Alpaca magic – Fiona Wallace shares her love of these lovely creatures
LIFE at my croft, Longmuir, has never been boring! It all started in June, 17 years ago at the annual four-day Royal Highland Show near Edinburgh, when I was captivated by the stand showing alpacas owned by Pat Bentley of Syke House in Cumbria.
Despite never having met alpacas before, it would be true to say that I fell in love with them.
I remember rushing back to my husband and, in my excitement, asking him, “Can I buy an alpaca?”
“Yes,” he said, and handed over his cheque book.
The following day I asked him if I could buy another one.
“Yes,” came the reply. On the last day of the show, my husband decided to visit the alpaca stand to collect what he assumed were two alpaca jumpers.
Without a word, Bill Bentley pointed to the pen, showing him two very much alive woolly jumpers. If the key to keeping your marriage alive is being able to surprise your husband, then that was the equivalent of a 2000 volt shock!
I had no field at that time, nowhere for my new acquisitions to live, so my alpacas returned to Cumbria. Two months later, in August, I bought another two alpacas in Sussex.
The arrival of foot and mouth in 2001 meant no animal movement, and I did not set eyes on my alpacas for 18 months.
In the early years, once I had some fields for the alpacas to settle into, they were something of a novelty for passers-by, who seemed to doubt what they were seeing. What were they looking at? Could they trust their eyes?
Once, a police car was passing the field, or so I thought, until a screech of brakes brought their car to an abrupt halt.
Out jumped two policemen, who rushed over to the fence and remarked, “We thought we had seen everything in West Lothian!”
I simply said the alpacas would probably be thinking the same about them!
Next to arrive at our croft were sheep – I wanted to learn about husbandry. It was a rapid learning curve for me at lambing time. I nearly learned all about divorce instead . . .
The llamas, Freddie and Bruce, were next to join us. They proved to be marvellous flock guardians, keeping foxes and uncontrolled dogs away from the lambs in spring. In fact, I’d go as far as to say they looked after the alpacas, too.
I decided to write a children’s book. It was meant to be fun, but educational as well – not many of the children who visited the croft knew about alpacas.
“Alpaca Magic” was launched at the end of November 2005, and the “Friend” gave it a spot the following year in the magazine.
A newspaper headline in 2008 read, Welcome to Wild West Lothian as rustlers steal alpacas. Our herd had vanished from our fields at Longmuir Croft. Police suspected thieves had used a truck to whisk them away.
During this difficult time, everyone was kind. They did not hesitate to spring into action and help us look.
In the evening one day, my husband went out searching the braes nearby for the missing herd, when I saw a head bobbing in the distance.
I walked the distance in between and was astonished to see all my animals. They were in a nearby gully grazing quite happily! The farmer who owned the field was as stunned as we were.
All the good folk who had helped stopped traffic on the roads to escort the herd home safely on foot. I will always be grateful for the support I had on that day.
For a while I was struggling with what to do with all their shorn fleeces, until I saw an ad in an alpaca magazine offering to turn them into teddy bears.
So we did, and sold the beautiful resulting bears as collectibles – at least until the alpacas turned grey and we couldn’t do it any more.
Owning alpacas and llamas changed my life completely. Alpacas are the least expensive livestock to keep and they give so much for so little.
Now, in my seventy-fifth year, I have only a few remaining, but I hope to outlive them all so I can continue to provide the love and care they so deserve! n
Fiona Wallace shares her experiences of owning these lovely animals.