Meet Millburn Alpacas where the fleece is turned into home-spun yarn

Helen Babbs visits a herd of Scottish alpacas and their fibre artist

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Kerry Milton’s herd of alpacas began from a fox problem.

“We had chickens and Shetland sheep, and Mister Fox just kept visiting,” she recalls. “We were getting desperate, when someone told us that alpacas made great ‘guard animals’. I'd hardly even heard of alpacas at that point, certainly never met one, but I thought ‘That’s it, perfect, I’m getting one!” As alpacas are herd animals and can’t be kept singly, Kerry bought her first group of three alpacas in 2015. “Then I got a fourth,” she admits, “and then the girls had crias, and then it just sort of snowballed!”

MEET THE HERD

Ten years later and living on a larger smallholding in Ayrshire to accommodate her growing herd, Kerry now has 45 alpacas, with another seven crias. “It’s not big scale breeding, just a ‘homegrown’ herd, although I’ve used outside stud males to add better quality along the way,” she explains. “But this year I’m quite excited, because all the babies will be from my own boys.” Kerry has both Suri and Huaycana alpacas, with just over twenty of each. “I keep quite a few ‘old girls’, even when their fleece quality starts to drop, as I find they form family groups within the larger herd - mums, daughters and grannies all grazing together. They all have very individual characters, and you can often judge their mood by their faces. Most of them know their names too, particularly the crias by the time they've been petted and handled and halter trained.”

The alpacas share the farm with Kerry's remaining Shetlands. “They're getting on a bit now,” she notes. “Mrs Pickles is the oldest, and she's 21! They graze in rotation with the alpacas, but don’t share a paddock due to the copper in the alpaca feed - it’s very bad for sheep.” The two rescue chickens, however, get to roost in the barn with the alpacas. “They eat any spilled food, which keeps the vermin down. We never have any foxes, as the girls chase them away.”