Get involved: send your photos, videos, news & views by texting
OXFORD NEWS to 80360 or email us It's snow problem for hardy
Alpacas Buy this photo » Rocky the Alpaca THE snow has meant
more rations and warmer bedding for most of the animals at
Millet’s Farm Centre near Abingdon. But Alpacas Rocky and
Eismann have also been showing off the skills that make them
some of the world’s hardiest animals. While the county shivers
in freezing temperatures, Rocky and Eismann have been keeping
warm thanks to their thick Peruvian fur, or fibre. And they’ve
also been using their heads – and their noses and tongues – to
reach the tasty grass buried beneath the snow. Millet’s outdoor
animal keeper, Malcolm Skinner, 46, explained: “Alpacas are used
to extremely cold temperatures, originating as they do from the
Andes mountains. “While most of the other animals here have been
eating extra hay, Rocky and Eismann prefer to scratch and nuzzle
, using their toes to burrow into the snow, before searching the
green grass out with