From his windswept quiff to the defiantly curled lip, it is easy to see the star qualities that helped win Elvis his legions of fans.

But while his famous namesake earned fame through his carefully crafted public image and a string of chart successes, Elvis the impudent alpaca has courted notoriety for all the wrong reasons.

Indeed, he may look like an angel and used to walk like an angel, but the owners of this once-docile animal fear he is now the devil in disguise.

Caroline and Alec McKenzie were all shook up after the normally placid Elvis suddenly started chasing sheep and lambs, jumping up and spitting at all and sundry, while his ‘greatest hits’ are more likely to see him throw his 10st-plus weight at shocked visitors.

Despite sharing a moniker with the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll, Elvis’s yobbish behaviour has been more worthy of punk royalty. It has left him firmly on the naughty step as the King of Strop ‘n’ Drool.

The McKenzies pulled no punches when explaining why visitors to their ‘hands-on experience’ at Bowhead Farm would be hands-off when it came to their main attraction.

An online post stated baldly: ‘There will be no alpaca walking on for the next couple of weeks as Elvis is a tw** at the moment.’

An update on the farm’s Facebook page was equally forthright: ‘So Elvis firstly decided it would be fun to chase the sheep and lambs... then it would be fun to spit and try to jump on visitors. The final straw was when we had a school visit.

‘Elvis took a real liking to one of the teachers and would not leave her alone. Poor teacher, she no longer likes alpacas.’

The post’s frankness along with pictures of a far from repentant-looking Elvis seemed to strike a chord and within days it had gone viral, picking up more than four million views.

It has spawned endless memes, including Elvis the alpaca in Vegas-style jumpsuits and baseball caps with ‘TW**!’ written on them.

Elvis’s new-found celebrity was initially greeted with bemusement by the McKenzies, but they have since spotted a unique marketing niche for their business, producing merchandise featuring their hunka hunka gurnin’ love.

‘‘When I put the post up, I didn’t think any more of it until somebody said, “check Facebook out, it’s gone viral”. I didn’t believe them but the internet had just gone crazy,’ said Caroline at the seven-acre farm, near Dollar, Clackmannanshire.

‘I’ve always been quite a plain speaker – I speak as I find. And it was not meant to come across in a bad way, it’s just a word that Scots use all the time and besides Elvis was being a tw**.’

She added: ‘People have written things like, “My husband is a bit of a tw**, he can walk him”,’ she said. Others have pledged to sign disclaimers in a bid to walk with him. For now, however, they can come and see Elvis behind a fence, but they cannot walk him.

‘He’s completely wired. He’s good with a lot of people, but if he gets a bad vibe, that’s it,’ said Caroline. ‘It’s just not worth taking the risk,’ she added. ‘We need to be absolutely certain that Elvis can behave himself.’ 

Elvis will remain off limits until he can undergo several weeks of intensive retraining to ensure he is safe around visitors. In the meantime, they plan to produce a range of T-shirts, stickers and caps in a publicity drive worthy of wily old Colonel Tom Parker himself.

‘People have been very inventive online, posting pictures of our Elvis in Vegas-era jumpsuits and so on,’ she said. ‘We asked people which image they wanted on a T-shirt and we’re getting them printed up now.

‘I got a lot of private messages saying how much the post cheered them up and helped them among all the bad stuff appearing on social media. They’ve told us to keep it up, so we have.

‘We’ve ordered a first batch of 50 T-shirts to see how it goes. I’m going to do stickers saying, “I survived Elvis”.’

Banged up behind stout wire fencing, sedition snorting from both nostrils, it seemed this diva was in no mood to pander to his public when the Mail turned up for a visit last week – until it became clear his public came bearing gifts.

This came in the form of a small tub of tasty feed – the alpaca equivalent of a rock band’s special request M&Ms.

Elvis, who arrived at the farm as a nine month old in 2024, emerged with his co-habitees – four-year-old twins Pete and Kevin.

‘It’s important to have at least three alpacas living together as they are sociable animals and need company or they start to decline,’ said Caroline, as we walked to their enclosure.

‘They mostly get on fine, although Pete and Kevin don’t actually like each other that much. Pete is definitely in charge.’

As the animals spot the feed, Pete lets out a high-pitched whinny like a donkey on helium – a sign of dominance, according to Caroline. ‘He’s telling the others that the feed is his,’ she said. Elvis hangs back reluctantly at first, head down, ears back, tail up.

‘That’s not a good sign – he feels threatened and might misbehave,’ said Alec. Eventually, Elvis’s three-compartment belly gets the better of him and he plunges his head into the feed tub and munches away with his bottom teeth.

