We recently connected with Donna Justice and have shared our conversation below.

Donna, appreciate you joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

My husband Jason is a 6th generational apple farmer. Being a family that relies on income that can fluctuate greatly is challenging. In 2020 we had a late frost to our apple crop and about 80-90% of our crop was destroyed. At the time we owned 12 llamas. Allie Rae our eldest daughter fell in love with our neighbor’s llamas and we had started our own herd. Allie suggested allowing the public to come to our farm and we could do education about the llamas and allow people to interact with them. We at the time had been taking our llamas to shows all over the southeastern United States and people were always asking us about them and wanting to visit them. We began advertising on Facebook for the public to come to the farm on a set day/time to pet the llamas, learn about them, and walk them through obstacle courses which is what my girls do when showing them. This turned out to be popular and we found ourselves expanding the farm, growing our herd of llamas, and adding trekking with llamas, birthday parties, and taking llamas everywhere. Since 2020 we have offered tours/hikes year-round and have gotten the opportunity to allow many people to have met our llamas.

Donna, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

We are excited to be able to provide an opportunity for a family or individual to come onto a working farm and interact with an exotic animal. They can see directly how we take care of our animals and be given a hands-on opportunity to walk with our llamas and pet them. We are so proud to be able to host many school groups, daycares, homeschool groups, nursing homes, and special needs centers on our farm or we have come to them. Animals provide such a healing effect and we have been told the positive effects of being able to interact with our llamas. We are also able to show firsthand how we grow apples and how they are sent for processing to make many of the foods we enjoy. Llamas and alpacas can be raised to be very friendly and we train ours to do obstacles. When you visit the farm, kids as young as 2 are given the opportunity to walk them through our obstacle course and older visitors can take one of our llamas or alpacs on our 2 treks throughout our beautiful property. We bring llamas to special events, nursing homes, schools, business’, and most anywhere wanted. We do birthday parties at the farm for all ages and have a beautiful picnic area, playground area and creek to enjoy a great time with your family or friends. Everyone who comes to the farm is taught about camelids and many of the interesting things that make them different from many other animals. Our farm is located in beautiful Edneyville, NC and is in the heart of apple country. Our business, Ellaberry Llama Farm, is run by our family of 6 and one or more of us is present at all tours our hikes. Everything on the farm is by appointment only and you can book through email or calling our business line.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

When having a business that is mainly selling an experience, word of mouth is most important. I love that I have repeat customers that bring new visitors. People take pictures and post reviews of my business on Facebook, Instagram, Google, and Trip Advisor. When families visit our farm while traveling and then return when visiting again bringing additional family members it makes us so happy. Facebook has its flaws, but we generate lots of business by being able to reach lots of people in the community and visiting our area.

If you have multiple revenue streams in your business, would you mind opening up about what those streams are and how they fit together?

We decided after a couple of months to purchase a small building and use it to sell merchandise with our logos on it and to sell some items that are made from llama/alpaca fiber and are directly important from South America. We sell local apple cider slushies, and local honey as well as snacks and drinks. This gives our visitors another avenue to support our business as well as the llama/alpaca industry itself. We also have a kids llama train that for an additional cost, you can allow your children to go for a ride around the farm.

Contact Info:

• Website: ellaberryllamafarm.com
• Instagram: @ellaberry_llama_farm
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/ellaberryllamafarm