The Animals

The Indulgence alpacas graze in my tree studded paddocks in the rolling hills near Wistow in the Adelaide Hills in South Australia.

Alpacas are herd animals - they are naturally gregarious, and form strong bonds with their wider family group. They can also bond well with sheep or goats, and will guard them from foxes. Their gentle and inquisitive nature and very individual personalities make them very engaging animals. Their soft padded feet, grazing style, and habit of communal dung piles all contribute to their low environmental impact.

I spend many of my days working outdoors with my animals, maintaining my farm, and caring for the regenerating native bush that forms a large part of my property.

When indoors, I enjoy watching them from  the windows of my weaving studio.

My aim is to breed placid animals that grow soft-handling fleece in a wide variety of natural colours.

Alpacas produce a single baby (known as a cria) after a pregnancy of around eleven to eleven and a half months - and occasionally over a year! Birth is very much a community event. The "aunties" gather round to see and smell the new arrival.

Babies are on their feet within an hour, and trotting along with their mother a few hours later. Some are running and practising acrobatics by the end of the day, while others take a few days to get the knack of managing those long legs. 

They stay with their mothers until weaning at 5 to 8 months. 

It is important to me that my animals are healthy and contented and easy to handle. I train them using a calm, trust based approach, so that routine health inspections and tasks such as shearing can be done safely and with minimum stress for the animals and me.

My animals are shorn (just like humans having a hair cut) once a year in the spring by an experienced professional alpaca shearer.  They always seem to enjoy the freedom of shedding that warm blanket, though they do look very different (much slimmer) and are sometimes a little unsure about who is who with the new hairstyles for an hour or two.