@mapgrrl Ive managed to find your listing and these are my thoughts, as a sitter:
You have not included any exterior pics of the property in your listing and the interior pics are limited. You really should show images of rooms which sitters will occupy. I realise you have included a link to a video showing the interior of your gite but the actual listing photos - which should initially hook sitters - are not compelling; one shows a radiator and a window but there’s no indication of which room that is, another of a shower head but not of the complete bathroom. The pic of the kitchen shows some sort of package in front of the oven, but this doesn’t seem to be the kitchen in the gite, where sitters will actually stay? There’s no pic of the bedroom or the living area.
In the video, the stairs in the gite are clearly narrow, steep and winding, so some sitters may have an issue with this (there’s another current thread about this, which you might find interesting).
Your comment of: ‘only sitters with large animal especially alpaca experience to apply. Must be vaccinated. No exceptions.’ doesn’t sound very welcoming, and the terminology regarding what your dog and cat ‘will require’, along with the statement about ‘more instructions before you arrive’ is all a bit less than inviting, so you could maybe look at rewording that; thinking about what language you’d use to invite a friend to come and stay and look after your animals and home.
I agree with @Garfield , and this will greatly limit your number of applicants, when I suspect that many sitters on here are very experienced, calm, logical and sensible, and easily able to learn the ropes if you invite them to arrive a day or two earlier than the sit start date.
We once saw a sit where the pet parent shared that she was really hoping to find a ‘retired vet’ to care for her dogs, cats and donkeys. The wording of her listing clearly implied that she did not really think anyone else would be capable of caring for her animal family and the result was that she had no applicants. We applied, stating clearly that we are not retired vets but have had lots of experience (which we outlined, as well as asking her to take a look at our profile) and that we’re sensible people. We got the sit and it was very enjoyable, but I have to say this pet parent messaged every single day with instructions and comments, so we felt very much micro-managed. The very large hint was in the initial wording of the listing but we chose to ignore it, which we wouldn’t do again.
I’d suggest that if you are really concerned about finding someone with proven capabilities in alpaca care, you should perhaps use a paid service with specialised - and accountable - employees.
Best of luck with it.