Alpaca pals found

The positive power of social media has ended five months of searching to find friends for a popular yet lonely alpaca.

Michael, the old, half-blind and lone alpaca of a former herd of five tasked with keeping the grass down at Okaramio Church now has two paddock mates – Kamahi and Rangatira – thanks to the efforts of Jamie and Shirley O’Malley, and a generous local alpaca stud.

After having ‘Nana Shirley’ tell her about Michael and her unsuccessful efforts to find him some company on behalf of the church, Jamie decided to spread the message far and wide.

“She had told me about all her efforts in finding rescue alpacas since May, with offers coming from around the country for rescue animals but never having the right circumstances.

“I’ve got two young kids and can find my way around social media, so with the help of a few New Zealand alpaca Facebook pages that I was accepted into I thought I may as well make the most of some late nights and early mornings and help out.”

Jamie’s online efforts were quickly passed on to Sarah Henderson of Blackberry Creek Suri Alpacas, based only a few hundred metres away on Camerons Road.

“A friend of ours in Canterbury saw Jamie’s social media post asking for company for the one left and got a hold of me”, says Sarah.

“Funnily enough, I know lots of people look out for them when coming through Okaramio so when we found out that Michael was looking for friends to help him keep the grass down around the church, we were happy to help.”

Sarah decided that Kamahi and Rangatira would be the best to join Michael and was pleased to see “when we dropped them off on Monday, they all seemed quite happy to meet and explore the new space”.

“As much as Michael was surrounded by other farm animals, alpacas need alpacas to be the properly social animals that they are – it’s so nice that Shirley and Jamie were so concerned for Michael, and it helps people are happy to see them together.”

Shirley says having her mission achieved thanks to her granddaughter-in-law’s efforts and seeing the animals meet and greet made her “quite chuffed about it all”.

“They’re quite aloof animals, but the first meeting was great – Michael is quite old, only has one eye and was previously a bit bullied by the other alpacas but Kamahi and Rangatira had a lovely little trot around exploring the place with no spitting or fighting.

“The alpacas really add character to the Church grounds while also helping with the grass but it’s a little tourist attraction on the trip to Nelson, so much so we had to padlock the gate to stop people going in.

“We had a church meeting to decide what to do back in May, and so after all this time having them come from literally around the corner from such lovely people is just fantastic,” she added.