The Past (1890 to 2007)
The Shadyside Farm was founded in 1890 by William Schowe.
The journey of the Shadyside Alpaca Farm began over a century ago. In the late 1800’s Michelle’s great grandfather,
William Schowe, started the Shadyside Farm. Over the last century, not only the farm, but also the house has
been passed down through the family to keep the tradition of family heritage alive.
During the years that William and his family worked the land, they also raised chicken, horses, and cattle.
When he handed the farm over to his son, Earl in the 1930’s, Earl and his wife Bernice continued to farm
the land as well but also planted 950 Red Cedar seedlings in the 1940’s to ensure the Shadyside name! They
continued in the tradition of chicken, horses, and cattle, but added pigs and the beautiful peacocks that got
to wander freely around the farm.
In the 1960’s was when the farm got handed over to Earl’s son, Gaylord and his wife Gloria. Earl and Bernice
didn’t go far though...they built a house on the farm right next door so the grandkids could come over and
play every day. Believe it or not...the peacocks would go visit as well. Everybody’s favorite was Ike.
Earl had named him after President Dwight D. Eisenhower (Ike) because he was tame enough that he would come up
and eat out of your hand!
Gaylord and Gloria continued with the farming, planting sweet corn and beans. They kept the cattle and peacocks.
Gaylord added coon hunting dogs (a hobby he still does to this day), his favorite being the Walker breed
that won him many trophies over the years.
In the late 1990’s, it was time to pass the farm on again. We were fortunate enough to be in the position that
we could take over. Gaylord and Gloria followed in his parent’s footsteps and built a new house right next door.
This just makes it easier for Gaylord to continue to run the farming aspect and still keep his cattle (he did
take his coon dogs over to their new house) as a hobby so he doesn’t get bored in retirement.
In 2005, a tragic accident took the last of the peacocks when the main cattle barn burnt down.
The Present (2008 and 2009)
In 2008 we made our move to include alpacas as one of the livestock animals being kept on the farm. Alpacas
joined cattle as the only other livestock now being raised at the farm. In addition to the livestock, the
farm has some hay fields for the cattle and many fields still growing crops.
We fell in love with Alpacas and decided to make the transition to Shadyside Alpaca Farm (we’re working
on my dad that they are a much more interesting hobby than cattle so we are hoping he’ll come around).
The alpacas are living in a converted side of a pig barn. The 3 part barn is used for storage of items in the other 2
areas. It took quite some time to work over the ground and interior to support alpacas. Using ideas from other
farms we visited we fabricated interior walls using 2x4s and goat panels. The exterior fence is 4 foot high goat
woven wire fencing braced by 8 foot fence posts and T-posts as needed. Additional runs of high tensile wire were added
to the top to create a safe area.
After only 3 months of having the boys in this small area it was obvious we needed to expand so we added about a 25 to 33
percent addition but it was not long before they mowed that flat. Now it's time to get that back pen finished so we can
rotate our lawn mowers as needed.
Currently we only have all huacayas males. We are trying to learn the ropes and focusing on how to make a viable business
using alpaca fleece based products. We enjoy taking our boys to shows and are hoping to take our current batch to another
show or two before they are over 2 years of age.
In late 2009 we are looking at getting some young boys to have another round of fun taking them to shows and continuing to
learn about alpacas and the alpaca industry.
The Future (2010 and beyond)
This is the unknown for sure. Our hopes are to start working on obtaining some additional property adjacent to our farm.
Once we have the secured we are hoping to build a barn specifically for alpacas. This would be our primary barn used for
females and cria. So until we are able to do this we will likely be without a breeding program. However, time has
taught me to never say never.
As we are not the biggest fans of cattle, we are hoping that someday we may be able to convert the area and barns used for them
over to alpacas as well. Only time will tell if and when something like that could happen.
We have three beautiful daughters, someday, when the house is too big for us, hopefully it will go to one of them and they
can continue with the family traditions and heritage that have been passed down through five generations on the Shadyside
Farm and they can add to the history.
|
|
Farm Activities
4/24/10 - Elijah & Jupiter come home!
Show Schedule
5/21/10 - Nationals Fort Wayne
|
