Alpaca and rare breed centre

Alpaca and rare breed centre

Key info:

• 4-5hrs per day, 2 days off per week
• Self catered fully-equipped caravan
• Farm support and animal care
• Isle of Lewis, Scotland

Accomodation:

We are a charity run alpaca, rare breed, rescue and re-homing visitor centre in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. We have 15 alpacas, 15 sheep, 3 KuneKune pigs, 60+ chickens (more than 20 breeds), 70+ ducks (15 breeds), 3 peacocks and 6 turkeys. A third of these are rescued or re-homed. We look after sick and injured animals and return or release them where possible.

Volunteers will stay in one of our fully equipped caravan with divided off double bedroom, shower, toilet, bathroom sink, oven, hob, microwave, fridge with small freezer box, kitchen sink, large seating area with pull-out table, smart TV, wi-fi (fast and stable enough to stream), gas heating and plenty of storage. The caravans are immediately outside our front door.

We receive thousands of visitors from around the world every year. We don't charge for admission or guided animal tours. We rely on donations, café and gift shop sales. We have seating and tables for the café and to view the animals in a turquoise double decker bus. Our registered charitable purposes are animal welfare, education and a recreational facility.

Our charity centre is called Callandish Alpacas, charity number SCIO SC 052491

What we need help with:

Every morning Martyn and I will initially let all the animals out of their houses early then they all need to be cleaned out on a play-it-by-ear basis (for instance ducks are revoltingly dirty and the weather plays a big part), given food and have their water changed. This takes approximately 2 hours for a couple working together. The alpacas, sheep and pigs have to be moved to specific areas before opening at 11am so that every animal is easily accessible to the visitors who are invited into the fields with the alpacas, sheep and pigs and are able to feed the sheep and pigs (but not the alpacas). We don’t do alpaca trekking on the principal that we like our alpacas to feel relaxed when the public are walking amongst them and not feel that they’re going to be dragged off by a stranger for what would amount only to financial gain.

We would be grateful if you could help us between 9am and 2pm from Wednesday to Friday and in peak season from 9am to 5pm on Saturday and Sundays but not that any one person works for more than 5 hours each day ie an informal shift arrangement. In April/May and September/October it’ll be 9am until 2pm Wednesday to Sunday. You will always have Mondays and Tuesdays to yourselves as we’re closed and Martyn and I can manage all the basic animal duties.

We’d love you to help out not just with the animals but by taking visitors on tours and bits and pieces of maintenance; but everybody has their own strengths and we’re very flexible. We get thousands of visitors every year and some days are crazily busy. We just absorb whatever happens! It may be that we ask you to carry some soup from the café to the bus for a little old lady or rescue a child that’s fallen in a muddy ditch and we hope you’ll be amenable to that and enjoy the huge variety of occurrences that happen on a daily basis here!

We will provide all protective clothing; wellington boots, Hebridean fisherman’s waterproof trousers and coats (they’re truly waterproof!), waterproof hats, a snood and gloves. And midge nets when required!

What we are looking for:

It is fundamental that you to love and care for our animals like we do. They are all pets.

A good grasp of the English language is essential. Social interaction with our many visitors can be intense. Above all to be enthusiastic about our project and keen to help by being flexible and intuitive is great!

Any farm and DIY experience is helpful but not essential!

Your schedule:

• 9am to 2pm Wednesday to Sunday, Monday and Tuesday off
• Free time to explore the local area

Pets

Other than all the above animals, we have 3 house chickens (Drizzle, Snowball and Ava) and a house duck (Angelo). They go outside in the day and in at night. You have to see them to believe them so we’ll leave that as a surprise for you!

Local area

The island is remote and surprisingly large so co-ordinating public transport (bus only) can be hit or miss. It is 80 miles long and has a scattered population of 21,000. There is a bus service to Stornoway from the top of our drive several times a day. If you drive then it may be possible for us to add you to our car insurance on a temporary basis. Many of the roads are single track with frequent passing places. You can of course hire a car. We have electric bicycles with a range of 60 miles that you are welcome to borrow. We can occasionally take you to further flung places or collect you if you get stranded!

Things to do: It’s all about the outdoors; scenery, beaches (one of them appeared on a Thailand travel brochure masquerading as a Thai beach!) and historic sites particularly the many stone circles that date back to 3,000 BC. The main stone circle (Callanish 1) is world famous and easily visible from our croft. Stornoway is the only town on the Isle of Lewis. It has a population of 8,000 but feels more like a village to us. We do however have a personal saying that “You can get anything in Stornoway” but it’s definitely not a metropolis! Tarbert is a much smaller town on the Isle of Harris. The two islands are joined, so often called the Isle of Lewis and Harris. Every other community is just that. Sometimes called townships they are simply a gathering of houses with no local amenities (shops etc) although they often have community halls hosting various events and regular activities throughout the year. There is a small gym in our local community centre a mile from here and we don’t mind taking out membership for you as it only costs £20 per year! It is open access with a key fob 24 hours a day…but not on a Sunday…see next section!

Sundays: On Sunday EVERYTHING is closed and there is no public transport. This stems from a Free Church of Scotland tradition where Sunday is the day of rest and no pleasure. The island is the last stronghold of the Free Church and also the last stronghold of the Gaelic language. The word is pronounced “Gallic” in Scotland as opposed to the more commonly known Irish pronunciation. It is the islanders’s first language. We’ve noticed that things are becoming a little more relaxed in recent years especially in Stornoway where you can now find a few coffee shops and a couple of restaurants open. Tesco started opening on a Sunday in 2025 and there was local uproar! Luckily we’re open on a Sunday so you’ll always be busy!

The weather here is very different to most of the UK. It is the furthest north-westerly point and on the Gulf Stream. There is nothing to the west between us and Newfoundland. In summary it is windy (109mph a couple of years ago, frequently 90mph+ in the winter and almost hit 90mph last August!), unpredictably rainy, never hot but rarely very cold. At the summer solstice on June 21st it doesn’t get properly dark but at the winter solstice on December 21st there is only 5 hours of daylight. From October to March the Northern lights are visible sometimes to a stunning degree.

Interested?

Send us a message and tell us:

A little about yourself Why you'd love to join us and help us out with our various projects Any experience you have with the project help that we’ve listed above We’re looking forward to meeting like-minded people who are interested in staying with us.