Alpacas hit it off with care home residents during therapeutic visit

Alpacas Alex and Bethany visited The Oaks Care Home in Wales to meet the residents.
Resident Merrill Simcox at the Oaks Care Home in Newtown, Powys (PA)
PA Wire
Max McLean25 February 2022

Two alpacas enjoyed a day out at a care home in Wales when they dropped in for a visit on Friday.

Alex and Bethany, alpacas from Admirals View Alpacas in Shropshire, took centre stage at The Oaks Care Home in Newtown, Powys, as part of a therapeutic visit.

Frances Williams, 100, said: “Oh my gosh. What a shock.

“I was just watching afternoon television when they walked in. It was lovely to stroke them.”

Resident Sylvia Hughes at the Oaks Care Home in Newtown, Powys, receives a visit from two alpacas for therapeutic value (Peter Byrne/PA)
PA Wire

The pair joined residents for afternoon tea in the lounge as well as making use of the lift to visit residents on the top floor.

Daniel Hart, 42, who has worked in the care sector for 20 years, said: “We have a great team at The Oaks and we love coming up with new and unusual ideas to brighten up the lives of our residents.

Residents at the Oaks Care Home receive a visit from two alpacas for therapeutic value (Peter Byrne/PA)
PA Wire

“Some of our residents mentioned that they’d love a trip to Chester Zoo but we thought it would be more fun to bring the animals to them.

“The alpacas were a big hit and it was wonderful to see the look on everyone’s faces when they arrived.”

Sarah Tickle runs Admirals View Alpacas which has a therapeutic team of seven alpacas.

Sarah Tickle and Isabelle Titley guide two alpacas out of a lift to visit residents (Peter Byrne/PA)
PA Wire

She said: “Alpacas are very friendly animals and they loved their visit to The Oaks Care Home.

“They’re comfortable in the lift so even residents on different floors didn’t miss out on their visit.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in