Types of alpaca
There are 2 types of alpaca.
- Huacaya (say it like this, WAK I YAH)
- Suri
The Huacaya is the fluffy alpaca and the Suri has long silky dreadlocks
Colours
Alpacas come in lots of colours – 22 colours actually. If you start with white, go through fawns, apricots, browns, greys and then to black, alpacas come in all of these colours!
Babies
It takes over 11 months for an alpaca baby to grow inside its mother.
Alpacas usually give birth to one baby, twins can be born but they are very rare.
Alpaca babies are called CRIA. They feed from their mothers milk for about 6 months and then they are WEANED. From then on, they are known as WEANLINGS.
The cria in this photo is wearing a coat because it had been raining. If cria get wet they can get cold really quickly and become very sick. So in bad weather, we give each of our cria their own warm, waterproof coat.
Shearing
Alpacas are sheared every year. This is not cruel but really important as the alpacas would get very hot in the summer sunshine. Alpaca fleeces are very thick. Take a look.
It takes about 10 minutes to shear an adult alpaca and it gives us a chance to take a close look at the alpaca without its coat on.
While the alpaca is being sheared we take the opportunity to cut toenails and give a vitamin boost. Alpacas have 2 nails on each foot so it’s a lot of toenails to clip.
And when shearing is over, we have lots of bags of beautiful fleece and lots of smart, tidy alpacas. Don’t they look so skinny without their fleeces?
Fleece
Alpaca fleece, called fibre, is super soft and gentle. It smells lovely, like digestive biscuits mixed with popcorn. These photos show the fleece on the alpaca then the fleece after shearing – it is so beautiful.
Sounds
Alpacas are generally very quiet. But, if they see an enemy, such as a fox or dog, their ears go up, their tails go up and they make a loud alarm call! Their happy sound is a low pitched hum, which is very funny!
I don’t have a humming photo so I’ve included a dancing Suri alpaca instead.