We hosted a ‘Farm walk’ today for members of the Devon Association of Smallholders (DASH). We were very lucky as the rain kept away right up till the very end, when a chance to head in for tea and cake was eagerly taken up. It was a great walk and on the whole the animals all behaved (!!) although the noise levels from the sheep could have done with being a little lower (we ended up putting a load of feed on the ground just to get them quiet!). The alpacas were amazing and their behaviour was exactly as predicted. As soon as we entered the top three-acre field, they all came up to ‘inspect us’ and then, after some initial shyness, came even closer, with Neptune and Jupiter very happy to hand feed! Jack gave a short talk about them and then answered some questions, after which we then moved down the field to look at the sheep. And of course, the alpacas came with us. We explained that this was part of their role as the smallholding custodians, to check everything and everyone out and to make sure nothing happened to threaten the ‘smallholding flock’!
They were still watching us as we went through the gate into the bottom three-acre field to see the cows!! We had major giggles as Parsley hand fed from a five year old who obviously had very ticklish hands… and Sage’s calf was very chilled as he allowed several people to stroke him.
A fab afternoon and we felt very proud that we could walk 24 strangers round our land and amongst our livestock safely and calmly with no signs of stress or panic at all.