April 9th, 2025Meet Paul, Australia’s biggest llama farmer
Spring Hill’s Paul Jamieson is Australia’s biggest llama farmer – by herd number.
His career has taken a journey from being a physical education teacher at Sacred Heart Primary School in St Albans in the late 1980s to current-day farmer.
With no farming background, Paul left teaching in 1996, bought the property in Spring Hill and started a mobile animal farm, visiting schools and kindergartens.
In 1996, the Royal Agricultural Society of Victoria was looking for a promotions person and Paul wasn’t sure he could fill the role but said ‘yes’ anyway. He was given the position and worked in promotions for two years and then spent another 17 years with the RASV running the Animal Nursery at the Royal Melbourne Show.
From year to year, Paul had to ensure enough animals were available to fill the stalls, where children and their parents would pet them and get to enjoy a little slice of farm life at the show.
During his time with the RASV, he was sponsored to take his mobile animal farm into schools and educate the children about animals and farm life. He had ducks, chooks, sheep, goats, dogs, pigs, emus, camels and llamas.
He eventually sold that business and stumbled into becoming a llama farmer. Sitting with mates in the Spring Hill sun and enjoying a quiet beverage, he saw an advertisement with llamas for sale.
With the powers of creative thinking, generated by a beer or three, they encouraged Paul to make an enquiry about the stock. He called the seller and before long was making his way to New South Wales to collect the herd of 20.
A short time later, realising he needed more females, he contacted a mate and drove out to see him to purchase “some girls”.
His mate told Paul to make an offer on his whole herd as he was retiring and wanted them to have a new home. Adding 200 plus llamas to the farm set on 24 hectares was a big ask but the offer was accepted, and the existing herd grew larger.
Add to this the emus, chooks and dogs already roaming the property and you have a little menagerie magic happening.
The herd is currently made up of 100 females and 40 males. As well 40-50 baby llamas, known as crias, are born each year and grow the herd.
So, what are llamas used for ? Some are sold as guard animals. The llama bonds quickly with paddock animals such as sheep, and their inquisitive nature means any visiting foxes are soon confronted by an approaching llama.
People owning lifestyle properties love them for guests to feed and pat because they are a very social animal and love being hand fed. Meanwhile, a private Indonesian zoo has acquired llamas on more than one occasion.
Others uses include meat, skins and wool. While Paul’s career wasn’t meticulously planned but materialised from a good idea at the time, his llama idea has grown to a full-time passion.
Words: Natalie Poole | Image: Natalie Poole, below, & Kyle Barnes
