TOFT WHITES:

At Toft Alpacas we have pursed a policy for over ten years of breeding our white herd consistently to the bloodlines of Accoyo. The sixty years of selective breeding of white alpacas pioneered by the Accoyo herd of Don Julio Barreda gave us a consistency that was sorely lacking in the early years of our development and we have not been disappointed by the huge advances we have made over the first ten years.

We have created  our white herd using at least six separate Accoyo bloodlines. We shall continue to pursue this policy with many of our white alpacas but in addition as we continue to move towards an elite fleece we are now introducing several superior bloodlines some of which have been developed by ourselves or by fellow alpaca breeders and associates in Australia and New Zealand.

Many of these bloodlines have their origins within the Accoyo herd and are rooted in the ‘big six’ the original Accoyo males which formed the basis of the Australian and New Zealand herds. These have been enhanced by careful selection for improvement over the past twenty years utilising the selection skills, breeding expertise and emerging pedigrees in other countries. By combining these superior genetics from abroad with our own advanced bloodlines we hope to make our progress in the next ten years as exciting as the last.

TOFT COLOURS:

At Toft Alpacas we have always dedicated at least 50% of our work to the improvement of coloured alpacas. Although historically the coloured alpaca has been some way behind the more advanced breeding of the white we have used the standard of Accoyo as the marker we aim towards with our colours. We have endeavoured to breed classically conformed, solid colour alpacas, cutting above average, fine, dense and bright well structured fleeces. The consistent success of our progeny in the show ring over the past ten years is testament that we must be doing something right and we hope by the appliance of science, experience and our emerging pedigrees to hopefully get it right for some time to come.

We have been fortunate in that after ten years of selective breeding our coloured alpacas are starting to bear the clear stamp of a Toft Alpaca i.e. - one coloured, strong well proportioned frame, tidy head, uniform fine dense fleece which exhibits a definitive lack of guard hair. This is a hard act to follow which places us in the enviable position of having to scour the world for coloured alpacas to improve our own. To this end we have been selectively breeding coloured alpacas in Australia and New Zealand for some time now to create superior coloured bloodlines with which to enhance our work at Toft. We hope to see the benefit of this initiative over the coming years.

We shall continue to be extremely selective with our males. We take only the very best  of our progeny forward and any alpacas we select for the top end of our programme must have attributes and genetics which at least match and hopefully enhance our own herd. We aspire to a consistent herd of superior quality alpacas producing a commercial clip of bright dense elite fibre in all colours.

We have achieved a lot in our first ten years plan to achieve a lot more in the next ten. We now produce over 600 kgs of fine fibre per annum, all of which we process ourselves into top quality yarns, knitwear, garments, jewellery and accessories which we retail through our on farm and online shop. www.TheToftalpacaShop.co.uk

At Toft our main emphasis is breeding not sales. We have always taken a long view and adhere to the patience, perseverance and experience route in our breeding. We pride ourselves in our open, straight talking- common sense approach to the challenge of creating an enjoyable and sustainable alpaca lifestyle. We are content to research and gather knowledge from all sources to achieve our goals and continue to sift out fact from fiction where the alpaca is concerned. We aspire to progress and learn along with our clients as we gather more real experience of how to raise alpacas successfully in the UK.

At Toft we have striven since our inception for the highest standards in husbandry, welfare, management and education. We acknowledge that we are the keepers of a very special animal producing a very exclusive luxurious product and manage our farm for the sole benefit of our alpacas.  We devote a lot of resource into improving our farm to create an efficient, economic and beautiful showcase for our wonderful herd which we can enjoy along with our clients and the public at large.

We persevere to provide our clients with a friendly, efficient, value for money, superior service with continued back up and support as we all move towards creating a sustainable and profitable alpaca industry in the UK.

Time to stop reading and pay us a visit:- 01788810626. Contact us here.