About Alpaca

For those of you who are keen to know a little bit more about alpaca, below are some facts to enlighten you further about these delightful and amazing animals.

What are Alpaca

• Members of the Camelid family which are made up of Vicuna, Guanco, Llama and Alpaca
• Native to South America and mostly found in found in Peru, Bolivia, and Chile
• Domesticated for over 5,000 years

Types of Alpaca

• Two kinds of Alpacas: Huacaya (pronounced wah-KI-ya) and Suri (pronounced surrey)
• Huacaya fiber is short, dense, crimpy and gives a woolly appearance which stands perpendicular to the body.
• Suri fiber is silky with high lustre, dense locking fleece that hangs from the centre of the backline.

Physical Characteristics

• Short and low set tail
• Have soft padded feet with two toes

• Adult alpacas generally weigh between 60kg and 95kg
• Average adult height is around 90cm at the withers

• 6 front incisors on the lower jaw and a hard pad on the upper jaw. They have molars for chewing.
• 22 natural shades of colour ranging from white through to black, multicoloured fleeces are also produced.

Life Span

Alpaca can live for around 25 years, females tend to be reproductive between 2 years and 18 years whilst males have a shorter breeding life between 3 and 16 years.

Gestation

An alpaca pregnancy lasts around 11.5 months with usually a single birth.