Source: http://www.walnutcreekalpacas.com/blog/alpaca-childrens-book/
For the past two years, I’ve dreamed about writing an alpaca children’s book. With our cute baby alpaca, Ruby, I had the perfect alpaca for the story. As a cria, Ruby, was full of energy, very curious, and quite the character on our alpaca farm. I had plenty of pictures and videos, and I even …
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Alpacas are domesticated livestock that are farmed for their prized coats. These animals are South American camelids plus are part of vicunas, llamas and guanacos. Alpacas’ coats, that are sheared once per year, may be sold at a premium for use in designing cloths and household items. Alpaca fibres are better and hotter than wool, and they’re also hypoallergenic.
These animals are native to South America, and were formerly found in Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia and northern Chile. They are usually compared to llamas, and for several years, alpacas were thought to have descended from llamas, because their appearances are similar. Some people believe alpacas are the offspring of llamas and vicunas. However, in 2001, using DNA analysis, researchers proved that alpacas are more related to the Vicuna. To reveal that similarity, the original name for the alpaca was changed from musgo pacos to vicugna pacos.
Today, there’s about 70, 000 alpaca in the USA. At first, the United States population was brought in from South America. Today, alpaca are no longer imported, and the US alpaca population grows strictly from local births.
A fully grown alpaca has a life expectancy of 15 years, weighs between 100 and 180 pounds, and stands about three foot tall. The alpaca diet contains grass, hay and oats. These animals are ruminants, which indicates that like cows and deer, alpacas are cud-chewers.
Alpacas are gentle, nonetheless they may shriek or spit if they are anxious, worried or angry. Alpacas usually reserve this behavior for other alpacas, but sometimes, they may aim this action at humans. If you pay attention to an alpaca, you can inform how the animal feels, and may easily avoid a confrontation! Alpacas don’t enjoy to be held, but a lot can tolerate petting from humans they know and are comfortable with. These animals are naturally interested animals. They don’t jump fencing and they can be halter-trained and led.
In a herd, these animals use a common dung pile. It will help reduce the occurrence of disease in a herd. Reason being they’re particular about their bathroom behaviors, some alpacas have recently been house broken!
In the past many years, a number of individuals have been considering keeping alpacas for their wool, for showing and breeding. The gestation time for a single alpaca is about 11 months on average. Twin alpacas are extremely unusual, occurring in only one of about every 12, 000 births. Most alpacas give birth to their babies, called cria, around the morning time.
