TO MOW OR NOT TO MOW!

One way of maintaining your land is to mow the grass and flail the hedges, this was the way at Harefield Water Gardens until the day we visited a local agricultural show. One of the exhibitors was the ‘British Alpaca Society’ – The seed was sown!

Alpacas graze and trim hedges – ideal for our land and we could save Dave the mower man coming in, that was some time ago, we now have a herd of breeding females known as Harefield Alpacas and are well and truly hooked!

Having spent many hours researching Alpacas and visiting a number of Alpaca breeders, we eventually visited Rob and Les Rawlins at Wellground Alpaca Stud who specialise in 'Elite Australian Genetics', we immediately knew that we too wanted to specialise in 'Elite Alpacas'. Elite Alpacas possess superior fleece characteristics,  Alpaca fleece is finer than cashmere, luxurious, silky in texture and stronger than mohair. It contains no lanolin, which makes it hypoallergenic and is a hollow fibre, making it an excellent insulator, and is effectively warmer than goose down.

With the help and advice of Rob and Les, we initially bought 5 Elite Australian females, and have over the last few years selectively bred from these using only 'Elite Stud Males', to produce our core herd of Elite Alpacas.

We have forged extremely strong links with Wellground Alpaca Stud, who adopt many of the values that we deem essential for efficient, safe and bio secure Alpaca breeding. Our herd of Elite Alpacas who all possess extremely fine fibre characteristics have enabled us to produce some of the finest Alpaca yarn processed in the UK.

Click Here for Highwayman fleece statistics

We regularly send fleece samples away to the wool testing laboratories who measure the fineness of the fleece, this along with our observations of the fleece characteristics enable us to steer our breeding programme towards ever superior fleece dynamics. We select only the finest of our fleeces for our yarns, the remainder of the fleece is used in our unique Experience Alpaca bird nesting material dispenser, which you can buy in our garden centre shop.

You are welcome to come to touch and feel, and of course purchase our wonderful products. Everybody is amazed at the quality and softness of the yarn, which is hypoallergenic and can be worn next to the skin. With this amazing softness and warmth this knitting yarn is especially suited for baby wear.