WHAT was once a hobby has turned into a new business venture for Rita and Trevor Wilson who are opening an alpaca farm and visitor experience in Downings.

After realising the potential for agri tourism in Donegal the couple began to build up their herd and now have 21 of the furry creatures with females due to give birth in July.

“We have both Huacaya and Suri alpacas. The Huacaya breed has a dense crimped fleece, which results in them looking like teddy bears. The fleece of the rare Suri breed grows longer and silkier, giving it a lustre appearance. Suri alpacas are rare and make up only ten per cent of the world’s alpaca population,” said Rita.

Although not from a farming background herself Rita’s husband’s family have been farmers for generations.

“Sadly back in 2017 Trevor’s father John, who was a sheep farmer, passed away. Then Trevor’s uncle Robert who ran a dairy farm passed away the following year.  It was a really hard time for the family with both losses and seeing no more activity on the dairy farm was hard to witness. The Wilson and Duggan family still carry on the tradition of sheep farming but Trevor wanted to try something different with the dairy outbuildings and surrounding land as they were no longer in use. After some research we decided alpaca farming was a venture we wanted to try. Alpacas are great for people like us who have a smallholding. They are really light on the land, have a low carbon footprint and alpaca fleece is becoming one of the world’s most sustainable fibres. So we began our journey with these beautiful and curious animals back in early 2019 with the purchase of breeding females.

“The nature of the alpaca is gentle and curious, making walking with alpacas enjoyable and entertaining with their quirky individual characters. They are also very calming and soothing to be around so they were an ideal fit to our lifestyle.”

The day-to-day running of the farm keeps them busy with early starts to check on and feed the animals making sure they are happy and healthy. The farm is situated in the beautiful Sheephaven Bay and visitors can enjoy panoramic views of the surrounding area of Melmore, Horn Head and Muckish Mountain during their alpaca walks. The couple will primarily farm the alpacas for their fleece to make scarves. Alpaca fleece is warmer and stronger than cashmere and  softer and more lustrous than wool.

The first step was learning all about alpaca fibre and with help from their alpaca breeders Roger and Elaine Clarke from Amberly Alpacas in Clogher they were guided on the best qualities to look for in a fleece.

“We shear the animals once a year for welfare reasons as the animal gets too hot and the plus side of this is that we get this luxurious fibre that makes beautiful yarn,” said Rita.

“Then the main blanket of the fleeces are skirted, graded and then sent off to the processing mill in the UK. The mill we use to process the fleeces to yarn is an eco-friendly mill, much in the same ethos as the alpacas themselves. The last stage is bringing the finished yarn to McNutts to begin the process of designing and weaving the scarves. McNutt of Donegal has been producing some of the world’s finest weaves for over 60 years and to have someone onboard with so much knowledge and experience of the market was a real asset to our business venture. The providence of our yarn is really important and it’s great to be able to trace each scarf back to the animals fleece that was used to make it.