Surveying “Grazelands” their 16-acre lifestyle property at Waiau Pa, Pam, and Craig Follett envisaged a turtle pond.

Craig and Pam Follett with their 'girls'.

More than a decade later, the turtles are nowhere to be seen. Instead, the farm is inhabited by a dog, two pigs, a couple of donkeys and a whole lot of alpacas.

“We went to Field Days. First year down there, I saw these alpacas and I thought ‘oh they’re gorgeous’, and I’d love a couple… as lawnmowers,” explains Pam. “After three years Craig said for goodness sake, go and find some.”

They did, starting with two young males and a pregnant female. “Originally, it was a lifestyle thing for me, but for Craig it was a business, and he won,” laughs Pam.

PJ Alpacas is now home to more than 50 freshly sheared alpacas ranging in age and genetic quality, the result of a rapid six-year learning curve.

“With all the alpaca breeders, there’s none of this ‘secret squirrel’ stuff… everyone’s happy to help if they can,” enthuses Pam.

Craig is amazed at how the support network has grown. “Back in those days there were 200 breeders, and now there’s probably about six or seven hundred.”

New Zealand received its first alpacas in 1986 and is now home to around 15,000 alpacas, a far cry from Australia’s 100,000 and the estimated two million in Peru, one of the alpaca’s native South American habitats.

Intelligent and highly social, alpacas are popular with lifestyle farmers for their sweet nature and because they eat less grass than other grazers, converting it to energy more efficiently.

They were valued by the ancient Inca royalty for their fine, lustrous fibre and that is still the case today with Alpaca fibre prized by fashion designers in Japan and Europe. Even US ‘royalty’ favour it. Former US vice-president Al Gore’s wife Tipper wore an alpaca suit to Bill Clinton’s inauguration.

Alpaca fibre was even used to create costumes for the Lord of the Rings film series because it resembled the ‘fibre of the time’.

Stronger than merino wool, alpaca fibre is hypo-allergenic, containing no lanolin or oils. This enables it to be worn by anyone allergic to wool. “It’s 30 per cent stronger, 30 per cent warmer than Merino wool,” says Pam.

Domesticated from South America’s Vicuna, a Peruvian species of superior fibre quality, alpacas come in 22 colour variations.

There are two main breeds: the Huacaya and the rarer Suri which is more highly prized for its fibre (measured in microns), which exhibits a soft exquisite lustre.

Pam enthuses about the Suri alpaca’s silk-like luxurious coat.  “It’s absolutely sublime.” And she’s excited about a project undertaken by a group of Suri breeders in conjunction with the NZ Government’s Ag-Research Department, which has created a unique and exquisite fabric from  Suri alpaca fibre.

PJ Alpacas specialise in the Huacaya breed of alpacas and ever the businessman, Craig has taken a special interest in alpaca genetics. 

“I’m keen to improve the animals, because it is a fibre industry and we breed to improve the fibre.”

Alpaca fibre has been valued for centuries for its superior quality, warmth and strength. Photos Darren McDonald.

He says six years ago, it was a different story. “We bought an animal that we thought was pretty good… around 24 to 25 microns, now we’re running a little boy down the back there, he’s 14.5 microns. The finer the micron, the better the animal.

In alpacas, the density and volume of fibre is all about genetics so matching the right animals is crucial. “That’s where we’re heading… we’re trying to get the animals to be as fine as we can but also to be as dense as possible.”

And the very nature of the alpaca’s breeding behaviour is fascinating. Female alpacas are seduced into mating by the males singing into their ears. Called ‘orgling’, it is only after a male has ‘sung’ into a female’s ear, that she will ovulate.

Afterwards, the female is immediately intuitively aware when her egg has been fertilised, and will spit at her potential mate to prevent further mating.

Stressing they are in it for the long term, Pam and Craig reveal they have been stockpiling their alpaca fibre for six years, partly because the infrastructure to process it was unavailable. 

With the creation of two new North Island mills processing alpaca fibre, this is the year they’re ready to finally use their products and the future looks bright.

It’s also is a long way from the day the Folletts surveyed the farm they were about buy.

“It was the barn that sold me on it because it’s like a boat shed gone crazy. It is 400 square metres… and its all mine!” laughs Craig.

Alas, he’s already relinquished a good chunk of that impressive ‘man cave’ by creating a theatre for visitors to the farm, and there are bigger plans underway including a kitchen and a gift shop.

There’s even a cottage on the property, which will soon become bed and breakfast accommodation.

It is infrastructure Pam and Craig are keen to advance due to the steady stream of visitors they receive by conducting tours of their farm. PJ Alpacas also have a range of animals for sale from breeding females to pet boys. “I would say that Waiau Pa is the closest place to heaven I’ll get without physically going there,” says Craig.

Heaven perhaps, but not until that turtle pond appears!