Nancy Carr on Rasing Alpacas

Nancy Carr on Rasing Alpacas

Shaelagh Cull

Nancy Carr

Malting Tower at the Tett Center

Well they produce beautiful fleece. Most of them are pretty intelligent. They're pleasant to look after. They don't challenge fences. I mean, you need fences to keep predators out for sure, because they are susceptible to predators. Even domestic dogs can seriously harm alpacas. But they certainly don't wreck fences the way cattle would. They are gentle, you don't have to worry about being knocked over or rammed. I think actually, when you think about sheep, I do know that people who have rams are often very careful to make sure that they're not going to get bowled over by the ram. So they're easy to administer injections to and do things with. The amount of fleece that you shear off one alpaca varies a lot from one alpaca to another. It could be as little as four or five pounds. Actually, some geriatric animals might only shear four pounds or so because as they get older, they have a shorter staple length, meaning that the length of fleece grown is less than when they are younger. Certainly, a young alpaca with good size can shear 10 or more pounds of fleece. That's not all usable fleece. There's the blanket which is the main part, the best fibre. Then there's the fibre on the neck. And then there's the fibre on the legs. And some of that is more suitable to duvet stuffing, especially with older animals.