Alpacas are members of the camelid family, the biggest member being the Camel followed by the Llama and Guanacos (closely related). Then comes the alpaca and the smallest of the family is the Vicuna.

There are two breeds of alpaca, the most common being the Huacaya which has a shorter romney/merino style fleece. Then there is the suri which is a much rarer breed that produces a longer hanging dreadlock style fleece.

There are about 95% Huacaya and only 5% Suri in the world! The male alpaca is called a Macho, the female is called Hembra, a yearling is called a Tui, the babies are called Cria (Spanish, meaning baby) and birthing is called Criation or unpacking.

Our Suri bloodline started when (Owen) went to Australia and bought the Adsail Ivory bloodline into the herd, and then, by using the Homestead Farm bloodline (Russell and Carolyn Nelson) Cedar House Raphael was born.

The next male we purchased was Chia Park Champagne Lad, a medium fawn with good colour genetics. He mostly leaves the colour of the dam (female). We now have in our herd the famous Accoyo bloodline, which is Surilana Accoyo Adonis who is answering all our dreams. These bloodlines are all proven homozygous (meaning they will leave their own breed when crossed with the Huacaya breed).

Alpacas work well cross grazing with any animal, they have extremely fertile manure which would make any garden flourish, and with them all doing their BUSINESS in the same place, (which is a benefit in the control of parasites within the herd) it makes it easy for picking up the manure.