Golden fleece: a growing herd of fluffy Andeans, prized for their precious fiber, finds a home in northeast Mississippi.

When Hurricane Ivan blew through the state in September 2004, people from all across the northern parts of Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana were quick to open their homes to neighbors from the southern regions of these states who were fleeing the storm's cruel winds. Ingrid Welch of Etta, west of New Albany, didn't hesitate to offer assistance by providing temporary shelter to more then a dozen displaced Mobile, Alabama, residents.

Fortunately for the Welch family, their visitors--15 wooly alpacas--were not particularly fussy about their accommodations. Pleased to escape their storm-damaged farm to the south, the animals were only too happy to find themselves a shady spot under a tree on the Welches' 20-acre alpaca farm.

Ivan was a wake-up call for the handful of alpaca breeders in the three coastal states. Concerned about future storms, Welch says breeders in Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana formed the Deep South Alpaca Connection, with a mission to assist alpaca owners in times of natural disasters. Fortunately, says Welch, hurricanes Katrina and Rita caused few problems for the animals. "Besides losing power and limited water, everyone in the region did fine," she says.

Six years ago, in her home state of Colorado, Ingrid Welch wasn't planning for hurricanes or thinking of alpacas. But that would change after she visited a local agricultural fair in Pagosa Springs. As she walked the grounds with her sister on a sunny fall morning, one booth in particular caught her attention.

"They had several alpacas on display," says Welch, who was 27 years old at the time, working as a preschool teacher, and contemplating starting a family. "They also were selling alpaca fur teddy bears, which I'm sure they were hoping would result in the sale of an animal."

It did. Ingrid took home her first alpaca. "I had never seen one before. They were just so cute and gentle, and I thought, 'This would be a great pet.'"

Ingrid and her husband, Anthony, had just purchased a house on a couple of acres in the Colorado mountains, and she was thinking about a new career. "I had a B.A. in communications but always seemed to end up teaching," Ingrid says. "I started looking for job options that would allow me to stay at home and raise a family." It was then that breeding alpacas came to mind.

"I didn't know anyone else with alpacas, and I'm sure everyone thought I was crazy," she says. "But raising them gave me the freedom to stay at home with my family and also have my own career. Alpacas are relatively easy to handle compared with other livestock. In fact, many women now raise them."

Welch soon became addicted to the soft-furred natives from the South American Andes. Within a year, two more alpacas joined Zeus, the gelding Welch had purchased from the Colorado fair.

But three just weren't enough. Welch wanted to build her own herd and knew she would need more land on which to raise them.

When Anthony came down to northern Mississippi to visit his family in 1999, he found the ideal property. "We jumped in with both feet," Ingrid admits. "We sold our 2-acre house in Colorado and moved to a 20-acre property in Mississippi and decided we were going to fill the pastures with alpacas!"

Today, HoneyBee Alpacas--named in honor of the official state insect--is home to more than a dozen animals.

The alpaca is actually a smaller relative of the camel and llama. It chews its cud like a cow and easily grazes on pasture grasses and hay, making it relatively inexpensive to feed. But it has a long gestation period (about a year) and usually gives birth to a single baby, called a cria. This means that alpaca herds grow fairly slowly compared to conventional livestock.

And alpacas for breeding stock are not cheap. They can cost anywhere from $5,000 to $40,000, and considerably more for high-quality males. The reason for this, according to Welch, is supply and demand.

Alpacas were first brought to the United States in 1984, but importing ceased in 1998. There are currently around $5,000 animals in this country, which is trying to build a competitive alpaca textile market. Alpaca fiber is one of the softest natural fibers in the world and is highly sought after in Europe and Japan. Although the quality and quantity of fiber in the United States have been improving each year due to careful selective breeding practices, the long gestation period means fiber production is expected to only gradually increase over the next decade.

"The market will eventually become a fiber market rather than a breeder's market," says Welch, who has her own animals sheared and sells the fiber. Anthony has now become a skilled alpaca shearer. "He uses a large hand-held electric shearer, and it takes about half an hour to shear one animal," Ingrid says. "We get about five to ten pounds of fiber per animal."

The fiber is sent to Peru for processing. "And in return, we get the end-product for retail sale. You can generally make five sweaters out of one alpaca shearing. But you can also make blankets, hats, gloves, and other items. Pashminas have been very popular in the South." Welch says alpaca yarn can bring from $6-$30 a skein, and knitted sweaters average $100 or more. She also sells the yarn through the retail store Crystal Palace in Oxford and offers handmade products to people who tour her farm.

Like most alpaca breeders, Ingrid welcomes visitors to the HoneyBee Alpacas farm, and prospective buyers can even stay for a day. She says this is a fun, hands-on way for people to learn about raising alpacas. The working guests "do everything from feeding the barn dog and cleaning up in the morning to giving shots, clipping toenails, and entering data in the computer for record keeping."

The farm has been educational in other ways, too. Welch takes her alpacas to local schools, and classes have visited the ranch on field trips to see the animals. And she says it has been a good learning experience for her five-year-old daughter, Zoe. "The animals are good around small children. Children can easily halter and walk them," she says.

As a former teacher, Welch was quick to realize that the animals can contribute to a child's education. "I use them to teach mathematics, such as figuring out how much to feed the animals or the dose of medicine to give, as well as some science and, in general, responsibility."

Occasionally, too, the animals will give Ingrid's family a laugh. "I have one mischievous gelding who loves to eat anything. He has been known to untie our shoes or will try to eat our hair. Once I came home and found him with the dog food bin stuck on his head, covering his whole face. Obviously he had been stealing again!"

Tours of the alpaca farm can be arranged by appointment by calling 662/236-6228 or by e-mailing [e-mail]. Overnight accommodations, including meals, are available for $100 per person or $150 per couple. For more information on the farm, visit www.honeybeealpacas.com.