Identify this animal

If you guessed a cute dog or an ugly girl, you are way off. If you thought that this is a llama, you are wrong, but very close.

This is an alpaca. Alpacas are related to llamas, vicunas and guanacos....all camelids from South America.

Why am I writing about alpacas from South America? Well, we visited an alpaca farm in Ohio over the holidays and I found out some very interesting information about these animals.

Alpacas live naturally in Peru, Bolivia, and Chile at elevations of 10,000 to 15,000 feet above sea level. They have been imported to raise in the United States and other countries primarily as an investment. Their wool (or fiber, as it is called) can be sold and it is supposedly lighter and warmer and less itchy than sheep's wool. But the bigger market is to sell alpacas to other people hoping to raise alpacas to sell them to other people, etc., etc. It sounds a little like a pyramid scheme to me. At some point won't there be more alpacas than people wanting to buy them? And is the market for the fiber big enough to cover your costs? However, alpaca web sites claim that the market for alpacas has remained steady for 20 years.

And what is the price of a nice alpaca these days? The owner of the farm in Ohio said that males go for about $3000 and females for $9000. But on the alpaca farms websites that I found it looks like good females (good meaning having won some ribbons at an alpaca show and having nice soft fiber) go for $14,000 to $20,000. Since alpacas have babies (a baby alpaca is called a cria) once every year you could conceivably recoup your investment in a female in a year or two if her crias were female or in 5 years or so if they were all males. The guy in Ohio said that taking care of 30 alpacas is easier and less expensive than the 3 horses he used to have. He will board your alpaca for $90 per month if you don't want to shovel alpaca poop yourself.

And speaking of alpaca poop, these tidy animals all go in the same spot in the barnyard....making cleanup easier than for other large animals. Websites claim that alpacas can actually be housebroken. Although they are smaller than llamas they would still be a little big for sitting on your lap on the couch.

Male alpacas, although usually gentle with humans, have "fighting teeth" that must be trimmed to prevent damage to important male alpaca parts necessary for breeding. Ouch!

In the picture to the left is my grandson, Justin in the barnyard among about 20 alpacas. This young female named Cinnamon took a liking to Justin.

We were told that alpacas are smaller and gentler than llamas and they are much less likely to spit or regurgitate their stomach contents on you like an agitated llama has been known to do. They are too small to be used as pack animals like llamas. As you may recall from an earlier posting, llamas are used in the Smokey Mountains to deliver supplies to Mount LeConte three times a week.

We stopped at the alpaca farm because Justin had done a school report on llamas earlier. The alpaca farm visit was the highlight of his day....week....month! You too could visit an alpaca farm if it sounds interesting. There are farms all over the U.S. and several in Tennessee. These farms generally welcome your visit because you could be the next investor in a nice $20,000 bundle of fur.