January 2025

Very handy neighbours

January is never a good month as far as I am concerned, too wet, too dark, too cold which is why I felt the need to disappear to the sun for a few weeks leaving my very kind neighbour to care for the woollies. I would like to say that whilst away I did meet the president of the South African Alpaca Breeders Association who gave me a tour of her alpacas and fibre workshop. Alison was the recipient of the very first alpacas to arrive in South Africa from Chile and its quite interesting to see the difference between hers and mine, my lot being generally bigger, with a squarer face. I think the main reason for the difference is the grass – we have lots, even in winter and in South Africa the paddocks were dust bowls so during their summer the alpacas basically survive off hay and even in the winter the grass there is much tougher. She was also saying that they have very few professionals that work with alpacas, the vets treat them as exotics, which is not only expensive they also don’t have any specialist vets. They also need to shear themselves due to limited access to professional shearers – but she seemed to know so many people from the UK alpaca world we seemed to have quite an overlap of people we both knew. That said she was producing some beautiful products and I was extremely jealous of her workshop, all self-taught which gives me some sort of hope.

So whilst I was off enjoying myself in the sun my lovely neighbour was trudging through mud each morning but my woollies seem to have the same effect on her as they do on me and I will leave you with her experience:

“I’ve had the great enjoyment of caring for the woollies this month and getting to know their different characters. The January rain has caused the alpacas to shelter in the shed a lot and I’ve had the pleasure of their company as I filled the hay nets (alpacas eating from them as I did so) and whilst mucking out. On the rare occasion we saw the sunshine, they were out sunbathing in the field or playing with the christmas trees. 

Most days Lucha followed me around and tried to accompany me into the food shed. She also muscled her way past the older alpacas for carrots. Lucha does like her food!

Cusco always bolted towards me whenever I brought carrots and apples. Both boys (Jester and Cusco) often quarrelled over these treats, especially Cusco who usually tried to snatch away the treat I was trying to give to Jester. 

Inti has gradually become used to me catching and cuddling him. He’s also been getting comfortable with head scratches. 

I very much loved my time with the woolies and caring for them.”

As you can see the Christmas trees are now decimated, but still good for scratching – and after a week back my woollies are starting to like me again – I think I have been relegated to second favourite human!