Selecting Your First Alpacas
So you’ve done your homework about alpacas: read everything you could, visited several farms, attended a halter show, and ran it by your financial advisor. Alpacas look good to you. You’re convinced you want to buy a couple of them and get started. Now comes the scary part: which ones do you pick?
You’re probably already leaning toward either huacaya or suri. In many ways, this seems like a decision purely based on your personal tastes, but there are some practical considerations to weigh before you plunk down your cash. What’s the climate in your area? I live in Florida, the only state with far more suri than huacaya farms. We deal with heat, humidity and parasites year round. While many responsible breeders successfully raise healthy huacayas in Florida, the open fleece of a suri handles those three environmental factors better than the closed quilt of a huacaya. I love suri’s, but if my farm were in my home state of Alaska, I would most likely own huacayas. My point is not to argue for one breed over another, but to ask you to think through the task you’re facing.
These alpacas will be your learner set, so you want to minimize your problems. Many people begin with a couple of bred females to start a breeding herd right away; others want a pair of maiden females and perhaps a junior herd sire to learn how to care for the animals before they tackle birthing and breeding; and some folks just want a couple of pets to add dash to a small hobby farm. Think about why you want alpacas because that should strongly influence your purchasing decisions. A good, proven, breeding female may cost anywhere from $10,000 to $20,000 and more, whereas a nice, gelded, fiber boy will typically go for between $750 and $1500 and make a perfect barnyard pet.
First, shop the local market. You need to see and feel potential purchases. On the Internet or in a magazine, you can somewhat “see” alpacas, lots of them, but you cannot touch them. Watch a judge at any AOBA-sponsored alpaca show. That judge is hands on. Yes, the judge trusts his or her eyes to a point, but every judge knows the hands will find things about an alpaca the eyes cannot. For example, an alpaca may look to have a dense fleece, but you can’t be certain unless you take hold of that blanket. Density is called ‘handle’ for a reason. Moreover, shopping locally will give you opportunities to see and feel the same alpaca on more than one occasion. As you study more and more alpacas, you’re training your eyes and hands. Inevitably, you’ll notice things that second and third farm visit that you did not appreciate or flat missed the first time. That’s more difficult to do with a photo or a jerky Internet video feed, but with practice, you will get better at it. Still, you will miss things in the best photograph simply because you can’t touch the animal.
There’s an even more important aspect to shopping local farms for your first alpaca. You’re also shopping for your alpaca mentor, and believe me, a good mentor will save you from a whole barnyard of problems. Sure, a reputable seller in another state may take your calls at all hours of the day and answer your emergency emails within minutes, but that seller cannot drop what he or she is doing and rush over to your farm. Shopping locally allows you the time to get a good idea whether a potential seller has the patience, knowledge and desire to teach you how to raise, breed and sell alpacas. Particularly at the start, you need a good local mentor with the inside scoop about local veterinarians, feed stores, climate, zoning and a hundred other things no outsider could possibly know.
And you do not have to buy your first alpacas from your mentor. My wife is a case in point. Several years ago, a woman contacted our farm for a visit—she wanted a starter package of at least two breeding females. Previously, she had raised goats and horses, so she had livestock experience. However, at the time, our herd was small. Selling a female meant immediately replacing her with a female of equal value, so our females were priced accordingly, putting them out of this woman’s price range, but she liked the way we ran our farm and bonded with my wife. So she hired my wife to be her consultant for her first purchases. Sheila helped the woman sort through local and Internet starter packages, steering her away from those bargain suri-huacaya crosses and a gelded former herd sire that one longtime seller swore would make a fine companion animal for bred females. Without a mentor, how would this woman have known that most breeders do not think highly of F1 suri-huacaya crosses or that putting a gelded male who had previously been used for breeding in with bred females was a recipe for disaster? Eventually, with Sheila’s help, the woman bought a package of three nice suri females with a blue ribbon junior herd sire thrown is as a deal sweetener. Along the way, Sheila taught her about no-climb fence, clipping toenails, giving shots, drum fans for the hot season, parasites and Florida pasture grasses. The woman was very happy with her starter herd and confident that she had a knowledgeable mentor to guide her through the inevitable problems. A year later, she was even happier when we bought the first outside breeding to her now fully mature, beautiful herd sire. This is often the course of a good mentor/newbie relationship. The mentor knows the newbie and therefore often becomes a customer. The alpaca world is built on those sorts of networks. We sell to people who have come to trust us, so we end up buying from those same people because we have come to trust them.
With or without a mentor, you still need to know how to evaluate an alpaca yourself. Start with good conformation—the animal’s basic physical structure. 
