A new arrival on a farm in West Cork is bringing joy to all that it meets.

The Waterfall Alpaca Farm in Castledonovan, Drimoleague welcomed a little baby alpaca onto the farm last week.

The brown baby alpaca was born on July 5 to its mom Grace, who has been on the farm for over 10 years.

The farm does walking tours with tourists and visitors and the alpacas on their 15-acre farm, which is made up of 50% native woodland.

This is the first baby alpaca on the farm since 2019.

Speaking to The Echo, co-owner of the farm Emma Bird the farm now has 15 alpacas.

Emma runs the farm with her partner Marcus Payne and their sons Luka and Ruben.

“We don’t breed the alpacas to sell, we just run walking tours and we have the holiday cabin where people stay.” Emma said they were unsure if they wanted another alpaca on the farm last summer.

“We were unsure, we knew the price of feed and hay and everything else was going up, but we are also aware of the joy that the alpacas bring people and a baby alpaca is pure joy on legs, and we just thought the world needs more joy.” 

Emma said the past two years have been insanely busy, as they are an outdoor activity and therefore remained mostly open during the pandemic.

“People arrived stressed and unsettled and they would take the alpacas on a walk and they came back relaxed and happier. It made us realise it really is like therapy. The alpacas have a very relaxed zen-like quality.” 

The baby alpaca has yet to be named on the family farm with the relevant stakeholders deciding between two names, ‘Donovan’ and ‘Picchu’ after Macchu Pichhu.

To visit the alpaca farm in Castledonovan, you can call 028-31953 and to find out more check out their Instagram: ‘waterfallalpacafarm’.