Alpaca chat

After more than 20 years experience as a breeder and BAS judge Liz Barlow has a wealth of knowledge. She is also still passionate about these wonderful animals, as Alpaca editor Liz Mason finds out.

There are a handful of people in the UK alpaca community with as much experience as Liz. She started the renowned Livanti herd in 1999 and went on to produce many champion alpacas, including an early Supreme Champion at the BAS National Show in 2004. After qualifying as a judge Liz judged the BAS National four times before retiring in 2021.

In this interview she shares some highlights from her time as a breeder and judge. Her advice to new owners is to “learn as much as you can, have fun and trust your instincts.”

Have animals always been part of your life?

Yes they have. I’m a farmer’s daughter and I was born on a farm so we always had animals, mainly cattle and pigs and I had chickens as a present for my fourth birthday and I was a keen horse rider from the age of five to my early twenties.

When did you start keeping alpacas and why?

I left home and joined the civil service and did stints in various parts of the country. Then in 1997 Ivan and I bought a house in a village which had a small piece of land. That was great, but you think “what am I actually going to keep on that land?” Believe it or not I saw an article in the Sunday Times magazine ‘A Day in the Life of a Llama Breeder’. I thought that’s really interesting, and when I looked into llamas I found out about alpacas.

Most people would say the minute you go and visit an alpaca you say “yes”, and that’s how it was for us.

We bought two breeding females from Chile via Joy Whitehead at Bozedown Alpacas in 1999. If you looked at the pictures now you will see how ugly they were – but we thought they were gorgeous!

We fell in love with alpacas and the idea that you could develop a business without slaughtering animals. This was something that appealed to us, as well as the fleece and breeding aspects.

Why did you decide to become an alpaca breeder?

I was still working when we had our first two alpacas and our first two cria in 1999. I quickly realised that I was very interested in alpacas and I was fortunate to be able to engineer my redundancy. I was made redundant from my full time job in January 2000 and I became an independent management consultant. That meant I could spend time with the alpacas and work at the same time, and in summer I was able to watch out for births and be at my desk later on.

Did you have a particular type or aim in mind as a breeder?

Our aim was definitely to improve the quality of the alpacas, including both conformation and fleece, and there was lots of scope!

We would now call our first alpacas “unimproved”. Their fleece was poor – it was not fine and it was not dense. It was coarse and phenotypically they were not perfect. They had slightly longer backs and bigger, longer heads – they were very different to what we see now.

As we were small breeders we couldn’t keep Huacaya and Suri. We bred Huacayas and our aim was definitely to improve fleece quality primarily but also to try to achieve a more compact conformation.

How important was showing to achieving improvement in your herd?

Showing allowed us to see the quality of animals other people were breeding. We were also able to talk to other people and learn from them, and it was fun. In those days everyone went to lots of shows just for the fun of it, and I think we were shocked when we had some success – in fact we were very shocked!

The male we used to produce our National Show Champion in 2004 was one we didn’t want to use on as many females as we did. Foot and mouth disease meant we had to get a special licence to move alpacas so we chose one stud male to use on three of our females whereas normally we wouldn’t have made that decision. But then we were delighted when we eventually won the National.

We were a small herd when we started. We built up to 12 or 14 alpacas within a year or two but we didn’t have lots of money and we couldn’t afford to buy in many animals. We bought a few at auction, and then bought a few more expensive animals and it was one of these, a female called Octavia, whose line gave us some amazing cria.

We focused on selective breeding. Good breeding decisions come from learning and looking at the traits and asking what does the female need to improve her? A cria is the outcome of a fifty fifty contribution – it’s not just about the male. You are never going to produce an absolute stunner of an alpaca without a good male and a good female.

Can you tell us what the early shows were like?

One of our very first shows was a British Camelid Show with llamas and alpacas. There were only a few alpacas; we rocked up with two or three and no idea what we were doing! One of our little males did win – it was a very small show, with very small numbers and it was very early days. You wouldn’t recognise those shows now as today they are so professional and well organised.

What were your highlights with the Livanti herd? Were these in or out of the show ring?

They were both. One of the best things was seeing the cria born each year and eagerly waiting for the fleece to grow and develop. You make a breeding decision, you wait eleven and a half months for the cria to be born, and then you can see its potential when it’s first born.

The excitement each year of having new cria was great – and of course when we were relatively new to the show ring, winning the National with Livanti Cloud in 2004 was fantastic.

How did you go about learning more?

I was very keen to learn and before we got our first alpacas we went on a two day British Camelids course to learn all about them. It was invaluable because we learnt about husbandry as well as fl eece and conformation.

There wasn’t much opportunity to learn anything more, other than through a couple of courses designed for people who wanted to become a judge. I wanted to learn, but wasn’t sure I would ever go and judge, but once I’d done the courses somebody rang and said: “Well, now you’ve done these courses you’d better judge a show.” I agreed, thinking “it’s now or never”, but I loved it and it has always been a real honour.

I went to Peru when I was training and to see the different alpacas, and to train with Maggie Krieger and Julio Sumar, which was fantastic. It was also a bit scary! But it was a great learning experience because we saw how the alpacas lived and it enabled us to learn everything about alpacas from their digestive system and teeth, to assessing fl eece and conformation

We also saw what they ate, and I have a picture of some paddling in shallow water nibbling at rock fungus which is where their minerals came from. It was incredibly interesting and a fantastic learning experience.

After judging the BAS National in 2019, and visiting the show this year, how would you say the type of alpacas bred in the UK has changed?

I’ve been very lucky to judge the National Show four times. The first three shows were very far apart in terms of changes to the quality of the alpacas. They are still improving and evolving, in terms of improving density without losing fineness. This year the fineness, density and length of staple on the alpacas I saw was superb, and you begin to think how can they get any better?

What advice would give to new breeders and owners who want to show?

Learn as much as you can – learning is the key to everything. Have a plan or a goal and enjoy it. Life is too short not to enjoy what you do, and use your own judgement. Once you’ve learnt everything you can stick to your plan and use your judgement because sometimes the perceived experts aren’t always right – ask 10 breeders a question about alpacas and you’ll often get 11 answers!

Although you’re retired from judging will alpacas remain a big part of your life?

Yes. I am part of the Yorkshire Alpaca Group and helped them with the Yorkshire Show last year. I am going to be their events co-ordinator, and of course I will continue to help my sister Jackie with her herd at Beacon Alpacas.

> Alpacas eating minerals on Altiplano