Look at the animal’s top line—the backbone. You want a nice, straight spine, but a slightly domed backbone is not a serious fault. I’ve even heard a few knowledgeable alpaca breeders argue that a female with a slight dome to her back might more easily carry a pregnancy. What you don’t want is an exaggerated dome, or worse, a sagging backbone, commonly called a sway back. A sway backed animal can present all sorts of problems with reproduction, pregnancy, birthing, nursing and gait. It frequently is an indication of other less obvious but more serious skeletal problems.
Study the hips. You want broad hips for easy birthing. Narrow hips mean a narrow birth canal. Female alpacas are about the same weight as human females, but their babies, crias, are usually twice as large as human babies at birth. I have one alpaca with nice wide hips that gave birth to a twenty-four pound cria—popped that monster out as if that cria were no bigger than a peanut.
Take a good look at the animal’s legs. Viewed head on or from the side, the ideal front legs should be straight, not bowed, knocked, canted forward over the toes or angled backward over the pasterns. Viewed from the rear, the back legs should be straight, not bowed, or cow hocked; but from the side, an alpaca’s hind lower leg, called the cannon, should angle forward from the point of the hock about 20 degrees leading into the fetlock (ankle). If the rear legs do not have this angle, but appear straight from hip to fetlocks the animal is said to be post-legged, a serious skeletal fault. If the angle of the lower leg leading into the fetlock is much greater than 20 degrees the animal is said to be sickle hocked or down on its pasterns, again a serious skeletal fault. Remember that a photograph can make a good alpaca’s legs look bad or cover up a serious fault.
Look at the animal’s tail. It should hang straight without any kinks. Eyes should be bright and dark for breeding animals, but blue eyes are just fine for non-breeding pets. Ears should be long and elliptical, but not curved (unless of course the animal is a llama where banana ears are just what you want). When standing, the alpaca’s feet should fall right under the hips and shoulders, not splay out or cant inward. Although in loose sand or mud, the toes may be slightly spread for better footing, on normal ground, the toes should point fairly straight ahead. Take some time to watch the animal walk. The back feet should “track” directly behind the front feet without dragging.
Look at the alpaca’s teeth. The front teeth, its incisors, occur only on the bottom jaw and should meet the front edge of the hard upper jaw palate. 
Many front teeth problems can be corrected with a good trimming, but seriously bucked or undershot permanent incisors present lifelong problems because the animal uses its front teeth to crop grass and hay. Behind the incisors, alpacas have premolars and molars on both top and bottom jaws. Keep in mind that alpacas have both baby teeth and permanent teeth. The transition from baby teeth to permanent teeth usually starts around a year old, but some permanent teeth might not come in until the animal is six years old. This transition period may give false impressions of the alpaca’s permanent teeth position. Males also develop fighting teeth starting as early as a year and half--four on the top, two on the bottom. They look like a dog’s canines and need to be trimmed close to the gums to prevent males from seriously hurting or even killing each other. Some females develop fighting teeth as well, but they are generally much smaller, rarely presenting a problem.
Examine the alpaca’s genitalia. An adult male should have two testicles symmetrical in size about as large as good sized walnuts. On a female, the labia should be clearly visible and have a distinct vertical orientation. A female’s udder should have four distinct teats. While someone holds the alpaca, run your hands all over the animal. You’ll often find that a young male that appears to have only one testicle will upon physical examination prove to have two good ones. Stress will often cause them to retract partially one or both.
While you’ve got your hands on the animal, check its body score. Cup you palm around the spinal column at several locations. You want your hand consistently to form a distinct C. If it consistently forms a narrow V, the animal is underweight. If your palm has trouble forming much of a C, the animal is overweight, and if your palm usually lies flat or nearly flat, the animal is obese. Either seriously underweight or overweight spells major problems. Both can ruin a male’s sperm count or a female’s fertility, among a host of other problems. However, with pregnant females, keep in mind that a late term female may look and score as overweight, even fat, while a nursing mother with a two to four month old cria will often struggle to maintain her weight.
In your physical examination of the animal, save the fiber for last. Why? 
As a general rule, you can improve fiber faster than you can conformation. You can often dramatically upgrade the crimp in a huacaya herd or the luster in a suri herd within a single generation, but it usually takes several generations to see dramatic improvements in knocked knees, swayed backs, buck teeth and most other conformational faults. Start your herd with a sound conformational 
base.
