The Hunter River Times

BY DI SNEDDON

If you are interested in exploring the depth of alpaca colour, then don’t miss the Hunter Alpaca Show on September 11.

With more than 115 of the State’s top alpacas coming to Singleton Showground to contest the ribbons, there will be plenty of top-class animals on show.

Breeders from as far as Goulburn, Canberra and Grafton will be in attendance at the colour show where entries will be judged in their age and colour categories with those champion alpacas then contesting the overall champion of show.

Helping to deliver the event, Helen Phillips told The Hunter River Times that there was a Hunter show about 15 years ago and she is delighted to be assisting its resurgence.

Craig and Helen Phillips live at Hebden where their property is home to 62 alpacas.  They have been involved with the animals for about 10 years and the interest came from their children who were introduced to the animals while the family was living at Rockhampton.

“We lived on a town block and when the kids wanted alpacas, we had them on agistment and the kids worked out a budget and got jobs to help pay for their hobby and this included working on the agistment property looking after the alpacas,” Helen said.

These days, Wade and Jonee are young adults, but their interest continues and Helen believes these kids now own more alpacas than she and Craig do.

Interest in alpacas is growing with a lot of new breeders in the Hunter and many are helping to put together the Hunter Alpaca Show.

“Shows like this are an opportunity to put your alpacas out there, there is keen interest from buyers at the moment with waiting lists for people wanting to buy,” Helen said.

Spectators can drop by and watch the show that starts at 9am and finishes around 5pm.

It is the first event to be held in the new Showground undercover area which Helen said is just perfect for this type of event.

Then, in a couple of weeks’ time, the alpacas will again be on show at Singleton Show where they will occupy space in the centre ring, another exciting development for breeders.