What we've come to believe, is that alpacas aren't so much of an investment as they are a business. The huggable investment thing aside, when you invest in alpacas, what you're really investing in is yourself--your ability to make progressively better choices, your ability to market, sell, and create a niche for you and your alpacas. And as such, you need to do what works for you.

In fact, the really important questions for you to answer have more to do with you and what you want than any specific alpaca facts. Things like do you have a farm now? do you plan to agist/board? do you have time to show extensively? do you want to stay small or become large? what appeals to you most about alpacas? what aspects are you passionate enough about to sell to others?

The relative scarcity of alpacas in the U.S. makes them a great investment, but that same scarcity makes them a tougher business. Don't let that sound too scary, here's what we mean... we alpaca owners and breeders benefit because prices stay high and new and existing breeders need to look to the national herd for animals. We alpaca owners and breeders, though, also often have to be one-man traveling alpaca shows where ever we go, educating potential customers about the animals, their value, the fiber, the finished goods, etc.

As with almost anything, education and focus are the keys to success. In getting into the alpaca business, you have a lot of aspects you can focus on. Breeders have the option of showing animals at regional and national shows to establish a pedigree and creditials for their animals for sale and breeding purposes. Or breeders can focus more on the fiber-related aspects of raising alpacas, processing fiber themselves or working with one of the fiber co-ops. Raising alpacas also produces many other by-products that can be marketed, ranging from the obvious--like fertilizer--to the less obvious more lifestyle related ones. It's almost not important which areas you pick to focus on so much as it is to pick something. The important thing is to go with something you love and have fun with it.

We'll continue to develop this section, but in the meanwhile, we hope some of the links to the right will help provide you with information you can use.