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What is an ALPACA? 

Since the start of this wonderful business, I do not know how many times someone has asked me that and hopefully this page will answer some of those questions.   

Let him approach you, bend down at the waist (unlike greeting dogs, don't offer your hand) and stick your head forward. He'll stick his head forward and take a good sniff of you, just as if you were an alpaca. Take note, however, no matter how charmed you are by these lovely creatures and no matter what you offer, a responsible breeder will not sell you just one alpaca unless you have other animals at home. These herd-bound animals will die of anxiety within a week to ten days if left alone and are much happier and healthier with their own kind.

The "business" of alpacas is a fascinating one - actually there are two fascinating businesses involved. The "easiest" (and that's in quotes for a good reason) is the fiber side of the business. Alpacas can be bought just for their fleece producing capabilities. Alpaca is a highly prized fleece and used to produce "woolen" products which are expensive, fairly rare, and often handed down from one generation to the next. Unlike sheep's wool, there is no lanolin in alpaca fleece, making it easier to wash. There are two kinds of alpacas; one (Huacaya) produces a soft woolen product that feels something like Cashmere; the second, (Suri), sounds like surrey, is so fine, it cannot be knitted, it must be woven, and feels like silk. So lovely, soft and rare are these fabrics, they were only worn by Incan royalty. Currently alpaca is a favored fiber in the world's fashion centers such as Italy and Japan. Alpacas produce approximately five to ten pounds of fleece annually depending on their age and size.

Gelding alpacas, gentle by nature, do not go through the same hormonal changes as non-gelded animals and don't complicate an owner's life with breeding or dominance issues and they produce a lovely fleece for many years. Gelded or not, alpacas have a long life of productivity although sheared just once a year. The first shearing usually takes place when a cria (baby) is less than a year old, and "tui" or "baby fleece" is "the softest and most valued" according to Amanda. Production continues into "old age" and there are alpacas in the late teens, "one almost twenty," at Fiddlers' Green in Esmont.


The other "alpaca business" is breeding, and it is not for the faint hearted. A member of the camelid family, the alpaca is native to the Andes of South America. This is a foreign climate and the animals need special care here. Summer heat and particularly humidity are serious problems, and Amanda combats it with continually running fans in the animals' shady shelters as well as twice a day hose showers. In winter, sleet and cold rain are hard on baby alpacas, so a shed is a must. So fragile are these lovely creatures that, in their native habitat, a mortality rate of 70 or 80 percent is not unknown in a "bad year."

Breeding alpacas is complicated by several facts. The gene pool in the United States is closed. There are approximately 50,000 alpacas in the country now; it is illegal to import or export them at this time. Because of the unusual and intricate reproduction system of the alpaca, artificial insemination is not currently practiced, although the problem of duplicating the males physiology and breeding behavior is being researched. Another breeding issue is the long gestation period. A female usually isn't bred until she is between eighteen and twenty-four months old, add in the eleven month gestation period and another six months to wean the cria, and it can be three to four years before an owner-investor can realize any profit. Animals that are deemed not suitable for breeding are much less expensive to buy than breeding animals and can be sold as geldings for companions for other animals or as fiber producing animals. There is no "season" or "heat" for the female, so the young can be born any time of the year and heat or other stress can cause a premature birth unless the breeding is planned. "At least alpacas give birth only during the day," points out Amanda, who has worked with horses and spent many "all-nighters" in a barn with a laboring mare, "the newborns would not survive a night birth in their native habitat. And because winters can be so cold there, they have a very dry birth...hardly any fluids to chill a new cria."

Alpacas have extremely clean elimination habits as well; the entire herd picks one spot and uses it. In the wild it makes for hills of waste; in a pen or stable it means there's only one spot to clean up, much like a little box.


The natural question to ask is "Why do you do this?"  Answer, natural enough, is no short: "I love alpacas. I love animals. This way the fleece can be harvested and I don't have to eat the animal.  Love the fiber for spinning and knitting, like the lifestyle of working with animals. This is my job. I don't have to dress up and drive to the corporate world - where I wouldn't fit in anyway.  wouldn't approach a hot, pregnant, irritable alpaca and poke her with a needle without expecting consequences.

Interested in the fiber business? You get to choose animals from dozens of gorgeous colors - white, silver, frosted grays, reddish browns, chocolate, black, and an enormous range of variations. If you have a couple of alpacas you can have nice fiber for a long time, a real boon if you like to knit, spin or weave. There's a ready market for good fleece. Interested in the breeding side? It's a long-term time investment and the payoff is much like trying to breed a Derby winner. The animals require an intense amount of care and time. The payoff can be anywhere from several hundred dollars for a gelding companion animal to thousands, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars. A "truly great herd sire from a big breeder with a well-known reputation recently sold for $580,000, that's not the average price, but it sure is a head-turner."