Our Alpacas

At Hideaway Wood Farm our focus is on breeding, working with and caring for healthy, happy alpacas in a gentle, respectful and natural way.

Our priority is welfare over income and we seek to ensure the wellbeing of our alpacas (and our people!) in everything we do.

We have a herd of 35 alpacas, many of which were born here on the farm and we know each of our animals individually.

Breeding

Many of our foundation herd of alpacas came to us from respected bloodlines and have show winner pedigree - these form our breeding herd. Some were going to be sent off to zoos or needed rehoming and we gladly took them on. They are the best aunties and uncles and we're so glad to have them in our herd. Many of our alpacas are direct descendents of those from South American breeders.

In terms of our focus as breeders, we do not select for particularly desirable traits as we know the trends are always changing and that some traits can end up not being the best for the health of our alpacas.

Instead we breed our animals with a focus on them being healthy, behaviourally well natured and with good conformation that will support their health and longevity.

In recent years we have bred from our 'grey' stud Phineas and Herts Alpacas 'Patch' and welcomed many beautiful patchy, grey and multi cria to our herd.

Handling, Husbandry and Care

We made the transition to CameliDynamics handling and training for our whole herd in late 2024.

This has significantly improved the ease of handling of our herd. Many of our alpacas are now easily herded, handled, haltered, walk and even enjoy a stroke on the neck with the back of our hands. And those who aren't are on their way there. This is hugely valuable for our working animals who spend time with people on our walks, alpaca related activities and animal assisted interventions.

We also feel this adds real value in terms when we come to sell animals as pasture companions (pets), working animals and therapy animals and even for animals being added to a breeding program it improves efficiency (and enjoyment!) of routine husbandry tasks.

In terms of husbandry and care we are always seeking to incorporate more natural ways of taking care of our alpacas, removing unnecessary chemicals and supporting them through natural treatments and remedies wherever possible.

Wherever possible we give our animals choice and autonomy and respect their unique nature as a prey species as well as their individual personalities.

Alpacas have been domesticated for 6,000 years and have never been wild but they still have many innate behaviours that they enjoy being able to take part in such as grazing, foraging, walking through bracken and long grass to scratch themselves, getting into water and rolling in dust baths.

We do everything we can to offer our alpacas a stimulating and natural environment that allows them to explore their needs and preferences.