Alpacas: Glyndebourne\'s best-dressed guests

Tag : Peru Alpaca

One vehicle actually did a somersault over a hedge. And anotherwent right through a fence, around the main field and out via agate. We've even found ourselves on the main sight-seeing route forpensioners' coach outings and it's nose-to-tail on a daily basis."
O'Conor, 41, grew up in South America and is one of few Britishalpaca breeders with experience of the animals in their naturalenvironment. Alpacas thrive in the British climate, although theone thing they don't like is prolonged rain. (What animal does?)
O'Conor began importing them from South America to Britain aftermeeting an alpaca exporter in Chile in the mid-Nineties, whoinvited him to put together a shipment bound for Australia.
Some years later, the same exporter asked if he would set up asubstantial alpaca business in Britain. O'Conor accepted and hassince established the Glyndebourne Farm herd as one of the largestin Europe. Now he has taken over the farm and gone into business onhis own, breeding animals for sale and harvesting their prized woolfor use in his online clothing company.
As he drives me around his 283-acre estate, I watch a group of theanimals contentedly grazing beside a fence, their vanilla, honeyand cappuccino-coloured coats offering up nature's answer to themuted shades of the Farrow & Ball paint palette.
O'Conor assures me that they make great pets because they areintelligent, curious, calm, gentle and very amenable. Then there'sthe "cute" factor. It's hard to resist those two large, expressiveeyes peering between clouds of the softest fleece. And the loveaffair is mutual. Indeed, O'Conor tries not to "socialise" themwhen they are too young because "they'd always want a kiss andcuddle, and you wouldn't be able to do anything with them".
Touchingly, they also form close alpaca friendships. "We have twomales, Twiglet and Peebo, who are absolutely inseparable. If yousplit them up, one, in particular, will pine terribly and look forthe friend he can't find. In those instances, we always sell thealpacas together on the understanding they should never beseparated."
Native to Peru, Chile and Bolivia, the alpaca was firstdomesticated by ancient Andeans more than 5,000 years ago. Theystill look strangely alien in an English field, but actually theyhave been among us since the 1830s, when Sir Titus Salt, aBradford-based industrialist, began importing alpaca fibre andkeeping a few animals of his own.
Interest in alpacas revived in this country in the mid Nineties andthe national herd now numbers around 20,000. Most are kept as pets,as a source of fine wool or to breed for competitive showing.
But if you're tempted to trade in your cat or dog, be warned: theback garden won't be large enough. Alpacas need a suitable area offenced, secure ground, a constant supply of fresh water andadequate shelter. Oh, and they come with an elegant price tag,starting at £4,000.
O'Conor says they are a fascinating challenge for breeders. "In notime at all you can take a basic alpaca with a coarse fleece and,through careful breeding and selection, produce show-classprogeny."
Alpacas are bred in the summer and it so happens that I arrive onmating day. After seeing the herd ruminating reflectively in thefields, it's a shock to be shown into a large shed divided intocattle pens where dozens are procreating in a frenzy of alpacaamour.
The females usually give birth between dawn and mid-afternoon. Oneis calmly producing as we drive past the main field, the calf'shead just visible beneath Mother Alpaca's flicking tail.
It would have been a thrilling sight for any passing coachload ofpensioners or, indeed, for one regular visitor who doesn't sharehis wife's love of opera, preferring instead to drop her atGlyndebourne before spending the afternoon alpaca-watching.
"We seem to have become an alternative attraction for non-operagoers," says O'Conor.
www.atacamaalpacas.co.uk ; 0780 1109 243.
Alpaca cards The alpaca is a member of the camelid family, related to the llama,the guanaco, the vicuna and the bactrian and dromedary camels. There are two types of alpaca: the huacaya, which has a dense,fluffy and fine-crimped fleece, and the suri, which has adreadlocked fleece and resembles a kitchen mop. Alpacas come in more colours - black, brown, fawn, grey and white -than any other fibre-producing animal. They eat grass, supplemented with hay or haylage during the winter.Treats include sugar beet, apples and potatoes. Alpacas communicate by humming softly and spit if their young(cria) are threatened. They live up to 25 years and give birth to one baby per year.