[MikeyMaule67]

Hi everyone. We're Mike and Natasha. We are looking at starting a smallholding completely from scratch. We are very keen and eager to learn, but we really know next to nothing. We know that there will be a lot of hard work ahead and that we have an awful lot to learn, but we are really enthusiastic about wanting to keep some animals. We are thinking about maybe Alpacas for wool and chickens for eggs. We really don't know where to start, like what documents you need for the animals and keeping them safe and happy. We would like to be reasonably self-sufficient by growing fruit and vegetables. Any advice would be more that welcome.

[Rupert the bear]

Welcome !  We all knew next to nothing at sometime or another, so don't be afraid to ask questions even the stupid ones that are the most important .
Have a plan that can be flexible do your research and ask advice, plan ahead and have fun.

[SallyintNorth]

Lots of great info right here.  Start by reading the livestock pages (sadly, no alpaca pages as yet, but choox are there) then do searches in the forum and ask any questions you can't easily find answers to.

I keep sheep and spin their wool but am not into alpacas or alpaca fibre so I am not an expert, but as I understand it, there are two types of alpaca producing two different types of fibre.   One is more akin to sheep's wool (Huacaya) and the other (Suri) more akin to silk.   Make sure you decide which it is you want! 

There will be folk who know a lot more than me in the https://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/forum/index.php?board=35.0]Camelids group[/url].