Although we’re aiming to establish a breeding alpaca herd, we’re not going wholesale into it immediately as there’s a huge risk that we won’t get it right initially; this risk is only exasperated by our status as urbanites inexperienced in rural life in general and livestock management in particular. I have an inkling there must be more to it than we saw in The Good Life.

Alpaca agistment – no land required!

Luckily with alpacas there’s an easy in-route: agistment. This is where you own alpaca(s) but it’s kept on an alpaca breeder’s farm. You pay for the ‘running’ costs such as vets bills, food etc.   But with this approach you can grow your herd without needing land, and then if you do get some land then you already have your starter herd. Here’s an example agistment service.

Research and build a network

We’re doing what we can to learn upfront by connecting with alpaca breeders on Twitter (try searching for ‘alpaca’ on Twitter), reading our way around alpaca websites and visiting local breeders. But still, nothing can prepare us for actually living that life.

Diversify

The key for us is multiple income streams. We spread risk this way. Adeline and I sat down and listed the available avenues for income generation based on our skills.  This is our list:

• the alpaca business – primarily selling alpacas and fibre, but also capitalising on our current careers working with the web by providing brand consultancy and usable websites for new and existing alpaca breeders.
• remote freelancing – during our time working in advertising agencies we have a lot of contacts for freelance web work. The key will be identifying what work we can do remotely as most of our contacts are UK-based.
• remote work through our web company www.webdesignpeople.net
• remote reiki attunements which is something I’ve done since 2002. I’m looking forward to having the time and energy to do more of this.
• photography and on-demand canvas printing themed for the alpaca and reiki websites.
• print and web work in the local area of NZ we end up in.

Between that lot we should generate enough income to avoid debt and hopefully gradually invest in alpacas. And it should also bring some well-needed balance to our currently one-sided lives.

So that’s the way it is for us. Hopefully it will be a solid enough foundation to gradually move over to full-time alpaca breeding.

Experienced alpaca breeders – how did you get started? It’s really useful to see how you got to where you are now and it’s great motivation for us newbies too! Plus it’ll be much-needed ammunition against my dad who thinks I’ve gone mad