Sometimes you get so bogged down in the sheer detail of starting up a venture like moving to a new country to breed alpacas that it’s easy to forget just why you want to do it.

We’re making a big lifestyle change in moving from apartment in London + commuting to office +  geek jobs to living on a (hopefully) sustainable lifestyle block in NZ. And we’d be doing that even if alpacas didn’t feature in that vision.

But for us alpacas seem to just fit perfectly into our plans. They have a lot of characteristics that make them suitable for what we’re trying to achieve.

1. They’re managable - they are much smaller than their big brother the llama. Even basic sheep fencing (no barbed wire though) will keep them in their paddocks.
2. They have a friendly disposition (this also helps with #1). Personally, I don’t want to keep animals that hate me.
3. They’re intelligent, curious and often playful, and they have calm energy (or at least I’ve always felt calm in their presence). After spending 10 years working in offices, it’s a pleasant change being around creatures that radiate positive energy.
4. They pronk.
5. Unlike me, they are hardy with decent immune systems. This means they are easy to look after and don’t get many diseases – perfect for the first-time livestock handler.
6. They give birth in daylight (and – oh yes – I really like my sleep).
7. You don’t need many of them to make a return. This means you can make a living without having much land (about 5 to an acre is suggested). Australian-style mega ranches with thousands of identikit lowest-common-denominator animals does not work for me.
8. The business model is ethically sound – returns come from selling animals to other owners and from fibre production. As I’m a vegetarian, I couldn’t in all honesty raise livestock for slaughter.
9. Alpacas are gentle on the land. As I mentioned before, they have soft padded feet instead of hooves.
10. Oh yes – Adeline chirps in at this point with ‘They’re cute’. Sometimes the female perspective is disarmingly accurate. The fact is, I just love them

Posted by Anthony.