History Of
Stachowski Alpacas
Biography for Anthony Stachowski, DVM
Anthony Stachowski, DVM has been an equine and camelid veterinarian for 22 years, graduating from the Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine in 1978. He successfully built a three man ambulatory practice which he just recently sold.
In 1984 Stachowski Alpacas was formed on a 150+ acre farm in Mantua, Ohio. Thirty alpacas grew to over 600 in just 16 years. Anthony was a pioneer by being the first privately owned alpaca farm to purchase, breed, show and, of course, sell to investors and animal lovers. He started with a simple philosophy "Your Success is Our Success" and started hundreds of new breeders in the alpaca industry by helping them every step of the way. His in-depth knowledge about animals allowed him to offer complete services including nutrition, breeding management, evaluation, preventative medicine and husbandry.
Anthony helped develop the first alpaca shows, serving on the ALSA show committee, the first alpaca registry, ARCS, serving as President for three years, and first organizational committees for our national breed organization, AOBA. He attended and exhibited his alpacas at every alpaca conference from Shanty Creek, Michigan; Kalispell, Montana; Salt Lake City, Utah; Atlanta, Georgia; Spokane, Washington; Burlington, Vermont; Estes Park, Colorado; Denver, Pueblo, Riudoso, Columbus, and Louisville, Kentucky.
His eye for that well balanced, eye appealing alpaca with presence, "a real show stopper," came from his early years training and showing Arabian horses. At age 21 he was the youngest AHSA , “large-R" judge in 3 divisions. Today he judges alpacas and fiber nationally as well as in Australia and Europe. In 1994 Anthony joined Tom Hunt and Phil Mizrahie as their sales agent and later partner for Peruvian importations. He helped select each alpaca in the altiplano by visiting cooperatives throughout the Cuzco and Puno areas. Days became weeks with little food, sleeping on skins on the floors of small mud houses, each morning bringing new excitement with hundreds, or sometimes thousands, of alpacas to evaluate. Only the "best of the best" were ear-tagged for the United States. In this stark barren environment with very little vegetation, the alpaca dot the landscape like multi-colored flowers. Anthony organized the sales in Tacna, Peru, transportation to Key West, Florida and animal health and nutrition, a process lasting up to a year.
Today Stachowski Alpacas is a premier Peruvian Alpaca Breeding facility offering for sale both suri and huacaya alpacas. You will also see Anthony in the show ring throughout the United States, proudly exhibiting his alpacas to blue ribbon and champion recognition.
To be a successful alpaca breeder, you must understand and balance the building blocks for fiber (density, fineness, uniformity, luster, crimp/locks and color) and conformation through pedigree analysis and selection. There is no "cookie cutter" recipe for Anthony's success! His dedication to improving the breed, coupled with a fine eye to evaluate, current veterinary knowledge to excel in husbandry, nutrition and genetics, and 7-day-a-week total commitment has made him a leader in the alpaca industry.
