Fibre production and fibre characteristics of alpacas farmed in United States

Abstract

The alpaca is the most important fibre-producing member of the South American camelids. There are two types of alpacas introduced into the United States, namely, Huacaya and Suri, however, a majority of alpacas are that of the Huacaya breed. Currently, there are 171,316 alpacas registered in the Alpaca Registry Inc (ARI) from 1986 to 2010 in the U.S. Alpacas can be found in every state of the United States and are farmed in various geographical environments ranging from hot desert to high mountain ranges. Alpacas were shorn at 10 to 18 months of fibre growth intervals and produced 2 kg per head fleece per year. Coat colour is varies widely in the alpacas, ranging from white to black and various shade combinations in 22 different natural colour categories. An earlier survey in different U.S. regions for Huacaya alpaca performance recordings showed that body weight, fleece weight, and fibre quality traits have improved for alpacas farmed in North America. This paper presents the recent analysis of both Huacaya (n = 714) and Suri (n = 502) alpacas sampled at 18 alpaca ranches located within the west, central and eastern regions of the U.S. Body weight, average fibre diameter, fibre diameter variation, mean staple length, and comfort factor estimates were 61.8 kg, 24.9 micron, 19.4%, 74.5 mm and 81.4% for Huacaya and 65.5 kg, 26.5 micron, 20.7%, 75.5 mm and 77% for Suris. Although it appeared that Suri alpacas were heavier for body weight and about 1.5 micron coarser than Huacaya fleeces tested in this study, there was no evidence for any fibre production or fibre characteristic superiority in the one breed over the other except the preference of a breed specialty trait.