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Farming Guanaco in Wales
This article is about our experience at farming Guanaco. It is not claimed to be the definitive
method of producing Guanaco fibre and we only draw attention to alternative systems, not as
a comparison, but to highlight the sympathetic understanding needed when managing these
protected wild animals.
With hindsight it was a challenging decision to set up a Guanaco project on our Farm. We
already had a few hundred Red Deer and a venison unit, so all our fences, yards and
handling systems appeared suitable. Guanaco however, come from arid and semi-arid
habitats and we were in wet West Wales; wrong hemisphere, wrong climate and wrong grass.
We were also conscious that Guanaco have complex herd structures, are migratory, and
require a vast range to roam over, we had small fenced fields. Despite this, we decided to
proceed.
In the mid 1980’s we searched British and European Zoos for surplus stock and eventually
set up with a nucleus of about 20 animals. Clearly we were unable to import wild Guanaco
and we considered it a bonus that the zoo animals would at least be used to people. And so it
turned out, in fact some were too used to people and had various behavioural problems.
So much of what we now do reflects herd structure and behaviour in the wild. Our attitude to
every detail of behaviour was well tuned to be “sympathetic” and “giving” from the years of
keeping suspicious and nervous Red deer. We believe that most of our stock management
practices retain all that is critical for natural behaviour patterns to be expressed, whilst
minimising some of the problem aspects and enhancing many others.
Our farm environment has minimised the Guanacos instinctive reaction to disturbance and
predator pressure. I would like to say eliminated but recently both puma and panther have
been reportedly breeding feral in West Wales ! However, compared to wild populations, the
effect of zero predation is the relaxed nature of the herd groups, especially at night, and their
willingness to graze and browse amongst scrub and thicket areas at dawn and dusk without
fear of a Puma strike.
Camelids in the UK are often allowed to calve at any time of the year. For us in a farming
system this was impractical and inefficient. We were also conscious that wild populations
have a very tight calving pattern (a mechanism to protect the population from total predator
exploitation of the very vulnerable calves). Consequently we introduced programme of single
mature males over separate groups of calving females for a set time. This allows us to have
calves of a uniform age and size and for merging all calving groups into one herd for the rest
of the year.
We run a breeding female herd of about 150 animals. During the calving period this herd is
split into three or four calving groups, each group having a single stud male introduced. This
minimises the serious territorial fighting of mature males, though as in the wild all our other
males run as a bachelor group and still spend all day in sparring and chasing skirmishes.
We have also dramatically minimised first year calf mortality, a major population impact in the
wild. Additionally the winter nutritional burden on the female is limited as we wean the calves
at six months and house them for their first winter. This management practice is fundamental
to delivering so many other performance advantages. The calves get used to us being around,
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to the routines, to the handling, to our voices. They also get used to their group, and they will
stay comfortably and securely as a group for 2 years.
We are continually balancing our desire to allow the herd to express natural behaviour, whilst
ensuring that in our wetter and abundant grass growing area the animals specialised
nutritional requirements are met. At the same time we must be able to annually or biennially
shear the animals without post shearing mortality during the months that the fibre slowly takes
to regrow.
By extra feeding post weaning, we obtain a big advantage in the control of dry matter intake.
If most of their pasture is very green and wet, they do not do well. We have to manage their
dry matter intake by giving them access to haylage throughout the year. A crucial outcome of
this nutritional monitoring is fibre growth. The adequate and uninterrupted protein and trace
element levels result in enhanced fibre growth, a fibre of uniform strength that is without a
‘starvation’ kink or weakness, yet with a much longer staple length than is recorded in the wild
populations. For several years we were collaborative partners in a Guanaco research project
at what was then the WPBS, Welsh Plant Breeding Station. Nutritional research showed
clearly that mean micron diameter of fibre does not increase with increased protein, though
staple length increases.
Our Guanacos are essentially kept as a fibre production unit. Guanaco fibre is recognised in
the textile world as one of the finest natural fibres with a micron averaging 14-16 micron.
Guanaco fibre is therefore much finer than llama and alpaca and currently only comparable to
vicuna in terms of Noble fibre fineness.
As a result of this fineness, guanaco fibre is most often utilised in luxury, high value suiting
fabrics by bespoke tailors.
Our shearing programme has been dramatically simplified by our development of a hydraulic
padded shearing crush. This has benefited the animals and us! We have a further hydraulic
handling crush for routine handling, and all our systems can in fact be operated by one
person.
With frequent handling, and monitoring of stock we are able to take our time in assessing
potential stud males. Over the first few years we use several criteria to measure their
potential; temperament, conformation, health robustness, fibre yield and fibre fineness and
quality. We are able to do all our own fibre analysis which means a huge amount of genetic
and statistical data has been collected which is valuable for our ‘elite yield’ breeding
programme. Most of the stud males are heavy yielders and start out at 13 micron mean fibre
diameter.
The attention to temperament in males is obviously important, but Guanaco are very
intelligent, quick to learn, to recognise, to remember and understand hierarchical dominance.
These traits make them a very easy animal to work with and when our Guanaco numbers
rapidly increased, we disposed of the Red deer herd. It was dramatically noticeable how calm
the farm became.
Several people around the world are now farming Guanaco. They are mostly calf capture start
ups and semi extensive. All will have problems to highlight and overcome, but all will have
delight at being involved with this creature. It amazes me why they haven’t been farmed
before, but then perhaps thousands of years ago they were after all who line bred the llama?
I suppose this is where the comparisons arise. We are registered as ‘in conversion’ organic
and also emphasise the welfare friendly issues and most importantly the sustainability and
traceability factors. This is not really the place to champion the sustainable management and
protection of wild populations of Guanaco or how you could harvest a sustainable crop from
them. What is clear to us though from our experience is that the method of harvesting fibre
from a wild population by capture, shear and release can not deliver the same safeguards of
welfare, even fibre quality, and certainly not zero mortality. In wild populations, managing
Guanaco for Guanaco and their fragile eco systems has to be the driving objective. The wild
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Guanaco population today is just a remnant of its former size, perhaps less than 2% remains,
there is a long way to make up before this amazing animal can be exploited in the wild again.
We are fortunate that the UK has historically the very few fine fibre milling specialists in the
world and we have such respected mills on our doorstep, mills that have been at the top of
their trade for 300 years. It has been one of the unexpected delights of the Guanaco project to
be in the confidence of some of these specialists, who say to us you have a very special
niche product, you have sustainability, you have traceability, you have quality control in all
you do, now lets make something special.
For any further information about Esgyrn Farms guanaco please contact Ray Lerwill on +44 (0)1348 872
670 or visit our comprehensive website at http://www.guanacosales.com
