This I needed to share although the tale will lose much in the description.
We have here a small and incredibly scruffy little Shropshire cross lamb who to put it mildly has had a hard life (bear with me the alpacas appear in a moment). She belongs to a friend but for reasons that will become obvious I am very tempted to try and persuade him to part with her. An orphaned lamb she was brought to us suffering badly from fly strike and not really expected to live. Within two days she had recovered sufficiently to cause the meet and greet team of my two pointers to retreat back out of the barn. Within three she had learnt to undo the latch to her pen and let herself out.
We moved her yesterday into the paddock where my stud alpaca Ranger and his friend Warrior are currently residing. This morning because we have a poorly alpaca in one of the stalls in the barn I was out early to check on the invalid. And was greeted by the sight of our posh male alpaca lying down in the straw with a small semi naked cross lamb snuggled up tight to him and clearly enjoying the benefits of advanced alpaca fleece. There was then a single enquiring hmm from the invalid's stall and his head appeared over the top.
Moments like this make all the hard work so worth while. And it appears that there are times when alpaca guarding goes further than seeing off predators!