‘Alpacas don’t have top teeth, they only have six bottom incisors at the front and a rubbery upper pad that they grind food, mainly grass, against,’ explains 54-year-old Caroline.

Adult males do grow sharp canine-like ‘fighting teeth’ at the back which they use during pack squabbles.

When Elvis first arrived he was gentle and affectionate and got on well with strangers.

But that changed last autumn when he became agitated and increasingly erratic.

‘We’re not really sure what the problem was but it may have something to do with Elvis having been walked by humans alongside his mother from about a week old which is really unusual,’ said Caroline.

‘We think he thinks he’s human,’ added Alec, 52. His behaviour has steadily worsened, leading him to jumping 4ft fences and attempting to clear a 6ft deer fence.

He also has a particular dislike for anyone wearing a hat, which Alec suspects is because the vet wore full protective clothing during his castration operation in February. Well that might do it.

The operation was routine and the couple had hoped it would improve Elvis’s mood but their wayward two-and-a-half-year-old had other ideas. ‘For a start, all three of them turned their backs on me and walked down to the bottom of the field and just ignored me for the next three weeks,’ said Alec. ‘They can certainly hold a grudge.’

The last straw came when Elvis seemed to take a shine to one teacher who attends weekly with a small group of pupils.

‘He started galloping her,’ said Caroline. ‘I was holding Elvis with two hands to keep him off while Alec got the kids out of the field to safety.

‘I had to stand in front of her to try and protect her. The kids thought it was hilarious.’

Alec said: ‘They are strong beasts and if they hit you at speed, they could injure you, break a rib maybe.’

And you certainly want to avoid being spat upon: ‘Sometimes it is just spit, which is bad enough, but if they spit the regurgitated grass they’ve eaten it can take days to get rid of the smell,’ he said.

Just then, Elvis stares straight at me and I get the unsettling feeling that he’s about to launch some spit my way. Thankfully, the moment passes without drama.

The McKenzies will soon face their own test when the local shearer arrives to shear the alpacas. ‘Elvis gets really agitated; he won’t let the shearer touch his head and tries to bite and spit, so we just leave him with a mullet.

‘But at least they are not as bad-tempered as llamas,’ said Alec. Like llamas, alpacas are members of the camelid family and there are only two types: Huacaya and Suri.

Elvis is a Huacaya, which have long been prized in their native South America for their incredibly soft and thick fleece.

The McKenzies send their alpaca wool to a weaving collective in Fife to be turned into smart jumpers and scarves, which earn them a healthy return.

‘I’m guessing Elvis’s fleece is going to be pretty popular this year,’ said Caroline.

Although neither came from farming backgrounds – Alec worked in forestry and Caroline at the ‘big house’ on an estate – both had a strong interest in rural life, which grew when Alec bought Caroline four lambs as a birthday present.

‘We got some land but didn’t have enough lambs to get the grass down so got some more. We ended up with 120 sheep,’ said Alec.

The couple set up Rowhead seven years ago to help educate people about farms and animal husbandry and let visitors get as close as possible to the animals, which include a flock of sheep, a herd of pygmy goats, deer, rheas, two Highland cows and two rare New Zealand kunekune pigs, called Thelma and Louise.

There were three Highland cows but they had to sell one after Caroline said she turned out to be a ‘psycho’.

Other animals have also proved troublesome: ‘The goats are a nightmare,’ said Alec.

‘They’re constantly bursting the fences I put up and eating from the feeders for the lambs next door. And sometimes they get their horns stuck and we have to pull them free.’

They bought alpacas because they have a calmer temperament than llamas: ‘We used to have a pair called Jack and Victor as well, but we got rid of them because they didn’t like being walked or handled so they were no use really,’ said Alec.

Our feeding session ends abruptly when something spooks the trio and they set off at a gallop before Pete stops suddenly and launches a giant spitball about two metres into the air.

It sails past us but leaves a vivid reminder of the animals’ potent weapons.

As we take our leave, the McKenzies continue the intensive retraining of their delinquent camelid, including hand feeding sessions inside a secure pen and behaviour correction when he acts up. He is also being gradually reintroduced to walking on a lead.

‘We will walk him two or three times a day in different situations,’ said Caroline.

‘We will sort any bad behaviour; we don’t feed him if he’s being bad but reward good behaviour.

‘That training has already started and it could last up to two months depending on how he responds.’

It will take time, but as wise men once said, only fools rush in.

It’s why we can’t help falling in love with Elvis the alpaca.