The Alpaca ( Vicugna pacos ) is a South American camelid species, similar to, and often confused with the llama. However, alpaca often appears smaller than llamas. Both animals have a close relationship, and can successfully cross-breed. Alpacas and llamas are also closely related to Vicuà ± a, believed to be the alpaca wild ancestor, and Guanaco. There are two Alpaca breeds: Suri alpaca and Huacaya alpaca.
Alpacas are kept in grazing herds at the height of the Andes plains of Southern Peru, West Bolivia, Ecuador and Northern Chile at an altitude of 3,500 m (11,500 ft) to 5,000 m (16,000 ft) above sea level, all year round. Alpacas are much smaller than the llamas, and unlike the llamas, they are not bred to be work animals, but are bred especially for their fibers. Alpaca fibers are used to make knitted and woven items, similar to wool. These items include blankets, sweaters, hats, gloves, scarves, various kinds of textiles and ponchos in South America, and sweaters, socks, coats and blankets in other parts of the world. This fiber has more than 52 natural colors classified in Peru, 12 are classified in Australia and 16 are classified in the United States.
Alpacas communicate through body language. The most common is spitting when they are in distress, fear, or intent to show dominance. The male Alpaca is more aggressive than females, and tends to build up the dominance of their herds. In some cases, alpha men will paralyze the heads and necks of weaker or more defiant men to show their strength and dominance.
In the textile industry, "alpaca" refers primarily to Peruvian Alpacas hair, but more broadly refers to the fabric styles made from alpaca hair, such as mohair, Icelandic wool, or even high-quality wool. In trading, differences are made between alpacas and some mohair and sparkling styles.
An adult alpaca is generally between 81-99 cm (32-39Ã, deep) high on the shoulder (wilt). They usually weigh between 48-84 kilograms (106-185 pounds).
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Alpacas has been tamed for thousands of years. Moche people in Northern Peru often use alpaca images in their art. There is no known benign wild alpaca, and closest close relatives, who are
Alpaca and llamas can successfully cross-breed.
The Camelidaes family first appeared in America 40-45 million years ago during the Eocene period of the same ancestor, the Protylopus. 30 million years after the population is divided into Camelini and Lamini tribes, taking different migration patterns to Asia and South America respectively. Although camelids became extinct in North America about 3 million years ago, in the South developed with the tribes we see today. It was not until 2-5 million years ago, during Pliocene that the genus Hemiauchenia of the Lamini tribe split into Palaeolama and Lama, the latter would then be split again into Lama and Vicugna after migrating to South America.
The remains of Vicuà ± a and Guanaco have been found throughout Peru for about 12,000 years. Their domestic friends, llama and alpacas have been found mummies in the Moquegua valley in southern Peru since 900 to 1000 years. The mummies found in this region show two breeds of alpacas. A more precise analysis of bones and teeth of these mummies has shown that alpaca is domesticated from Vicugna vicugna. Other studies, given the behavioral characteristics and alpacas morphology and their wild counterparts, seem to indicate that alpacas can find their origin in the Old guanicoe as well as Vicugna vicugna, or even hybrids of both.
Mitochondrial DNA shows a different picture for the origin of Alpaca. The mtDNA study shows that the Alpacas are descended from Vicugna vicugna, not from the Lama guanicoe. This led to efforts to reclassify Alpaca to Vicugna pacos.
Breeds
Alpacas come in two descendants of Suri and Huacaya, depending on the fiber rather than the conventional or European classification
Huacaya Alpacas are the most commonly found, about 90% of the population. Alpaca Huacaya is thought to have originated from post-colonial Peru. It's because of their thick fur that makes them more suitable to survive in the Andes highlands after being pushed into the Peruvian highlands when the conquistadors arrive.
Suri alpacas represent a fraction of the total population of Alpaca, about 10%. They are considered more prevalent in pre-Columbian Peru as they can be stored at lower altitudes where thick fur is not required for certain weather conditions.
Maps Alpaca
Behavior
Alpacas are social herd animals that live in family groups consisting of alpha territorial men, women and their children. Alpacas warns swarms of intruders by making sharp, noisy inhalations that sound like high-pitched highlights. Flocks can attack smaller predators with their front legs, and can spit and kick. Their aggression against members of the canid family (coyotes, foxes, dogs etc.) is exploited when alpacas are used as guardians of llamas to keep the sheep.
Alpacas can sometimes be aggressive, but they can also be very gentle, intelligent, and very observant. For the most part, the Alpacas are very quiet but the male Alpacas are more energetic in the sense in which they engage in battles with other alpacas. As they prey, they are cautious but also nervous when they feel any threat. They can feel threatened when someone or other alpaca emerges from behind them.
