About US  Hello and  welcome to our website.  We are Vicki and Paul Aikins,  the "V" and "P"  in VIP ALPACAS.  After Paul's retirement, we decided to escape the fast-paced urban lifestyle to more quiet, pastoral surroundings of the country.    Vicki was born and raised in rural Ontario, but Paul had always been a urban born ‘city slicker’ so small town life had always appealed to him.   In October 2004, our dream came true when we purchased a 10 acre farm in Sunderland.  Fondly nicknaming it, ‘Aikins Acres’, the farm kept us very busy,  providing us with a variety of chores from growing asparagus to raising turkeys.  We loved farm life, but longed to find an easier form of livestock to care for, something unique, profitable and above all rewarding.  We toured farms and researched many options. Then one day, we were introduced to Alpaca Rancher, Kathleen Holmes from Salem Alpacas in Manilla, Ontario.   It wasn’t long before those beautiful, soft, cuddly, gentle creatures captured our full attention and we fell hopelessly in love. We learned that alpaca ranching is a fairly new enterprise in North America.  It’s already a thriving industry in the U.S.A. and our own Western Provinces.  In fact,  Ontarians are now just ‘catching on’ to the rewards and profitability of this type of agriculture.    Our original idea was to start off slow, perhaps with one or two animals. Our long term goals were to offer breeding services, sell quality animals, their highly prized fleece and fleece products and their natural wonder product – alpaca fertilizer!  After a much preparation, re-organization and fencing, we began looking at alpacas for sale. While surfing the internet in April 2006, we came across an advertisement about a huge herd dispersal at an Alpaca ranch in Alberta.  Due to a partnership dissolution, the business was selling off  their quality animals.  The savings and investment value of a ‘package deal’ was too good to pass up. To make a long story short, after lengthy negotiations, we committed to buying 13 very fine animals, 8 pregnant females, 4 young maidens and 4 handsome males; all very strong and healthy with super fine fleece and extinguished pedigrees. Today, we have 49 Alpacas and we love them all.  This is a rewarding lifestyle.

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