Alpacas come in over 20 colors, all various shades of white, brown, black and gray. They are also covered head to toe in fleece! That makes them cool weather animals, so they spend their time hanging out in the snow in winter, but in front of fans in the summer so they don’t overheat. They get their haircuts in the spring to help keep them cool.

Alpacas are members of the camalid family. Yes, they are actually related to camels! They’re also related to their other domesticated cousin, llamas. They come from Peru, where many many more live than in the U.S. There are two types of alpaca—suri and huacaya. Suris have long curly locks, and huacaya have shorter fluffy ones. Guessing which we have shouldn’t be hard! Fluffy is in our name.

Alpaca babies are called cria. It takes 11.5 months for a cria to be born, so each birth is a celebration. They’re pretty small at birth, but they grow fast. At first they rely on mom for milk, but are weaned off pretty quickly, and join the rest of the herd in eating nutritious grass, as well as grain and a mineral supplement. They also munch on quite a bit of hay, especially in winter.