Rose Arbor Farm

Moving to the Country!

Our long time dream of country life was realized in 1994 when we moved from the inner city of Portland to our three acres near Woodburn.

Raising Sheep

Our first experience with sheep was with the large Rambouillet breed. They had lovely wool but they were so big! We decided to "downsize" and discovered Shetland sheep. Shetlands are very gentle and friendly. We bred Shetland sheep between 2003 and 2006 and found that they were much easier to work with.

Adding Llamas

When we started the Shetland flock we decided to get a couple of llamas to guard the sheep and go packing and hiking with us. We fell absolutely in love with these gentle and intelligent animals.

Finally Alpacas!

As we educated ourselves about our llamas and other camelids we discovered alpacas and knew this was the perfect combination of business and pleasure we had been looking for.

We started our alpaca herd in the Fall of 2005 with a bred female and her young female cria. Our first "baby", called a cria, was born on June 10th of 2006. He has a champion father and it definitely shows! He has grown into quite a "stud". We have sold some of our herd, but it continues to grow.

We are constanty trying to improve our herd. The shows are just one way that we get feedback on our herd and we continue to improve them through careful breeding decisions.

We are excited about the opportunities and the enjoyment to come!