It’s not all fun and games on the farm, and 40 Alpacas require a lot of time and effort. You can often find us up at 4 in the morning or earlier tending to our animals. This is particularly important in winter, with a lot of animals requiring extra care as they live inside the barn.
We currently have 60 Alpacas at our farm, and 45 of these are pregnant. We expect these babies to arrive in Summer 2021.
Alpacas are very inquisitive by nature, but also very domesticated animals. While they don’t need as much hands-on attention as some animals, they can be very mischievous!
our alpacas feed on a diet of grass, hay and Alpaca mineral which they receive daily. The alpacas require the mineral due to our climate. Alpacas love apples and carrots as a treat, and require less food than most animals to maintain a healthy body weight. That said, all our animals have ample supplies of food, particularly for this cold winter! As well as being well fed, all our Alpacas receive a daily check to make sure that they are healthy and happy.
Around June time every year, our Alpacas are sheared. Our shearer travels to the country from New Zealand to provide the highest quality of care to our animals. The raw fleece is sent to the mill and turned into yarn, which is sent to the loom. This yarn can be made into garments, soft toys, or balls of knitting wool so you can create your own clothing with our top of the range Alpaca wool.
As well as tending to our Alpacas, Ellie Jake Farm is our home, where myself and my husband Malcolm raise our two fantastic children, Ellie and Ethan.
Ellie is the livestock farmer of the family. She loves lambing time and has recently been involved in hand rearing five orphan piglets. She loves to bottle feed the babies as well as pushing them around in the pram, and has been known to bring her orphan lambs into the house for cuddles!
Ethan is the arable farmer of the family. He loves driving the tractors around the farm when the time comes to make the hay, as well as spending time tending to our land.
Rachel
