Alpaca guide
Practical, New Zealand-specific knowledge from AANZ members — organised by what you need to know, not how the association is structured.
Getting started
What alpacas are like, what they need from you, and how to decide whether they suit your land and your life.
- 01Introduction to alpacasAlpaca, llama, guanaco and vicuna are part of the camel (camelid) family tree. Treasured by the ancient Inca civilization, there are today about 3.5 million alpaca in the Andean…
- 02The AANZ breed standardThe Breed Standard is used to determine an alpaca, describing the natural characteristics and traits. These breed standards look at form, conformation and fibre.
- 03Behaviour and trainingA properly fitting and fitted halter will make the job of halter training easier for the owner and the animal. Under normal circumstances, camelids breath only through the nose! A…
- 04Record keepingRecord keeping is one of the most important things that you do that concerns keeping your alpaca. You should keep very detailed records on all aspects of your alpaca farming to…
- 05The code of welfareThe minimum standards every alpaca owner in New Zealand must meet, set under the Animal Welfare Act.
- 06How much land do I need?Alpaca are very efficient converters of pasture and from the point of view of nutrition, can be farmed quite intensively. Five to seven animals/acre is generally accepted as a…