Alpacas set their own "private space" boundaries in their families and groups. They make a hierarchy in a certain sense, and every alpaca is aware of the dominant animal in each group. Body language is the key to their communication. This helps keep their orders. One example of their body communication includes a pose called a leaflet where their ears are pulled back and they stand to the side used when the male alpacas defend their territory.
When they are young, they tend to follow larger objects and sit near or under large objects, such as an alpaca baby with his mother. This can also be applied when alpaca passes through the other older alpaca.
Spit
Not all alpacas spit, but all are able to do so. "Spit" is rather euphemistic; sometimes the projectile contains only air and a little saliva, although alpacas generally carry the acidic contents (usually a mixture of green, grassy) and project it to their chosen target. Spit is mostly reserved for other alpacas, but alpaca also sometimes spits on humans.
Spitting can produce so-called "mouth sour". The acid mouth is marked by a loose lower lip and a gaping mouth.
Alpacas can spit for several reasons. Alpaca females spit when she is not interested in male alpaca, usually when she thinks she's already pregnant. Both alpaca types keep others away from their food or whatever they have. Most give a little warning before spitting, by blowing air out and lifting their heads to where it looks like their ears are pinned.
Alpacas can spit up to ten feet if necessary, for example if another animal does not retreat it will remove the contents of the stomach so much saliva.
Some signs of stress that can cause their spitting habit include: humming, wrinkling under their eyes, drooling, breathing fast, and stepping on their feet. When alpaca shows signs of attraction or awareness, they tend to sniff out their environment, watch closely, and they even just stand still and stare.
When it comes to reproduction, they spit because it is a response triggered by an increased progesterone level associated with ovulation.
Hygiene
Alpacas are generally very organized and neat. When they defecate they usually point to one place, even if they have to walk farther. They use a pile of communal poop. Their waste is collected and used as garden fertilizer or even natural fertilizer.
Another factor that goes into the cleanliness of Alpaca is their dental care. When observing alpaca teeth, it is a good way to tell if they have a healthy digestive system. Alpacas have full adult teeth at the age of six. The male Alpacas have 32 teeth and the female alpaca has 30 teeth. Men have two additional teeth, called fighting teeth, but women rarely have this. Alpacas have six lower incisors that help them bite the plants for chewing. They do not have upper incisors, but their mouths are perfectly lined so they have the ability to eat grass, straw, and plants.
There are warning signs when alpaca may have dental hygiene problems. One way to tell if they take a long time to chew grass or straw or when they eat, they keep spilling all their food and not storing it in their mouths. Another sign is poor body condition and if her cheeks are pushed in.
Alpacas use a pile of communal sewage, where they do not graze. This behavior tends to limit the spread of internal parasites. Generally, men have more tidier, and fewer piles of dirt than females, which tend to stand in one line and all go straight away. One woman approaches a pile of dirt and starts urinating and/or defecating, and the rest of the herd often follow.
Due to their preference for using a pile of dirt, some alpacas have been successfully trained at home.
​​Sound
Alpacas make a variety of voices to communicate what they think or feel to each other and inclusive human beings. They can be triggered by anything because they are very careful with their environment.
- Humming: When alpaca is born, the mother and child are constantly humming. They also hum as a sign of distress, especially when they are separated from their flock. Some other reason alpaca will hum is if they are curious, happy, worried or cautious.
- Snorting: Alpacas snort as other Alpaca attack their space.
- Grumbling: Alpacas grumble to remind each other. For example, when someone enters their room and gets too close, it sounds like they're gurgling.
- Clucking: Similar to hen cluck, alpacas cluck when a mother is concerned for her cria or alpacas the males will tick to indicate friendly behavior.
- Scream: Their screams are deafening and loud. They will shout when they are not handled properly or when they are attacked by potential enemies.
- Squealing: A Birdlike Appeal, probably meant to frighten an opponent. This sound is usually used by male alpaca when they quarrel about who will dominate. When squealing women, it's more of a growl when they get angry.
- Orgling: This sound is created when Alpacas are married.
Reproduction
The woman is an induction ovulator; the act of mating and the presence of semen causes them to ovulate. Women usually get pregnant after only one breeding, but sometimes have difficulty conceiving. Artificial insemination is technically difficult, expensive and not common, but it can be done. Embryo transfer is wider.
A male is usually ready to mate for the first time between two and three years. It is not advisable to let a young woman be raised before she matures, and has reached two-thirds of her weight. Excessive breeding of young women before conception may be a common cause of uterine infection. Because age of maturation varies greatly between individuals, it is usually recommended that the novice breeder waits until the female is 18 months or older before starting the breeding.
