Yes, i will admit it i am drawn to them they are just TOO CUTE!! BUT are they worth the begining price. I have been reading and researching and reading. Everything that i have read has said that alpaca is well worth the investment if you breed them. Is that really true if is it just a way for people to get you to buy their animals?


Alpaca fiber its self is only about $30 a pound ( given this is the lowest i found for a "coarser" grade i believe) and an alpaca can be shorn once a year and give 3-10 pounds of fiber. So that is basically $150 a year.

They say that a herd of up to 10 alpaca can live on one acre, although some articals say differently. They also are easy to clean up after since they go in 1-3 small areas in their pasture. Start up cost according to Alpaca Owners and Breeders Association are something like this:

Acquisition of one pregnant female and one young female $ 35,000
Insurance on animals, one year $ 1,100
Equipment $ 500
Small barn and fences $ 30,000
One year's feed $ 300
Veterinarian and miscellaneous reserve $ 1,100

TOTAL
$ 68,000
[Costs are rough estimates for comparison purposes only. Actual costs may be higher or lower than figures depicted, depending on a wide variety of factors such as geographic location, available pasture, climactic conditions, health of animals, etc.]

Sounds to me like the only way to make any profit at all from Alpacas is to breed them. As i have been reading i have read that "medium quality, medium cost " females can be the beginings of the bulk of the herd and then a "high quality, higher cost" male or a stud servicing with a "high quality, higher cost" male can result in "show quality" babies which will fetch higher dollar amounts then their mothers.

Females have 11.5 month pregnancy, so that would be a year til a baby was even born then weaning at closer to 6 months. If it is a female it would mean keeping it to breed which it will take 12-18 months for them to be old enough to mate. I guess over 5-10 years that would build into a profitable herd.

Then there are also tax benifits.

I still do not know if it is actually profitable though, in terms of farming are they profitable. And can you get people to buy them once you are looking to sell?