Alpacas
- are curious and gentle (they make great pets)
- are the approximate size/weight of humans (120-180 pounds)
- like to live in herds (they need friends)
- have a bad reputation for spitting (they save most of the spitting for each other)
- are not llamas (more on that below!)
Alpaca’s often get confused with their close camelid cousin the llama. And to be fair, they do share a significant resemblance. But alpaca’s are not llamas, and there are quite a few differences between them. The most notable difference is their size—the average alpaca is half the size of the average llama, weighing roughly the same as humans compared to the 290-440 lb weight of the average llama.
Alpacas are curious and friendly. Just like llamas, their species comes from South America, but they can now be found on farms across North America. Alpacas eat grass and hay but do not need very much. An alpaca only requires 2-3 pounds of food a day, which is only 1.5% of its body weight. Just one bale of hay can feed a whole herd of 20 animals for the day.
There are two different types of alpacas (this is true for llamas as well). Huacaya alpacas are big and fluffy with cloud-like fiber. Suri alpacas (shown in the Alpaca vs Llama diagram above) have long, curly locks that hang down from their bodies. Suris are rarer, which often makes them more expensive. Both types of alpaca’s vary in the colour of their fiber. An alpaca can be white, fawn, brown, black, grey, and everything in between.
If you’d like to keep learning more about alpacas, you’ve come to the right place. We will continue to build this alpaca resource so that more people can learn to love these curious and gentle creatures.