Joe Phelan

There are so many uses for alpacas. Like agritourism, like what we’re doing, is the alpaca trekking. But they’re also booked for weddings; they’re booked as therapy animals. We take out children with autism, we visit Montessori schools, we visit homes for adults and children with special needs and so on. Then they’re used as guard animals for sheep and poultry, so a lot of sheep farmers and poultry farmers will get alpacas to ward off foxes in particular. And then other people will just have them as quirky lawnmowers. And finally, people would use them because of their fibre. They’re bred for their fibre. So, a lot of craftspeople might like to have two or three alpacas and then they shear them and use their own fibre. Wool is a solid structure, but alpaca is hollow. And because it’s hollow, it’s very light but also it gives it thermal properties, which are very warm. Alpaca is also fire-resistant, it meets the US fire-retardant standards without any treatment, and it’s also water-resistant and, soft and all as it is, it’s very hardwearing, so it’s a very good all-round fibre. We shear once a year and at the moment there’s nobody processing fibre in Ireland, so we have to ship all our fibre to the UK. I ship it to two mills. One mill spins the main blanket, the nicest part of the fibre, into yarn and they make socks and yarn for us, and the second mill we give the short fibre off the leg and neck and that is put into pillows and duvets and mattress toppers. So, we now stock items with our own fibre in it. So, we shear in May, just coming into the summer, just when it gets hot. And that means coming into the winter they have the chance to grow their nice fleece back so they’re nice and cosy for the winter. When I started off a lot of the big farms were getting foreign shearers in, but I stuck with local guys because I wanted to build up our local experience and knowledge. Likewise, I’d love to get all the fibre processed in Ireland, and it will happen but it’s just going to take time.