Badger Canyon Farm

When we (Kristen and Nick Long) met back in 1999, running a small family farm in eastern Washington was the furthest thing from our imagination. At the time, we were both living in the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC. Nick was working for an IT company, and I was working for National Geographic. Over the years, life and career have moved us from northern Virginia to North Carolina, Florida, Oregon and finally eastern Washington. Nick has worked for such companies as Capital One, Verizon, Amazon and now Microsoft. I returned to school to get a master’s degree in Architecture and worked as an architect for many years prior to becoming a full-time mom. With each and every move, we discussed the possibility of purchasing land and getting out of suburbia. When we started to have children, we began to dream of having a hobby farm where our children could learn to nurture others while teaching them responsibility. It wasn’t until our last move, our move to eastern Washington that this dream started to become a reality. What we didn’t know was that this dream of a hobby farm was just the beginning.

We quickly realized we wanted more from farming, specifically more from alpaca farming. Our initial plan to have a few fiber animals, grew to wanting high quality seed stock. To do this, we have both purchased and bred to exceptional animals with extraordinary genetic lines. We continue to make breeding decisions based upon breed standard confirmation, fiber qualities of uniformity, density, fineness, brightness and crimp style and overall animal disposition. In just our second year, we have built an award winning herd that enabled us to be named the #6 Top New Small Huacaya Breeder in the country. And we have been able to do all of this while raising three young kids and showing them how hard work and a lot of love can bring you success.