I know it sounds far fetched but it can be done...the idea was born out of a children's corner activity that we organised at the recent 2005 AlpacaMania Show.

Basically, the idea was to create an activity that children would enjoy while visiting an alpaca show.

What I discovered some weeks before the show is that the local Grange co-op sell a bird nesting product for $4.99. What you get for your money is a plastic bag containing a wad of fibre stuffed inside a piece of netting and a length of string to hang it up in your garden or back yard.

We tracked down all the necesary materials:

The stretchy netting is the stuff used by butchers and is available from The Sausage Maker Inc netting roll size 16 costs $9.99 for 50 feet. Each nesting material kit needs 6 inches.



The string and plastic bags were pretty straight forward to source.



The children loved stuffing a hand full of the fibre into the netting and pushing the stuffed roll and string into a plastic bag.

The final touch was to staple a printed sheet about the nesting activities of birds onto the bag.



In the end we decided to give the nesting kits away as a promotional item. The children really enjoyed handling the alpaca fibre and creating something useful they could take away with them.

Now personally I would sooner give visitors a lasting positive alpaca experience that costs about 50 cents than try and sell the nesting kits for $5 but the choice is yours....

By Adrian Stewart