Q. What do you do with an alpaca?

A. In addition to the joy of interacting with these amazing animals, alpacas provide luxurious fiber. The fleece, superior to cashmere, is known for being lightweight, strong, incredibly fine, and lustrous. Alpaca textile products are recognized worldwide and are growing in importance to the U.S. fashion industry. Today, the alpaca is still a rare livestock animal in the U.S. making breeding stock a valuable investment for many breeders.

Q. What do alpacas do besides grow fiber?

A. Alpacas make excellent companion animals and are show animals with high aesthetic appeal and a loveable disposition. They are easily trained to lead and are gentle enough to be handled by children.

Q. Can you pack with an alpaca?

A. They can be trained to carry a light backpack on outings, but for heavier loads, the larger llama is more appropriate.

Q. Are alpacas smart?

A. Yes, alpacas are amazingly alert animals that quickly learn to halter and lead. They constantly communicate with each other through body posture, tail and ear movements, and a variety of sounds. The sound heard most often is a soft humming, a mild expression befitting a gentle animal.

Q. What do alpacas eat?

A. Alpacas are ruminants, meaning they chew cud like a cow or deer. They survive well on different kinds of low protein hay or pasture grass, providing it has a balanced mineral content. Because alpacas evolved in harsh conditions, they digest their food more efficiently than other ruminants. The cost to feed an alpaca is very reasonable.

Q. Do alpacas spit?

A. They can spit, but usually spit at one another if aggravated. They rarely spit on people who know how to behave around them.

Q. Are alpacas dangerous?

A. One of the greatest joys of alpacas is they are safe and pleasant to be around. They do not bite or butt, and they do not have the teeth, horns, or hooves to do serious injury.

Q. Are alpacas easy to care for?

A. They are a small livestock and easy to maintain. Many breeders claim their small herds require less work than their dogs. They should have basic shelter for protection against heat and foul weather, and they require shearing, worming to prevent parasites, and vaccinations. Your veterinarian can advise you on the details depending on your area of the U.S.

Q. How much acreage does it take to raise alpacas?

A. They are an ideal small acreage livestock, so you can comfortably stock between five and ten animals per acre, depending on the region of the U.S. This makes the alpaca ideal for people who have only a few acres and want the pleasure of a small herd.

Q. How do you transport alpacas?

A. They can be transported in the family mini van, station wagon, utility vehicle, or horse trailer. Some breeders have been known to transport their alpacas in small planes. Once enroute, the alpaca typically lays down and enjoys the ride.

Q. What do you call alpacas?

A. A baby alpaca is known as a cria. The weaned crias are known as weanlings or tuis. An adult female is a dam, and an adult breeding male is a herdsire.

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There’s a reason why the alpaca looks suspiciously like a camel – they are actually closely related, and an understanding of where alpacas came from will help you understand how this could be. The alpaca is a member of the South American camelid family, which also consists of the llama, the guanaco, and the vicuna.

All of the South American camelids and the Asian and African camels have a common ancestor in the Hemiauchenia, a long limbed, long necked animal that was larger than today’s guanaco. These ancient ancestors of the camelids roamed the North American continent approximately 50 million years ago, prior to the Ice Age.

Migrating to South America, Asia and Northern Africa across the major land bridges in place, the early ancestor escaped the advancing ice cap 3 million years ago, vacating North America altogether. Alpacas were first imported to the U.S. in the early 1980’s. So in one sense, while we think of alpacas as being “new” to the U.S., their coming here is also somewhat of a homecoming.

The wild vicuna, the smallest of the camelids at 90 pounds, is believed to be an evolutionary step toward the domesticated alpaca. Vicuna and alpaca share common traits that are not shared with the llama and guanaco. They both lack enamel on the tongue side of the incisors and their teeth grow continuously. They also have the same ear shape. The domesticated llama is believed to have evolved from the guanaco. Both llamas and guanacos have enamel on the tongue side of the incisors.

The vicuna with the finest undercoat of the camelid family produces the smallest amount of fiber. With an annual staple growth of less than one inch and producing only a pound of fiber every two to four years, the vicuna is a double-coated animal of one consistent color.

Double-coated means that the vicuna has coarser guard hairs throughout the fleece, and de-hairing by hand is necessary to render the fiber useable. The alpaca has been bred to be a single-coated animal so that guard hairs should be minimal. How these ancient people developed the single-coated, abundantly fibered alpaca in many colors from the single-colored vicuna is nearly miraculous.