Alpacas can breed at any time but are more difficult to breed in the winter. Most breed during autumn or late spring. The most popular way to have an alpacas mate is a wedding pen. The mating pen is when they move the desired woman and man into a pen. Another way is a wedding paddock where a male alpaca is released in a paddock with some female alpaca.
The average period of pregnancy is 11.5 months, and usually produces one offspring, or cria . Twins are rare, occurring about once per 1000 deliveries. Cria is generally between 15 and 19 pounds, and stands 30 to 90 minutes after birth. After the female gives birth, she generally receives the breeding again after about two weeks. Crias can be weaned through human intervention in about six months and 60 pounds, but many breeders prefer to allow women to decide when to wean their offspring; they can be weaned earlier or later depending on their size and emotional maturity.
The average age of Alpaca is between 15-20 years, and the longest alpaca of life recorded is 27 years.
Habitats and lifestyles
Alpacas can be found throughout South America. They usually live in moderate conditions in the mountains with high altitude.
They are easy to maintain because they are not limited to certain types of environments. Animals such as, flamingos, condors, spectacled bears, mountain lions, coyotes, llamas, and sheep live near the Alpacas when they are in their natural habitat.
Population
Alpacas are from Peru and currently have the largest alpacas population in the world. About 87% of the 3,685,516 million alpaca worldwide are in Peru. The population dropped dramatically after the Spanish Conquistadors invaded the Andes in 1532, after which 98% of animals were destroyed. The Spaniards also carry a fatal illness for alpacas.
As a result of the invasion, alpaca was forced to move higher up the mountain and stay there permanently. Although the alpaca was almost completely destroyed, they were rediscovered in the 19th century by Europeans. After discovering the benefits to them, animals became important to society during the industrial revolution.
Today, alpaca can be found all over the world, excluding Antarctica.
Diet
The Alpacas chew their food which is finally mixed with their hump and saliva and then they swallow it. They give rise to the stumps and chew them when they rest, which is called reconciliation. Alpacas usually eat 1.5% of their body weight for normal growth. They mainly need grass meadows, straw, or silage but some may also need additional energy and protein food and they will also usually try to chew almost anything (eg empty bottles). Most alpaca farmers rotate their feeding grounds so that the grass can grow back and the stool parasites can die before reusing the area. Prairie grass is a good source of protein. When the seasons change, the grass loses or gets more protein. For example, in spring, pasture grasses have about 20% protein while in summer, it has only 6%. They need more energy supplements in the winter to produce heat and body warmth. They get their fiber from straw or from long stems that give them vitamin E. Green grass contains vitamins A and E.
Alpacas can feed on unfertilized natural grasses; However, breeders can also add grass with low protein dry grass. To provide selenium and other necessary vitamins, breeders will feed their domestic alpacas a daily dose of wheat to provide additional nutrients that are not fully obtained from their main meals. Alpacas can obtain the necessary vitamins in their native grazing areas.
Digestion
Alpacas, like other camelids, have a three-cubicle stomach; combined with chewing gum, this three-chamber system allows maximum nutrient extraction from low quality forages. Alpacas are not ruminants, ruminant seminaries, or modified ruminants.
Alpacas will chew their food in a number eight movement, swallow food, and then spread it to one of the stomach chambers. The first and second spaces (called C1 and C2) are where the fermentation process begins. Alpaca will then absorb the nutrients and water in the first part of the third space. The third end of the chamber (called C3) is where the stomach removes acids to digest food, and possibly the place where the alpaca will have ulcers, if stress.
Toxic plants
Many toxic plants for alpaca, including ferns, fireweed, oleander, and some azaleas. Similar to similar animals, others include: acorns, African fields, agave, amaryllis, autumn crocus, bear grass, snakeweed broom, buckwheat, ragweed, buttercup, calla lily, citrus foliage, carnations, jatropha seeds, and many again more.
History of the scientific name
The relationship between alpacas and vicuÃÆ' Â ± as argued over the years. In the 18th and 19th centuries, four South American lamoid species were given a scientific name. At that time, alpaca was assumed to be from the llama, ignoring the similarity in size, feather and tooth between alpaca and vicuÃÆ' Â ± a. The classification is complicated by the fact that the four South American camelid species can interbreed and produce fertile offspring. The advent of DNA technology makes a more accurate classification possible.
In 2001, the classification of the alpaca genus changed from Old Pacos to Vicugna pacos , following a paper presentation on work by Dr. Ã, Jane Wheeler et al. on alpaca DNA to the Royal Society suggests alpaca is derived from vicuÃÆ' Â ± a, not guanaco.
