Fiber Business Pays Off For Rural Woman

Fiber Business Pays Off For Rural Woman 30-3-9 When Lynda Carothers opened Carothers Country Fiber Mill, she expected to keep busy processing wool and hair from sheep, llamas and alpacas. What surprised her was the unusual requests that have come her way. "We once got 50 lbs. of bearded collie hair that we processed and blended with 10 percent sheep wool for a customer," says Carothers. Another customer brought her a load of buffalo hair. With the help of her daughter and son, she washes, dries, picks, cards, and spins fibers for herself and a growing number of customers. "I get llama and alpaca fiber from all over the country due in part to my 15 years of experience breeding llamas," explains Carothers. "Most of the mohair and sheep fleece I get comes from the five-state upper Midwest." It was her breeding of Argentinean llamas that got Carothers thinking about processing fibers. The breed is noted for producing a very high quality fiber similar to alpaca and two to three times the amount of other common llamas. She has one of the largest Argentinean llama herds in the U.S. Much in demand, bred females sell for $7,500 to $10,000 and breeding males for $5,000 to $8,000. After years of long wait times to have her fiber processed, she saw an opportunity to get into the business. In less than a year, she has built up a backlog of customers waiting to be processed. Her spinning orders alone have a four-month wait. Carothers reports that while small fiber mills are springing up around the country, there is still plenty of excess demand. She credits the expansion of small flocks as well as growing interest in fiber craft and art. When she decided to start her business, Carothers had a couple of advantages. In addition to her reputation in the llama industry, she had worked in merchandising and marketing for a sweater retailer. Even so, her first step was to work with a local small business adviser to develop a business plan. The plan helped her get a loan from the Small Business Administration. "It was a long process, but it was worth it," says Carothers. While some of her $100,000 in equipment was new, she also took advantage of larger mills that were going out of business in this country due to foreign competition. She was able to buy a used 24-head spinner for the same price as a new spinner with 1/3 the capacity. "The biggest challenge was getting used equipment up and running, and getting training on it is difficult," says Carothers. "We had to have a man come from Ontario to repair it when we had problems." At this point, she is slowly learning to operate the complicated machine, using only four of the 24 heads and spinning only about 4 lbs. a day. Eventually she plans to be spinning about 20 lbs. a day. Carothers herself continues to do felting and other crafts with her llama fiber while processing for others. She encourages others to consider setting up a similar small business. "There is no shortage of business to go around," she says. "You can purchase smaller equipment or large, new or used. It all depends on your planned output." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Carothers Country Fiber Mill, 23798 Whitman Deering Drive, Minnesota City, Minn. 55959 (ph 507 689-2677; Lynda@CarothersCountryFarm.com; www.carotherscountryfarm.com).

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