About Alpacas

Alpacas are delightful animals to keep. They are friendly and intelligent and always inquisitive.

Alpacas are members of the South American Camelid family and come mainly from Peru and Chile where they have been domesticated for thousands of years.

The other South American Camelids are the guanaco, the vicuna and the better known llama. The alpaca differs from the llama in that the alpaca is considerably smaller and has a wonderful fleece of fine fibre which is much sought after for the production of luxurious textiles.

Alpacas graze (about 5 alpacas per acre) and are very easy livestock to keep. They are generally healthy, require only small quantities of supplementary feed and fresh water.

They can easily be trained to walk on head collar and leading rein.

The females can produce one cria (baby alpaca) each year for most of their adult lives.

A healthy alpaca can be expected to live for 20 years or more.