Blencogo Farm Alpacas – Alpacas, Marriage & Television

I never had pets as a child – unless you count a goldfish won at a fair in 1978 – it lived for about a fortnight.

But marriage and a house move in 2012/13 meant we inherited some hens and then we got a cat, a rescue, called Jasper.

My girlfriends have horses and other beasts and still find it too funny for words that I am now knee deep in animals. The purchase of our first two boys, Marco and Pedro, was a happy accident and their fault  – the aforementioned girlfriends joked about me moving onto alpacas and then promptly found the boys for sale and encouraged me. When husband said he was off to buy a couple more hens, I said I’d be home with a couple of alpacas…. I don’t think he believed me but that’s how it happened.

Obviously husband and teenage children fell instantly and hopelessly in love with them too. The boys lived in a penned area in the garden for several months but just a few weeks after their arrival I went to meet Pat Bentley and ended up buying seven more alpacas at Syke House Alpaca’s dispersal sale and renting several acres of land by our house.

I’m a TV journalist so my life is spent researching stories and topics – researching alpacas and how to handle, care for and breed them is probably the best task I have ever had though. Our first two cria were born on the farm in 2015 and we have also taken on a couple of Herdwick sheep who both had twin lambs in the spring.

The best bit of my day is going out to check and feed the alpacas each morning – something I never thought I would hear myself say. Their funny, curious, smiling faces are the perfect antidote at the beginning and end of a crazy day spent working in telly. Find out more at www.blencogofarm.com