Anyone own an alpaca?

Why do you want to raise an alpaca?

American Gangster

My neighbor had a couple. They looked straight up miserable in the florida humidity.

On the way to work I drive by a nice, suburban home with a large fenced in yard. They have two that come to the fence every morning close to a bus stop. I guess the kids throw them an occasional snack.

That’s all I got.

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You raising as a pet or for meat?

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Pet at first.
If that doesn’t work out, meat.

- Ease of care

They’re more fragile than say llamas, so sensitive to shite like heat (they were bred to live in the mountains of Peru or whatever). Definitely not a “set it and forget it” type animal. You have to trim their nails (they kick like motherfrickers) and keep them shaved (again, heat) which is fine because fiber is where the money is. For the OT retards - you don’t milk, eat, or ride them. They don’t get into stuff like goats, but you gotta keep them away from alfalfa because they’ll gorge themselves and die.

- Whether they are grazing livestock / feeding

Yeah, but we had ours on feed/grain. They’re stupid animals, so they don’t know to distinguish between what’s safe to eat and what’s not (see comment about alfalfa above). They can graze just fine so long as you keep “bad” plants away and have good pasture.


- temperament
Stud males: assholes, but not as bad as llamas. They’ll spit in your face (stinks like hell and doesn’t wash out of clothes) and kick you. They also try to frick EVERYTHING. One of ours broke gates down and started an incestuous alpaca orgy.

Fixed males: chill, pretty independent and easy going

Females in heat: moody

Pregnant females: needy (medical) but mostly just lay around

Moms: chill, so long as you aren’t messing with the baby

Another thing I’ll note - there’s a lot of bad paperwork on bloodlines and whatever. Say you pay $10k for a stud and you come to find out he’s the product of incest like 3 generations back, suddenly he’s only worth $2k and you can’t stud him out because, again, incest. He effectively becomes worthless unless you neuter him and use him for fiber.

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an incestuous alpaca orgy.

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Got to blot that shite