring.”
Turner recalled a time when one of their crias, or infant alpacas, had health complications. Peacock and she were in the tack room of the stable with hairdryers and blankets to keep the cria’s body temperature up. Peacock took night shifts to care for the cria and bottle fed it.
“Every couple of hours, he was in the tack room trying to make that stubborn baby eat,” Turner said. “The cria survived and eventually went back to nursing on his mom. We named him ‘Hump,’ short for Humphrey, my maiden name.”
While Turner only owns the pet boarding portion, because of her years and bond with the Peacocks, Turner said she jokingly claims partial ownership of the alpacas. Peacock said alpacas tend to be easy livestock to care for, but there are still two concerns when raising alpacas that keep him busy—predators and parasites.
“You have to protect them,” he said. “They have no protection themselves. The worst thing they can do is spit on whatever is attacking them, so you can imagine spitting on the dog or a coyote or whatever really doesn't do much.”
The solution to this is putting up a good fence and having a guard animal. In Peacock’s case, they have Great Pyrenees dogs. While he does enjoy the alpacas, he said he discovered an unexpected love for the dogs. The dogs tend to stay in the barn as part of their duty, but when they have puppies, Peacock said, it is a joy getting to train them.
The second protection needed is against parasites, which requires monitoring the animals to catch the parasite before it becomes a problem. Peacock said the Auburn University College of Veterinary Medicine comes out with their senior class to help with shots for their alpacas as part of his prevention process. Additionally, his morning check-ins on the Alpacas’ health is another preventive measure.
While he is running a farm now, Peacock said he does not feel like anything previously prepared him for this. He credits his motivation and ability to it just being in his blood. His parents were farmers in Alabama, but for most of his life he grew up in Florida. Peacock said he still remembers his mother going out to scatter the grains to feed the chickens under the hot Floridan sun.
Peacock considered doing the traditional retirement plan of going back to Florida. However, he said, “We weren't into golf and tennis and those kinds of things.” Instead, they wanted Alabama where there’s still seasons and open land, he said.
Peacock, 74, noted there will be a point where he won’t be able to do the labor as he once did. However, he said he’s going to keep the farm going for as long as he is physically able.
“It was no brainer for me,” Peacock said as he thought back to when he first decided to purchase the land. “I enjoy doing all the work on the farm, and I enjoy taking my dogs for hikes through the woods on our farm. It's just a nice lifestyle.”
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