Zoological archaeologists have determined that the evolution of the wild vicuna into the domestic alpaca began around 6000 years ago in the region between Bolivia and Peru. The specialized breeding of alpacas for fiber production was not developed until around 500 B.C. The people of the Pucara culture in the Lake Titicaca region of Southern Peru are credited with being the first true alpaca breeders.

Much later, during the Inca Empire period (1430-1532), the Incas were remarkably successful in further refining the domestication of the alpaca. These people used rigid breeding control, which must have required considerable record keeping, to greatly improve the quality of the fiber.

In 1991, archaeologists found mummified remains of alpacas at ritual Incan burial sites, whose fiber at 17 microns is finer than many of our modern day alpacas. The lack of medullation, the uniformity, and the high luster in the fiber points to rigorous breeding selection. The Incas are credited with developing the alpaca into the two distinct fleece types, the huacaya and the suri. They were committed to keeping alpacas for fiber and llamas for packing, and did not allow for interbreeding.

Alpacas and llamas were treasured commodity, used for garments, hides, fertilizer, fuel, and meat. In ancient societies, things of highest value were sacrificed to appease the gods. In the capital of the Incan empire, an alpaca was sacrificed every morning, noon, and night.

The Incans developed the alpacas into black, brown, and white colors; the white color being bred as sacrificial alpacas. The best fiber was reserved for nobility, and the death penalty was invoked for others using the fiber or molesting the herds.

The Spanish invasion of 1532 destroyed the Incan Empire, and as the alpacas were so much a part of the society and religious beliefs, the alpacas were slaughtered by the millions. The Incans who hid their herds were tortured to give them up. It is estimated that 90% of the livestock and 80% of the people succumbed to slaughter, disease, and starvation.

The alpaca herds, numbering 50 million pre-conquest time, were decimated and forced into the margins, the antiplano, where the Europeans and their domestic dogs, sheep, and cattle could not survive. Before the conquest, the alpacas lived in all areas of Peru. In the antiplano, the rigid breeding programs fell into disuse, and the alpaca and llama herds were run together. It is believed that this unsupervised breeding and cross breeding was the cause of the decline in the quality of the fiber.

Ironically enough, it was a European who recognized the value of alpaca fiber in the mid-1860’s. An English wool importer noted that the sacks arriving full of wool from South American sheep were made of a marvelous fiber with lovely sheen and texture – those sacks were made from alpaca fiber.

The Spanish colonists believed that their own animals were superior to the Indians, and without any empirical evidence to back them up, they continued to force the campesinos with their alpacas and llamas to live in the remote antiplano.

The “discovery” of alpaca fiber led to English investment and establishment of fiber mills in South America. Those fiber mills lasted until the 1990’s when they were sold to multinational corporations. Peru, with 80% of the world’s alpacas, continues to be the largest producer of alpaca fiber in the world today. Most of Peru’s alpaca fiber is purchased by several large fiber collectives and then marketed to the European fashion houses and to Japan.

The Peruvian alpacas suffered another setback between 1967 and 1992, when terrorism plagued the antiplano. Even the government backed alpaca research station was destroyed along with valuable research about coat color genetics. Few breeders were able to maintain herds with controlled breeding programs. Even the “model” herds had no record keeping, and often bred for a single characteristic.

For example, since the mills paid double for white fiber, that is what the large operations bred for regardless of grade of fiber. Inbreeding was not avoided. Greater color diversity could be found in the smaller herds belonging to the traditional farmers who were not under pressure to produce a certain color. Because Bolivia and Chile did not have large fiber mills to support, their alpaca herds also reflected a broad color diversity.

Today, there are about 4 million alpacas in Peru, with much lower numbers in Bolivia, Chile, and other parts of South America. Although there are a few large landowners with sophisticated breeding programs in Peru, the majority of the alpacas are being bred and raised by campesinos, the highland Indians with a very low standard of living.

This subsistence existence does not allow for the education and other requirements of managing a complex breeding program, and the fact that the alpaca is also a source for food as well as fiber has provided for significant culling of their herds.

Today we have the two basic types of alpacas developed by the Incas– the huacaya and the suri. The huacaya is easily recognized by its fuzzy, teddy-bear look. The suri alpaca has fiber that hangs from its body in pencil-sized ringlets.

Peru did not allow the exportation of alpacas until 1993. Prior to that, the North American alpaca population consisted of alpacas imported primarily from Chile and Bolivia. Large numbers of alpacas were imported from Peru during the period of 1993 to 1999.

In 1999, the Alpaca Registry was closed to any alpaca not born of two ARI-registered parents. As a result, even if an alpaca is imported into the U.S., it cannot be registered. It is believed this closure will allow North American breeders to concentrate their breeding efforts on developing superior alpacas with outstanding pedigrees.

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