Alpacas

The majority of people who own alpacas are either pet owners or commercial breeders.

We are one of the minority who combine both. Though I must admit that a disadvantage of this is the mourning period we find ourselves going through when we do farewell one of our wonderful creatures.

Our breeding programme

As well as the warm and fuzzies of owning an alpaca herd our goal is to strive for excellence in our breeding. Anyone can breed these beautiful animals, however to remain true to the integrity of the breed we work hard to fine tune the genetics to create not only the true alpaca look but also the finest of fibre (alpaca fleece).

While our alpaca family is currently relatively small with twelve animals, made up of one male, five wethers, four females, and two tui’s (young uns), we are looking forward to a larger herd in the near future. Four cria (babies) are due to be born in early 2008.

Babies born!

Holly’s cria, Gateaux, was born in January the chocolatie fella in the photo on left) and is now running around with Angel, Ruby's who was born in March.

As the site grows we will be introducing you to our alpacas individually so you will be able to recognize them when you pop in for a visit.

Alpaca facts

A couple of interesting alpaca facts to keep you going…

Did you know that alpacas generally give birth only on sunny days during daylight hours? How is that for good breeding tactics huh.

No, seriously, in their native Peru and Chile they are at the mercy of predators at night so have become conditioned to give birth during full visibility.

As they are one of the rare breeds of animal that do not lick their newborn dry they require sunshine to do this for them and will hold on for several weeks for the right conditions.

Alpaca Moments

These fascinating creatures are always entertaining to watch and I recall recently discovering the strength of the friendship between Spot, our appalossa wether who is white with brown spots and Daisy our pet white saanen goat.

Spot and Daisy had been spending time in each others company and appeared good buddies. It was a hot sunny Canterbury summers afternoon and Daisy was in a cantankerous mood and had taken to butting alpacas away from what she was jealously guarding as her patch of lush grazing. Late in the afternoon with patience obviously running out the alpacas began to take exception to such rudeness, especially in their grazing paddock and began chasing Daisy out of the way.

Well, Spot seeing his buddy in strife jumped into the fray and got between the now chastened Daisy and her chasers and kept a watching brief until long after things settled down. Daisy attached herself to her heroes side and behaved herself for the rest of the evening.

Along similar lines was the time a few months ago when we witnessed the truth that certain alpacas are natural guardians. Alpacas have a proven ability to protect flocks of sheep and goats and as we discovered, their own herd.

This particular day we had our male alpaca who had just recently discovered certain ‘urges’ in a neighbouring paddock to the rest of the herd which included three females, two of them pregnant.

Inevitably the herd eventually meandered it’s way to the side of the paddock where Mr Testosterone was watching and he made the most of the opportunity to make his presence and intentions known. It was then that Hot Socks a lovely natured gentle dark brown wether with cute white socks came to the fore and asserted his never before noticed authority..

Hot Socks bravely approached the posturing male who responded in the time honoured way of an upset alpaca with a vile gob of liquid green. Undeterred the usually very quiet animal backed Mr T away from the fence then organised the curious and somewhat bemused spectator alpacas to a less threatening distance. He then stood guard keeping in line with Mr T as he paced angrily up and down the fence line.

Since then we have noticed that Hot Socks really is a natural guardian, always on duty protecting the herd whenever he feels a threat.

Our last moment involves our two babies (cria) of the time, Rose a gorgeous fawn female and River a handsome white male.

We have found that it is common for quite young alpacas to become very playful for a short period just before dusk and this has been multiplied with two cria so close in age on the ground.

They had us in fits a week or two back just as the herd was settling down for the night. The first thing we saw and which brought it to our attention was this flash of white rushing past the window followed a second later by a flash of fawn. Rose and River appeared to be racing around a large invisible oval track at breakneck speed finishing and restarting at an invisible checkered flag midway between both of their mothers.

This went on for about six or seven circuits with brief pit stops to catch their breath as they crossed the finish line. River being the younger but more determined had us in hysterics when sometimes his body appeared to be about to overtake his long unbelievably flexible neck as he occasionally wiped out on a bend.

We were a little concerned though when he lost it on the last lap, his neck ploughing into the ground and his body somersaulting over it, however he was immediately up and racing again, now a white flash with two muddy knee patches. It was after this though that Mum decided enough was enough and bedtime was declared as the shadows deepened and we wiped the tears of laughter from our eyes.