Quote Originally Posted by cassiesmom
May be random but definitely cute! What a sweet face! Blue_frog, I have the same question as kimlovescats: why do you have alpacas? I know they have coats rather like sheep, and their fiber is used for excellent blankets and garments. I know they are similar to llamas. That is the extent of what I know about the alpaca. Do they let you pet and hug them? I bet they would be really soft to pet. What do they eat? How long does an alpaca live? I see a couple of brown ones in the photos too. Thank you for sharing these with us!
Well, heres how it all happened ---

When my mom got early retirement, she decided that working in an office again was never going to happen, and she ran across Alpacas at a show somewhere and fell in love. So, she went out, bought a 279 acre farm, and we all spent a lot of time putting up fencing and getting things ready for a small herd of Alpacas. She doesn't have a large herd really, compared to a lot of people -- its a herd of 10 alpacas, and one llama, but its enough to keep her busy! I have one of the Alpacas, and the Llama is mine as well, but I live in the city, so i get up most weekends to help out at the farm.

Alpacas and Llamas are in the same family, and come from South America. Alpacas are smaller, and more docile, and have better temperments, and Llamas are larger with coarser fibre. The llama in the herd is as a guard animal, so if anything ever gets into the paddock, he would attack it while the alpacas fled. Theyre part of the Camelid family, and are related to Camels as well!

The alpacas will let you pet them and put your arm around their neck, etc. - its all a matter of handling -- the more used they are to people, the more friendly the are to being touched. Since my moms herd is so small, its easy to spend a lot of time with individual animals, over having a farm of 60+. Most of hers will eat apple from your hand, and let you hug them -- and hte Llama is also huggable since he's been handled since he was small as well.

Alpacas eat hay, grass, and alpaca pellets, and dont mind the snow and cold either, which is good since theyre in snow land right now! They live for quite a while, i believe around 20 years.

I have about 2 gigs worth of alpaca pictures, but haven't had the time really to get into putting them up in the gallery for viewing.

If you're interested in Alpacas, you can check out
http://www.gentlegladealpacas.com/
http://www.alpacaontario.ca/
http://www.alpacainfo.ca/