That does not mean that fiber is unimportant. Whether suri or huacaya, alpaca fiber possesses unique qualities that make it heavily sought in the fashion industry. You want to look carefully at the fiber on an alpaca. The most important quality is consistency. In a huacaya, you want consistent crimp, and then secondarily consistent brightness. In a suri, you want consistent luster, and then secondarily consistent lock. There are many different styles of crimp in huacaya, and at least five different styles of lock in suri, according to the AOBA Suri Breed Standards. What ever crimp and brightness or luster and lock an alpaca has, you want consistency. The same applies to an alpaca’s handle and staple length. Handle is an alpaca’s density, the number of fiber follicles per square inch of flesh. Staple length is the length of the individual fibers. These can vary widely across an alpaca, so you want to select alpacas with fiber that has a consistent crimp and brightness, or luster and lock, handle and staple length—especially across the animal’s blanket.
Fineness, the diameter of each individual hair follicle, is another important quality. This is measured in microns--the finer the follicle, the smaller the micron. Scientific studies have repeatedly shown that high quality alpaca fiber is finer than all other natural fibers, except silk. So ask for a micron count. Not all alpaca breeders want the expense of getting micron counts on their animals, and if you’re just looking for barnyard pets, fineness need not be an important 
factor in your decision. However, if you’re looking to start a fiber herd or a breeding herd, fineness is an important quality, and since you’ll be paying good money for top fiber animals or breeding females and herd sires, you have every right to expect a seller to provide you with as much information as possible. Fine huacaya fiber should feel smooth and warm, but fine suri fiber should feel slick, almost greasy, and cool.
When you like the look and feel of an alpaca, that’s the time to ask about its bloodlines and show records. Don’t let pedigree or ribbons prejudice you for or against an animal. Let them confirm what your eyes and hands already like about an animal, and if you don’t like the look and feel of an alpaca, why even bother with its genetics or ribbons? What pedigree can tell you about an animal is how likely it is that the animal will pass on its conformation and fiber to its progeny, but pedigree and championships cannot guarantee that the animal’s progeny will match or excel its parent. Many people have bought into the hype about alpaca country of origin, and even into a bloodline’s descent from a particular South American farm or two. But the AOBA show ring confirms that the further we get from the original importations, the less relevance that connection has. The Accoyo bloodline became world renown because Don Julio Barreda established very strict guidelines for his signature herd. An alpaca had to have at least 200 follicles for every square inch of skin or Don Julio culled it, which usually meant that animal was served up on his dinner table. The Accoyo herd became justly famous for its extreme density. However, very few farms in the United States that sell full Accoyo alpacas count their animals’ follicles per square inch, but that won’t stop them from touting their animals as full Accoyo. Remember pedigree and show records are useful guides, not guarantees.
Ask to see an alpaca’s health records. You’re looking for two things: has the alpaca received good care and does it have a history of repeated problems. You certainly don’t want a herd sire with a low sperm count or a dam with a series of problematic births and little to no milk.
And that brings us to our last area of concern—temperament. As a new owner, you want a calm, even tempered alpaca, not a nervous, high strung problem child. You are going to learn how to do many things to this alpaca: trimming toenails, giving shots, worming, weighing, haltering, leading and so forth. These are a lot easier to learn if the alpaca has a forgiving temperament and a lot harder if the alpaca is a diva inclined to kick, spit, scream and run at the slightest touch. You don’t want either a jumpy, stressed out alpaca or an aggressive, pushy animal. Above all, you don’t want the alpaca that immediately cushes and refuses to budge. You’re looking for a self-confident alpaca that stands calmly while you look it over and for the most part tolerates you touching it. Many of these alpacas will like to have their necks rubbed. These are the ones you see in the huggable investment photos, but don’t expect an alpaca to come bounding up to you like a dog.
A calm, even tempered alpaca is more likely to take the stress of travel and shows. It’s much more likely to breed and birth well. Believe me, somebody has to remain calm at that first birth on your farm, and you’re not a likely candidate, so the alpaca better be. A calm female alpaca is much more likely to be a good mother with lots of nutritious milk than a nervous dam. A high strung herd sire is more likely to have performance problems with females or be more interested in fighting other males than breeding. Inevitably, if you intend to become a breeding farm or have a large fiber herd, you will have to learn how to handle jumpy, nervous, cantankerous alpacas, but why start with them?
Right now, you’re dreaming about owning beautiful, gentle alpacas. If you force yourself to take the time to find the right starter animals, you’ll be well on the way to living your dream.
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Now, that you have a bit more to consider with your first or next purchase, call us (352-628-9980 or 727-244-5522) or email us to schedule a farm visit. We look forward to showing off our herd and talking alpacas with you.
