Rachel Hebditch

Rachel, with one of her award winning alpacas

Rachel runs Classical MileEnd Alpacas with Chas Brooke. She also edits Alpaca World magazine and she’s a director of UK Alpaca, a company that manufactures yarns from the fleeces of alpacas bred in Britain.

Baby Alpacas

Rachel says: “I bought three pregnant female alpacas fourteen years ago and it just grew from there and today we run 200 at our farm in mid Devon. We’ve imported a number of stud males from Australia and the USA and part of our business is the export of home bred pregnant females and stud males to Europe.

Both of us are part of the group of breeders who stage the British Alpaca Futurity at Stoneleigh Park every year. This is the major alpaca show of the season with halter and fleece classes, a number of workshops and seminars, a fashion show and celebratory dinner.

A career in TV

In my former life Before Alpacas I was a television producer for Granada Television and the BBC and before that a news reporter on the Daily Mirror. In between I have produced three sons, the eldest two work in London and the youngest is studying biology at University College London.

It is odd how things catch up with you. Apparently I am a pensioner - how did that happen? - and the proud possessor of a railcard.”