Information

150th Great Yorkshire Show

Spitfire Aircraft Gives Alpaca Presentation

How do we get them in a straight line!!

Shaun and Julie - County Alpacas

Shaun giving one of his many interviews

Thomas and Julie - County Alpacas

Debbie and Andrew - Daleside Alpacas

Katie of Treeside Alpacas

Lawrence of Brookfield Alpacas

Maureen's spinning demonstration

Maureen’s spinning demonstration

The Yorkshire Alpaca Group hosted its second BAS event over three days at the 150th Great Yorkshire Show in July. The rain held off, mostly, and everyone that attended thoroughly enjoyed the demonstration event.

The show highlighted how the Yorkshire Alpaca Group is going from strength to strength. On the first day the numbers of interested people appeared to equal the number that visited throughout the whole show last year. All the volunteers were completely exhausted at the end of each day. The visitors and questions seemed to never end but we are already looking forward to next year’s event.

Amongst some great questions from the children were, “Is it a whippet?” which could only be asked in Yorkshire. Other classics such as “When it grows up will it become a giraffe?” With these gems and too many others to count, each of the three days were filled with entertainment for the alpaca owners and spectators.

Our nearest neighbours, the Poppy Appeal stand, had a full scale Spitfire aircraft with sound effects. After some careful volume testing we discovered that alpacas are seemingly unperturbed by an aircraft engine at full volume. Partway through the show we had our arena microphone changed. Unfortunately the new microphone was tuned to the same frequency as the speakers in the Spitfire. Instead of being treated to the sound of a Rolls Royce Merlin engine at full throttle the visitors to the Poppy Appeal stand were given an educational talk on the merits of alpaca ownership by a Spitfire.

The Yorkshire Agricultural Society (YAS) were also showing a great deal of interest in the alpacas. Shaun Daniel was given a tour of a penning area and arena for a potential location for a halter class in 2009. The YAS will make a final decision on a Judged event at a meeting in September; we are keeping our fingers crossed.