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Permaculture, and Sustainability: Off-Grid Solutions Dog/Canine Flu: HeartSpring.net
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Raising AlpacasBy Lillith Avalon Alpaca are a member of the camelid Alpacas are a manageable size in terms of taking care of them even for women and children, and they are relatively intelligent for herd animals. Their aggressive behavior consists of an occasional kick (with a padded foot) if they are scared and spitting (mostly just at each other over food quarrels), but it is pretty predictable when they will do these things, and neither will do you serious or permanent harm. Reasonable precautions can easily be taken to avoid being a target and 'getting green'. Alpacas that are handled gently and calmly will often welcome a neck scratch and give gentle nose kisses. Many alpacas quickly acquire a taste for eating treats out of your hand. They are often attracted to children and I have seen Alpacas snuggle up to and lean on their favorite people. It takes time to develop a relationship with an Alpaca, and they have individual personalities a lot like cats. When choosing an alpaca, you should consider their temperment right along with color and fleece quality. Baby Alpacas are called Cria. They begin to eat some hay when only a few weeks old. They are up on their feet and able to run within a couple of hours of being born, although they look a bit like fuzzy puppets on sticks at that point. Managed Alpacas are weaned slowly starting at four months of age and should be on their own at six months. This helps give their pregnant mom a break. Alpacas come in 22 different colors recognized for the show ring, from white through black including several recognized shades of greys and silvers, browns from red to chestnut, fawns and beiges, and 'mixed color' fleeces with fibers of various colors all growing in the same coat. Their fleece is very fine starting as low as 14 microns with 20-23 microns being common in adults. Alpaca fleece does not contain lanolin. Folks who are allergic to wool can often handle and wear Alpaca fleece without a problem. Alpaca fleece is 5x warmer than wool, water resistent, takes dye beautifully, and is long wearing. Their fleece is considered an 'exotic fiber' in North America and commands a premium price. Alpaca yarn can sell for $5 - $8 an ounce depending on the thickness of the yarn and the fineness of the fleece it is made of. Alpacas can live to be 20-25 years of age and we're told that there are happy healthy breeding females at 18-20 years of age. Alpaca gestate for 11 and a half months and so have one baby a year. Twins are very rare and not desireable as they are always small and often don't survive. Alpacas are also sheared only once a year, usually in the spring. The quality of their fleece decreases slowly with age as the micron count goes up and more hair grows adding 'prickle factor'. A goal of many breeding programs is to breed animals whose fleece stays fine even as they age. According to our spreadsheets, the fleece from one Alpaca can support three animals for a year in terms of feed and vet care and so forth. Fleece often has minimum quantities in pounds in order to be processed at a mill and there are economies of scale, more fleece, less cost processing per pound. So keeping some gelding boys to round our our fleece production seems smart. Alpaca are potentially multi-purpose and are easy on the environment and thus meet permaculture standards. They eat a relatively low protein grass feed along with some grain, and not much of it compared to horses and cows. They consume relatively little water. Their feet are soft and padded on the bottom with a toenail on top so they don't relentlessly pound the ground into submission like hard hooved animals. They nibble off of plants rather than tear them up by the roots (like sheep). In South America where Alpaca are plentiful, they are sheared for fleece, and extra males are processed for meat as well as fleece covered skins which make everything from clothing to rugs. In the U.S. Alpacas are kept for fleece and for breeding and sale. Since there are only about 150,000 animals in the United States (at the time of this writing) and imports of new animals are closed, nobody is eating them. There is a strong market to sell these lovely creatures for premium prices. Think about how valuable fancy pedigreed race and show horses can be and you'll get the idea. Alpacas are social creatures. You always have to have at least two to keep each other company and they like to be in larger groups when they can. Geldings make very affordable and lovely pet and fleece animals and are very handy as companion animals to breeding males or weanlings. Groups of females can be kept together in whatever size group your fenced pasture or yard will comfortably accomodate. Females will work out a dominance pecking order, usually by squawking at each other and sometimes neck wrestling. Watch for low ranking females or youngsters that might be getting edged out of eating the best food or two girls who just never seem to resolve their rank order and continue to fuss at each other and re-sort or separate your alpaca accordingly. Breeding males need to be kept separately from the girls but always with one or more companion animals. Whether you can keep multiple breeding males together or not really depends on their individual personalities and relationship with each other which can vary from congenial to very aggressive. If the boys are not within easy sight and smell of the girls, they may get along just fine, but when put in proximity to the females their aggressive behavior could manifest. Allowing a male to stay with the female herd will result in a lot less certainty about your breeding program in terms of due dates and parentage, and the males can harrass and overbreed the females. Better just to keep them in separate areas. We are constantly learning more about Alpacas. If you have questions please write to me... Lillith at AlpacasofAvalon dot com and if I don't know the answer, I will help you find out!
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Resources for The Care and Feeding of AlpacasAlpaca Health Issues - Alpaca Association of New Zealand Ohio State College of Veterinary Medicine - Llama Research Program The Merck Vet Manual - Resource for animal care information.
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Page Updated: 2007-11-23 / Alpacas of Avalon © 2007
family native to the mountainous regions of South America (Peru, Bolivia, and Chile). They are humpless and much smaller than their more commonly known cousins the camel and the llama. A big male Alpaca will typically top out at 180-200 lbs whereas a llama can easily be 300-400 lbs. Both of the bigger members of the family are used for riding and/or packing. Alpaca are raised almost exclusively for their fine fleece.