Alpacas Are Adorable

The sweet-tempered, gentle alpaca is prized for its luxurious fibre, which is stronger and warmer than sheep wool.  Alpaca fibre comes in a variety of 22 natural colours, ranging from pure white through fawn, to a range of browns and a true jet black.  Garments crafted from the silky fibre have the look and feel of cashmere.

Alpacas are intelligent animals and extremely alert.  They are very social animals, easy to care for and handle.  They communicate through body posture, tail and ear movements, and a variety of sounds.  Most often you hear them softly humming.

The alpaca is a domesticated member of the camelid family which includes, llama, vicunas and guanacos.

There are two types of alpacas: huacaya and suri.  Huacaya's have a fleece that is wavy (has crimp) that gives it a fluffy, teddy bear-like appearance.  The fleece of a suri doesn't have  crimp. so the individual fibers wrap around each other to form lustrous pencil locks that hang from the body, parting elegantly at the spine.

A young female can breed at around 18 months or 110 pounds.  A female alpaca bears only one offspring a year after an 11-12-month gestation period.  The offspring are called cria. A cria weighs around 18 pounds and starts walking within one hour of birth.  Cria are usually born between 0800 and 2p.m.

Alpacas require a barn or three-sided shelter, fences that keep predators out ( rather than fences to keep alpacas in), an open pasture for grazing.  Alpacas must be sheared, wormed, vaccinated, and their toenails must be trimmed.

Alpacas are ruminants.  They are grazers with an efficient digestive system.  They are fed a pelleted "ration balancer" which supplies vitamins and minerals.

Because of their small size and easy care, alpacas are ideal animals for a small acreage.  You can raise six to ten alpacas on each acre.

Alpacas are sheared annually with standard sheep-shearing equipment with an annual yield of from 5 to 10 pounds of lustrous fiber.

We are dedicated to raising quality, dual registered, healthy Huacaya alpacas with sound conformation, pleasing temperament, and excellent fleece quality.