A COUPLE who breed alpacas in Malmesbury have been left stunned and concerned after one of their recently born creatures was savaged to death.

Phillip and Debbie Neal, of Abbey View Farm, found the carcass of the five month old alpaca when they went to feed their 40-strong herd on Saturday morning.

The creature had bite marks on its legs, indicating that it had been chased, while the area around its hip had been ripped to the bone.

The couple, who have reported the matter to police, say that nothing like this had ever happened during the 14 years they have been breeding the llama-like South American creatures, which are kept both as pets and for their wool.

Mrs Neal said: “It’s very upsetting. This was a male alpaca, five months old – one of my beautiful, multi-coloured ones.

“All we know was that it was perfectly fine on Friday and was dead on Saturday morning. It had been chomped.”

Mrs Neal said they were assuming that it had been mauled to death by a dog – either one on the loose, or a pet whose owner had recklessly let it off the lead.

She said: “We are very concerned as we have other animals here, including lambs which are even smaller than the baby alpacas. I love dogs but owners have to keep them under control.”

The couple, whose 11-acre farm is located on A429 Malmesbury bypass near the Waitrose supermarket, are keen to find out whether there had been any similar incidents in the area.

Mr Neal said: “We can only assume it was a dog. We are trying to find out whether there is or has been a dog on the loose in the area. On the other hand the dog’s owner may have let it off lead.

“There is a public footpath here but we have erected signs asking people to keep their dogs on leads.”

He doubted that a fox was responsible as, although there were foxes in the area, there had never been any other similar maulings.

Mr Neal added: “We can’t really say whether it was a dog or not because we don’t know for sure. But that would be the obvious conclusion.”