Why us
We are based in Andalucia and are the only breeders at present here able to supply good quality animals that are already here in Spain.
We have the best animals in Spain and they are probably amongst the top 10% in Europe. They all have great bloodlines.
We have more knowledge about the animals that any one else in Spain
We have the support of an excellent veterinary service.
We have contacts in South America, Australia, North America and Europe and this enables us to source the best animals for our clients.
We have the experience to transport them internationally, including handling the complex paperwork.
We have the back-up of some of the most experienced people in the alpaca business, when it is required.
We will only sell if clients meet our high standards in animal care.
All our animals are registered with the BAS European Registry, so you can be certain of their pedigree and that, if imported, they have been screened.
Being bitten by the alpaca bug
How Ginny & Nigel found themselves in Andalucia, Southern Spain with a herd of 40 alpacas, 2 pet sheep, 4 cats, 2 dogs and Ginny’s mum is anyone’s guess? A shortened version of our story follows.
Like a lot of people we imagined our lives continuing in much the same way, the children were adults now and we thought we would be winding down a little. How wrong we were and how delighted we are.
We both had had animals before, just the usual dogs, cats, hamsters etc until 1997 when we moved from the London area to Somerset and bought our own farmhouse to do up. With the house came 1.25 hectares and three African Pygmy Goats. It was at that time that we were able to puff out our chests and remark to our friends that we were now registered with both the ‘small animal’ and ‘large animal’ clinics of the veterinary practice and thus had a ‘farm account’!
By the beginning of 2001 we had moved again to our biggest building project so far, Godswell Grove Farm(*), which came with 10 hectares of beautiful English countryside. By now we were not only large animal clients at the vets but also members of the NFU (National Farmers Union), had an account at Mole Valley Farmers and a DEFRA holding number for the farm.
Through contacts and friends we were letting a farmer, Nick Gregory, graze his sheep on our land. The builders had started, the sheep were pregnant and Nigel went to America for a well earned ski-ing holiday with his son and friends. February 15th 2001, a day many farmers will remember as the day that foot and mouth disease broke out in England. Our lives changed for ever that day although we didn’t realise it at the time. All movement of animals was stopped. We now had all these pregnant sheep on our land and no way to take them the 10 miles to Nick’s farm where they were due to give birth. So out came the wellies and overalls and we got stuck in.
We were lucky, thank goodness, but the whole episode became a life changing experience for us. Hypothermic lambs in the bottom oven of our Aga, Milton fluid and buckets of 500ml coke bottles sterilising. Lambs by the fire, lambs in our bed. Everything had changed for us and it was a privilege never to be forgotten.
By 2003, Nigel was realising that whereas he didn’t want to stop Ginny breeding sheep, we would soon be taken over by pet sheep that should have gone to market ages ago. His idea of a quiet Sunday afternoon in the garden did not include having to fight off eager sheep and lambs from his lunch.
One Sunday morning in 2003, again in February, we were reading the newspapers in bed and Ginny picked up the NFU’s Countryside magazine which had an alpaca supplement. Another life changing experience and within a fortnight we had put deposits down on four white good quality pregnant females from Australia and one of the same from Chile. Also, and probably most importantly, we had bought into a syndicate of elite stud males. We began with great enthusiasm to prepare for their arrival.
They arrived – what had we done? These animals went straight to the top of the field and refused point blank to come down for food or water. They had gone to the highest point and they were staying there. The sheep and goats gave them strange looks and a wide berth. After many hilarious attempts to coax them down we succeeded and came to love and laugh, very quickly, at and with them.
Our herd grew as our first cria arrived and we were well and truly bitten by the ‘alpaca bug’. Our social lives were enhanced as we met other like minded people from all walks of life and of all ages. We have never looked back and wouldn’t swap our lives, now, for anything. We now strive to provide Spain with a national herd to be proud of, in the European Alpaca community.
* - Our herd prefix ‘Godswell’ comes from this farm.
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