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The primary animal that springs to thoughts when you consider Christmas may not be an alpaca, however a lady from Alltwen is hoping to alter that this yr.
A good distance from their ancestral residence in South America, the woolly residents at The Alpaca Sanctuary and Properly-being Centre have been inflicting a stir for the reason that centre opened at a farm in Pontardawe in July (2020).
The girl operating the present, Helen Housley, left her job as a help employee and full-time carer and put her life financial savings into the brand new enterprise earlier this yr.
Talking shortly after placing Christmas coats on her 13 alpacas in preparation for his or her upcoming festive “meet and greets”, Helen mentioned: “I bought every thing I personal and used all my inheritance to maintain the sanctuary open.
“We’re animal lovers and we have 5 canine. Final yr, we bought three pet alpacas after I mentioned ‘that is sufficient canine now’ to the youngsters.
“My youngest mentioned ‘it might be nice to have an alpaca as a pet although’, we watched some Youtube movies about holding them, and right here we’re.
“It has been actually wonderful. I believed it might be a pleasant exercise, I did not count on it to be this nicely obtained.”
Helen, from Alltwen, runs the sanctuary nearly single-handedly, though one among her sons helps her on a Sunday and her youthful son works there through the faculty holidays.
She works seven days every week between 9am and 6.30pm and solely closed for the 17-day firebreak lockdown in October, the place she needed to cancel 101 booked periods.
After holding alpacas as pets, Helen mentioned she realised “what a beautiful impact” they’d on folks and made the choice to make use of her background as a carer to open the sanctuary as a wellbeing centre for autistic and disabled folks, in addition to to re-home alpacas and donkeys.
“We’ve 13 alpacas now, together with a child.
“Two months in the past we re-homed some animals from a petting farm in Hampshire that closed down. They weren’t in excellent situation or used to folks in any respect once they got here to us,” she mentioned.
Since opening on July 18, the hour-long “meet and greet” periods supplied on the sanctuary have proved massively profitable and the upcoming Christmas occasion is already fully-booked.
“It is a non-public, stress-free hour. The mother and father can loosen up as a result of the alpacas do not chunk or leap on you, they simply love to return up near you and be there and round folks,” Helen mentioned.
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She added that closing the sanctuary throughout lockdown meant she was not capable of make sufficient cash from “meet and greets” to pay for reindeer for the Christmas occasion – so the alpacas and donkeys have been taking the limelight as an alternative.
“We have decorations and inflatables in addition to Christmas eve sacks for the kids to place collectively meals parcels to ship to the reindeer for his or her very lengthy journey,” Helen mentioned.
Every youngster participating within the Christmas occasion will get a gift. Helen added that she had 34 folks on the ready listing for “meet and greet” periods.
She initially deliberate to open the alpaca sanctuary in Llandyfan, close to Llandybïe, Carmarthenshire, within the shadow of Carreg Cennen Fortress.
“We have been purported to open at Easter after shopping for land there however could not due to Covid and different points, so I rented the barn in Pontardawe from a buddy.
“Within the new yr, we’ll be transferring to the larger premises with extra employees and different animals. We’ll maintain it to non-public periods solely and you can have a picnic there.
“My son, who’s a graduate in sports activities improvement, goes to open an exercise centre there too.
“It is going to be a brand new Margam Park,” Helen mentioned.
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