[devonlady]

Ah, yes. Alpacas. About 15 years ago at a County Show I enquired about alpacas, temperament, husbandry, feeding, housing and all. The price then, and the lady would only sell them in groups of three was £2,000 each :Needless to say I didn't buy any. Now people are finding it hard to shift them.
Be the same with these sheep in a few years time, as someone said earlier. They do look lovely though, and for anyone with the money to buy then now I would say, jump on the band wagon while it's still rolling!!!

[nutterly_uts]

Alpaca prices still seem high - some go for couple of hundred but generally it seems to be around £1k a piece still

[Foobar]

If you do get them imported pgwodehouse, you know that you will have a customer list as long as your street for your offspring, esp if they are sensibly priced

[SallyintNorth]

Oh lor', that's all we need.  Innocent, ignorant people importing livestock without understanding the risks to their neighbours and their livestock 

And at the silly prices these attractive (but not necessarily very useful) sheep are fetching at the moment, it's pretty much bound to happen...

There have been concerns that alpaca can carry TB and infect other livestock - and their own humans, too - and yet there's no effective test for them, so they continue to be moved about the country, and over TB zone boundaries, without control.

I wonder what the pretty sheep might bring with them from all over Europe... ?  As has been said, Bluetongue, Schmallenberg, and who knows what else...

[SallyintNorth]

And of course, if you spend £000s on sheep like these, the only way you'll recoup your costs let alone make any money is to sell offspring on to others wanting the pretty things too... It's pyramid selling!  But it doesn't just hurt the people who part with too much money, it can hurt their neighbours too.  :sadandworldwearyface:

[Marches Farmer]

I know someone with 35 alpacas who stopped showing them some years ago for fear of them contracting BTb. She said one of the main problems was "drive by" matings, where a stud male gets carted all over the country (with no pre-movement test). 

[Foobar]

Surely the problem (if there is one) is with the import regulations and testing, not the 'ignorant' people doing the import?


And aren't bluetongue and schmal. both midge born diseases anyway?

[beagh-suffolks]

my neighbor bought 2 alpacas for 1k and one of them is pregnant and the other is a male...

[SallyintNorth]

Surely the problem (if there is one) is with the import regulations and testing, not the 'ignorant' people doing the import?


And aren't bluetongue and schmal. both midge born diseases anyway?

The midges get it from the blood of the infected herbivore.  It follows that the disease can travel over inside an infected herbivore, and will, if the weather is warm enough for midges at the arrival location, infect a local midge when that midge bites the infected herbivore. 

[SallyintNorth]

Surely the problem (if there is one) is with the import regulations and testing, not the 'ignorant' people doing the import?


And aren't bluetongue and schmal. both midge born diseases anyway?

The midges get it from the blood of the infected herbivore.  It follows that the disease can travel over inside an infected herbivore, and will, if the weather is warm enough for midges at the arrival location, infect a local midge when that midge bites the infected herbivore.

The infection in the imported herbivore will be discovered on post-movement testing.  But the local midges are already spreading the disease. 

[Foobar]

Yes, but this is about importing livestock from mainland Europe not Timbuktu.  All you are really doing by importing stock from Germany is speeding up the inevitable, given that midges commonly fly across the channel; and I suspect we will get more of that anyway as the climate warms up.
If it was a triple muscled sooper dooper all singing all dancing breed that would make us all giant lambs that sell at high prices, rather than just "pretty sheep", I'm sure we would all be less bothered....

[SallyintNorth]

Yes, but this is about importing livestock from mainland Europe not Timbuktu. 

We have plenty of diseases across Europe, we don't need to go to Timbuktu to find some to import, sadly

All you are really doing by importing stock from Germany is speeding up the inevitable, given that midges commonly fly across the channel

Yeah, but (a) not so many cattle on the white cliffs, the midges have to reach cattle or sheep to get established. And more importantly, (b) keeping them away as long as possible is really important - more time for vaccines and treatments to be developed.

If it was a triple muscled sooper dooper all singing all dancing breed that would make us all giant lambs that sell at high prices, rather than just "pretty sheep", I'm sure we would all be less bothered....

Couldn't disagree more.  Hereabouts we do get folks (often incomers) importing the triple muscled sooper dooper all singing all dancing (or milking) animals - and we do not approve  . 

I suspect we will get more of that anyway as the climate warms up.

I'm sure that's true, but it doesn't mean we should lie down and invite all the diseases and disease-bearing creatures to jump on a plane and come over right away.

[Fieldfare]

How did a very polite smallholding question that pgwodehouse posted below get 3 pages of generally impolite and off-topic sarcasm?? I also notice another recent similar reaction on another post asking about commercial chicken houses. Can the moderators step in when this happens to continue to keep this forum a place where anyone can ask an interesting question without being shot down with snide remarks?

"Hello!

I was just wondering if it is possible to lamb Valais Blacknose sheep outside? I might have the opportunity to get a flock of about 5 ewes and don't know if I need housing facilities.

Thank you and have a nice afternoon "

[Dan]

How did a very polite smallholding question that pgwodehouse posted below get 3 pages of generally impolite and off-topic sarcasm?? I also notice another recent similar reaction on another post asking about commercial chicken houses. Can the moderators step in when this happens to continue to keep this forum a place where anyone can ask an interesting question without being shot down with snide remarks?

There's a 'report to moderator' link on every post on this thread and every other thread on the forum. Neither the OP nor any other member (including yourself) has used the facility on this thread, or contacted mods by PM, email or in the thread.

While I appreciate your view, also consider that this was the OP's first post, and despite numerous replies they didn't revisit the forum until over 2 days after posting the initial question.

At what point do you suggest we as mods should have stepped in - serious question, please look back at the posts and tell me at what point you would have liked to have seen mod activity, and what form that would have taken?

I posted suggesting it was a wind-up because it had all the hallmarks of one, but also left the door open to the possibility it wasn't. The OP's later response strongly suggests they had no problem with the nature of the discussion.

So please let's not be too quick to shout about 'impolite and off-topic sarcasm' on what is an open forum on the internet. 99%+ of questions on here aren't 'shot down with snide remarks' and in this case there were helpful answers even if you consider some of the replies to be snide. Hardly cause for alarm that the whole forum is going to pot?

Personally I though it was pretty much good-natured and has only moved slightly off-topic latterly, although again that is the nature of internet forums. Asking about importing a non-native breed from Germany should naturally lead to discussion of the implications of doing so - maybe we need to get better at splitting threads on here, but that has its own problems.

We're always trying to learn how to keep TAS lively and friendly, so please let us know when you're not happy with anything on the forum - we're not hard to contact, and there are always opportunities for new moderators. 

[Womble]

OK, we're sorry for any inadvertant sarcasm or unhelpfulness. My first question when I saw a picture of Valais Blacknose wasn't "can they lamb outside?" though, it was "are they for real?".



I know from previous conversations that Sally has a bee in her bonnet about people moving livestock around without considering TB and other diseases (fair enough). So, surely it's fine to mention that in a thread about importing sheep? The same goes for the Alpaca references, as the parallels are obvious: breeding animals being sold for astronomical prices mainly to other people who hope to recoup their money by selling breeding animals to other people who......

What I'm not clear on PgWodehouse, is are you actually in the UK, or would you be buying these animals in Germany and keeping them there?