Mayfield Alpaca Farm

We've been meaning to visit Mayfield Alpaca Farm all year to visit our adopted reindeer, Sven, and despite the best efforts of the weather to keep us away, we finally made it down this weekend! 

Though Sven was our main excuse reason for visiting, the farm is first and foremost a home for alpacas (as you may have gathered from the name), and we were more than happy to spend some time visiting the fluffy oddballs too! 

The adoption pack (a Christmas present for the other half) came with a certificate and fridge magnet featuring our boy Sven, as well as entry for two people to the farm and a couple of bags of alpaca feed. 

The greedy alpacas were very grateful for the feed - I thought they were gonna have that fence over at one point in their eagerness to get to the grub! At one point, one particularly impatient fella got so bored of waiting for Harry to pour some food into his spare hand and made a lunge for the full bag! It was a very close call...

Emily, who usually loves feeding animals (she once wouldn't leave a farm we visited before she had fed a little something to every single goat on site), was surprisingly wary of the alpacas. I think maybe because a couple like flashing their teeth at her.... 

.... but may be more to do with the fact that the first alpaca we met was a very slobbery eater, yuck! 

 

The alpacas were really wonderful - they are such funny, weird, cute animals! Our favourite though was this little guy below who just looked perpetually happy - isn't he a cheery looking chap? 

We made it nearly all the way around the farm and hadn't seen our pal Sven, so I was getting a little worried that he wouldn't be there - then, lo and behold, we spotted him and his pen-mate Elsa. What a relief! 

It's a funny thing, as he's just a reindeer minding his own business and doing reindeerish things, but Sven is a bit of a family celebrity and we were all very excited to meet him! 

There were some other lovely residents at Mayfield that we got to meet too. I love the tidgy little Shetland ponies... 

... but we were a bit more torn on the rheas, - they are interesting for sure but make a few of our number a little nervous. KC is obsessed with the notion that they are really dinosaurs and refuses to have anything to do with them.

We all loved the bunnies and guinea pigs though! 

There was even an indoor section for a number of small animals including rats, degus, birds and meerkats - like this chilled out fella trying to catch some rays while it rained outside! 

All winter afternoons out should finish with hot chocolate, so we headed to the on-site cafe for a sweet and warming treat before heading off home.

It costs just £3.50 to visit the farm for adults, and £1.50 for kids - or you can get tickets included in their adoption packs too!