So as Adeline’s birthday treat we visited Surico – an alpaca farm nestled in the gently bubbling hills just shy of Lake Rotorua. As one of the nearest alpaca farms to us, we couldn’t resist a visit. And we’re rather glad we did.

Within minutes of arriving our host Hermione took us through to a pen and we watched the very miracle of creation unfold a few feet in front of us. Yep, it was breeding time alpaca style – and this meant one very happy male whose orgling sounds were bouncing around the hills.

Update – and here’s one I found on YouTube:

In the pen next door were the new born crias and their mums, all humming reassuringly to each other. Beautiful little things. One female who had given birth a week ago was already lying down next to the fence – this being typical female behaviour indicating that one whole week was long enough to be footloose and fancy free. She wanted in on the action.

Hermione took us around her farm and introduced us to some of her 150 alpacas living on just about 32 acres. The majority are white suris (see this post about suri alpacas) and that’s the real focus of their breeding programme.  It’s all about genetics, and Surico have some great credentials – have a look at their show results. Just standing in the paddocks chatting to Hermione whilst the alpacas approached inquisitively made it well worth the trip. There’s such curiosity in those big doe eyes and they radiate an appreciably calm energy.

As we left, I made a suggestion to Adeline: we don’t HAVE to get married next year. We could buy a starter herd instead.

“Er, no.”

Ah well, everything in good time…

With 3 months until we move to NZ, I’m becoming concerned about moving to the country after spending so many years in cities. I’ve never lived in rural isolation before and have been fretting about safety. How would we protect our land and our house? I don’t think the cocker spaniel we plan to get would offer much protection. I’m not really a fan of aggressive guard dogs which have a strong prey drive either.

The solution? Livestock protection dogs.

Then I had a conversation with Katy on Twitter who mentioned she’d just got their livestock protection dogs.  Her great pyrenees dogs will protect their land and alpacas. Apparently the biggest danger to alpacas are packs of dogs. All it takes is for a few local dogs to get together and sure enough the pack mentality will surface. That includes hunting pray. Alpacas are an easy target – they lack the size and strength to adequately defend themselves against such a threat.

So the solution is to keep livestock protection dogs (also called livestock or flock guardians).  I’ve looked into this and I think we’re going to choose either great Pyrenees or maremmas. Both were originally bred in Europe to protect livestock from wolves and bears, so they’re BIG, strong dogs with similar traits – independent, strong willed and gentle with their flock whilst being fiercely protective of them.

Differences between livestock protection dogs and other working dogs

The primary difference between livestock protection dogs and other working dogs is that they don’t have such a strong predator drive. Put a maremma puppy with a flock of  chickens and it will bond with them and protect them, whereas a golden retriever is more likely to start catching them and bringing them to you.

Other working dogs are also likely to be tolerant of others as they work in groups, whereas livestock protection dogs are solitary, wary of strangers and extremely territorial. Those are excellent traits in an animal used to protect a vulnerable prey animal like the alpaca.

Here’s an example of a great pyrenees with goats:

And here’s a great pyr being used as a springboard by some more pygmy goats:

Finally, this is a great post specifically relating to livestock guardian dogs and alpacas: http://www.owning-alpaca.com/livestock-guardian-dog.html

We have been thinking about raising alpacas for a few years now, but it has only become a serious option in the last few months. This is mainly because we are leaving our lives in London and moving to New Zealand. At first we had planned to carry on geeking it up in NZ, basically doing the same as we are now just in a nicer place. But over the last couple of months we have both become dissatisfied with our lifestyle – so much so that we decided to change it all and pursue our dream.

You dream of alpacas?

No, not exactly, our dream is more about living sustainably and doing something we love instead of working away for ‘the man’. It just happens that we both also love alpacas, and they fit into the kind of lifestyle we want perfectly!

The perfect investment

We all know the financial world is a mess at the moment. Who wants to invest in the banks after the mess that they caused? Certainly not us. But alpacas can turn out to be a fantastic investment in the current climate, as AlpacaFarmGirl points out.

Photo from flickr