Nice Spice Cake & New Friends

We were honored to have guests from the Netherlands visit our farm this past weekend. It was delightful to meet with Pauline & Jan-Willem who operate a family owned mink ranch. Raising mink is interesting and they have 6,000 mink that sustains their family business. We learned a lot about their business and how closely it parallels alpaca ranching. The main difference of course, is that alpacas are not harmed in the harvest of their fleece.

Holland’s government has put a ban in place to stop all mink farming by 2024. This opens up new opportunities up for this family to transition from one luxury product to another. The Netherlands does not have a lot of alpacas and this is an opportune time for them to begin their alpaca business. As a token of their appreciation, they left us with a gift of their traditional spice cake. We are looking forward to sharing it with our friends and a pot of hot coffee.