Meet the Herd: Heather

Today I would like to introduce you to Heather. A lovely dark brown alpaca.

Heather is by far our tallest girl, the only one who can get her head and neck about eighteen inches out of the top of the crush when being handled.

She thinks she is the alpaca police! Frequently heard muttering “Hello, hello, hello; whats going on here then?” when everybody else is quietly minding their own business.

A squirrel in the field, or a pheasant? Heather will do the squeaky ball alert call while “pointing” at it with all of her body, ears up and trembling. Soooo scary!! The rest check it out, then tell her not to be such a drama queen.

When our first cria was born to Juniper one fine May morning, she had given birth out of our sight over the brow of the hill and Heather “did a Lassie” only coming halfway up to the feed area to attract our attention, then running back down to where Juniper was clearly wanting us to follow her. We did, even though we didn’t understand what

she wanted, and there was our first cria, not on it’s feet yet so mum wouldn’t come in for her breakfast even though she was hungry. Good old Heather.

Later that same day, Heather gave birth herself to Batty, who you will meet later.

She is the hardest of our herd to handle and has dumped both me and Jon on our backsides when we have been trying to trim her toenails. Not just tall, but super strong!

Don’t tell anyone, but she’s my favourite; so handsome and dignified, what’s not to love?