Hampshire's Leading Herd of Quality Alpacas

We established our herd in 1998 and over the years we have learnt a huge amount about alpacas and have thoroughly enjoyed breeding and caring for these enchanting animals, turning what was once a hobby into a successful business and great lifestyle for the whole family, and a very slight obsession! Our herd is not large, numbers average around 60 and this allows us to know our animals very well as individuals and utilise our smallholding properly and without overstocking our grazing. Our ambition with our breeding programme has always been to improve our herd quality with each generation, with sound conformation and constantly improving fibre characteristics, especially handle, fineness and density. We have achieved this with careful selection and breeding choices and investment into high quality stud males with excellent pedigrees.

We enjoy showing our alpacas and have been consistently successful in the show ring over the years, winning many rosettes and Champion Ribbons and along the way enhancing the value of our herd. With a developing UK fibre industry we are keen to breed alpacas with pedigrees known to produce superior quality fibre.

We have confidence and believe in the long term future of the alpaca industry in the UK and with this in mind we have invested in some of the best stud males available from the UK and overseas, the latest of these being a share in four stunning males from the World Renowned Snowmass herd of Idaho USA. With bloodlines from Hemingway, Quechua and Vengador, to name but a few we are already seeing the fantastic impact that these males are having on our herd. Take a look at our Snowmass Stud pages to find out more.

We have a selection alpacas for sale - pregnant females, junior and proven herdsires as well as field pets and sheep guards and are able to offer very competitively priced packages and starter herds - see our sales pages. Pictures...

You can keep up with our news on Karen's Blog - it's updated frequently and gives a good insight into our lives with alpacas....

 

All our alpacas are registered with the British Alpaca Society and although we have quite a few we know them all individually, handle them frequently and love them all. Many of our visitors comment on how relaxed and tame our animals seem.

Snowmass Specialists

We are specialising in breeding with our males from the World Renowned Snowmass Herd of Idaho in the USA. These were selected by the highly respected International Judge Nick Harrington-Smith and are co-owned with The Alpaca Stud and Pure Alpacas. Snowmass Incan King xxx (pictured left) Snowmass Invincibly Elite xx, Snowmass Quezalcoatl and Snowmass Royal Vision, all have tremendous pedigrees and are stunning in their own rights, we are very proud of our involvement...to say we are excited is a bit of an understatement! We will be offerring limited services to these boys and of course females pregnant to them and youngstock.

We also have our homebred and Champion white males Meon Valley Sir G and Meon Valley Meonstoke, our lovely mid fawn BAS National Supreme Champion Fleece winner Meon Valley Goldrush and our dark grey reserve colour Champion Meon Valley Ardingly, who is producing more grey cria than any other colour.

We have recently sold our multi Championship winning stud CME Tulaco Centurion, pictured, and wish his new owners Houghton Hall Alpacas, as much good fortune as we have had with his progeny. In the meantime we have his daughters which are now being put into the breeding programme with our Snowmass boys.

Training 2012

We are constantly learning about these wonderful animals and have attended many management, judging and training courses. We are more than happy to pass on this information and we hold regular Courses on our farm in our training facility. We can advise you on your farm set-up, help you with your selection, and guide you how to look after them so that you get the very most from your alpacas.

Saturday 3rd March An Introduction to Alpacas

We also host other educational days on behalf of the British Alpaca Society and Southern Alpaca Group

Saturday 4th February 2012 "BAS Alpaca Evaluation Course" with Liz Barlow

Saturday 10th March 2012 "Training your alpaca for Shows" with Jay Holland

Wednesday 28 March 2012 "Breeders Seminar" with Nick Harrington-Smith

 

 

 

Sales .. Training .. Information .. Help and Guidance .. After-Sales Support 24/7 .. Fleece & Fibre Products

We have an excellent selection of Alpacas for sale - pregnant and young females for breeding, proven and Junior herdsires and pet quality males for fibre, companions and pets.

We hold regular day courses on all aspects of keeping alpacas. We are happy to advise newcomers in their setup for keeping alpacas as pets, or for breeding and starting an alpaca business. We offer support and training in all aspects of husbandry to our clients, and we're always just a phone call away.

We are stockists for Camelibre, Fibregest and Alfalfa Pellets. We offer educational visits to schools and groups. We sell baby fine fleece to hand-spinners and craftsmen and we sell our own beautiful knitting yarn in double knit - available in natural colours. Please do not hesitate to contact us for more information.

 

BIOSECURITY

We are doing our very best to keep our herd safe from diseases and parasites and take every precaution in our biosecurity, such as separate paddocks for our show team and shared males. Matings are carried out in our concrete yard under very close supervision and the yard is disinfected afterwards. We will undertake mobile matings by arrangement and offer drive-by services, but no longer take visiting females to stay as we want to minimise risks to our own herd. Our herd is routinely vaccinated against clostridial disease and we take faecal tests and worm regularly.

SOUTHERN ALPACA GROUP

In January 2007 we got together with other breeders in our area to form a Regional Group affiliated to the British Alpaca Society. Our aims are to offer support and training in all aspects of alpaca in Hampshire and surrounding Counties. We hold Clinics and meetings 3 or 4 times a year, these give alpaca owners and enthusiasts the opportunity to share knowledge and experiences, make new friends and contacts and to learn more about alpacas. EVENTS 2011. Haltering to Show Ring - Secrets of Success by Jay Holland, Veterinary workshop Birthing & the Cria by Karin Mueller. We held our first Regional Show at The Romsey Show which was a huge success.For dates of our 2012 courses please see our Courses page.

OPEN DAY 2011

This was a hugely successful event and we had around 500 visitors to the farm. Folk come from far and wide to spend some relaxing time amongst our alpacas and learn what these animals are all about. We had loads of serious enquiries and people signing up for our next Beginners Course. Our fibre shop did well too, with many fleeces being purchased, knitting yarn and knitted products. The Sussex Guild of Spinners gave a wonderful demonstration of spinning and weaving - always fasinating to watch -and lots of visitors had a go.Out of the proceeds we were able to give donations to our local Droxford Village Hall and to the Quechua Benefit of Peru.

SHOWS & EVENTS 2012

We will be attending all the usual shows in the coming year - including the Futurity, Alpaca World Conference, SWAG Spring Show, South of England and the Nationals, as well as our local shows at Alton, Romsey and Alresford, we are looking forward to these hugely please do come and say hello to us. We will be

CRIAS 2011

We are thrilled with our crias this year - most of them from our Snowmass Studs - there are pictures of them on the Karen's Blog. We now have to be patient and wait for the next batch to be born during the Summer of 2012....

Home