Fiber
Alpaca hair is a shiny and smooth natural fiber. While similar to sheep's wool, it's warmer, no prickly, and contains no lanolin, which makes it hypoallergenic. Without lanolin, it does not ward off water. It's also soft and luxurious. In physical structure, alpaca fiber is somewhat similar to hair, very shiny. The process of preparation, carding, spinning, weaving and finishing alpaca is very similar to the process used for wool. The alpaca fibers are also fire resistant, and meet the standards of the US Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Alpacas are usually shaved once per year in the spring. Each slider produces about five to ten pounds (2.2-4.5 kilograms) of fiber per alpaca. An adult alpaca may produce 50 to 90 ounces (1420-2550 grams) of first quality fibers as well as 50 to 100 ounces (1420-2840 grams) of second and third fibers. The quality of alpaca fibers is determined by how thin the fibers are. Usually, the larger the number of small folds in the fiber, the greater the quality.
Knitting with commercially transferable alpaca fibers is easy because it is so soft, and no slicker than sheep's wool. (It's a bit harder to spin by hand because it does not have large scales of sheep's wool and thus does not swing simultaneously as well.) Alpaca's thread has become very popular with hand-kniters in the United States in the last decade. Handmade alpaca clothing (and alpaca blend) made for sale is very common, especially in Peru and Bolivia. In Peru, there are two top-tier companies that sell the majority of machine-made, algae, poncho, artificial sweaters, as well as many other small companies in the two countries that produce machine-made, alpaca clothing, generally for the tourist market. For knitting production there is a technique used with alpaca (or wool) yarn, between hand and machine made, which is from a towering hand. This term means that garments are made on low-tech knitting machines (like the old Brother brand) in which each puncture must be associated with the hand in the right color. Then the carriage is passed along the width of the garment, effectively connecting the stitches to the bottom or knitting them. Many sweater destined for tourists, scarves and so on in South American stores are made by this method. The towering hands obviously need a relatively expensive machine, so hats, sweaters, and scarves are more often made entirely by hand, with two needles of knitting or circular needles or 4-5 double-pointed needles for socks. Weaving with alpaca is done by many indigenous groups around the Cuzco region of Peru, creating a nice, strong scarf and so on with a nice curtain. The alpaca clothing can last for a very long time, but beware because the clothes moths seem to like fiber. Like soft and luxurious fiber it is the choice of some high quality alpaca knit and sweaters company.
Price
Prices for American Alpacas can range from US $ 50 for a man castrated up to US $ 500,000 for the highest in the world, depending on breeding history, sex, and color. According to an academic study, though, higher prices looking for alpaca breeding stocks are highly speculative and unsupported by market fundamentals, given the low inherent returns per head of the primary end product, alpaca fibers, and prices to within $ 100 per head rather than $ 10,000 will be required for a flock of commercial fiber production. Breeding stock prices in Australia has fallen from A $ 10,000-30,000 in 1997 to an average of A $ 3,000-4,000 today.
It is possible to increase up to 25 alpacas per hectare (10 alpacas per acre), as they have special areas for waste products and keep their eating areas away from their waste areas. However, this ratio differs from country to country and is highly dependent on the quality of available pastures (in many desert locations it is generally only possible to run one to three animals per acre due to lack of appropriate vegetation). The quality of the fiber is a major variant in the price achieved for alpaca wool; in Australia, it is common to classify fibers with the thickness of each hair and by the amount of vegetable material contained in the shearings provided.
Livestock
Alpacas should eat 1-2% of body weight per day, so about two kilograms of dry grass per month per animal. When formulating the right diet for alpacas, water and straw analysis should be performed to determine the appropriate vitamin and mineral supplementation program. Two options are to provide free choice of salt/mineral powder, or feed a specially formulated ration. Adat to the highest area of ​​the Andes, this harsh environment has created a very strong animal, so it only takes minimal fences and predators. The three-chambered alpaca stomach allows a very efficient digestion. There is no proper seed in manure, because alpacas prefer only to eat soft leaf crops, and will not consume thick stems of plants; therefore, alpaca fertilizers do not require composting to enrich grasslands or ornamental landscapes. Pruning of nails and teeth is required every six to twelve months, along with annual shearing.
Similar to ruminant animals, such as cattle and sheep, alpaca only have lower teeth at the front of their mouths; therefore, they do not attract grass by the roots. Rotating the grassland is still important, as alpacas has a tendency to regiment repeatedly. Alpacas are fiber-producing animals; they do not need to be slaughtered to reap their products, and their fiber is a growing renewable resource every year.
Cultural presence
Alpacas is closely linked to cultural practices for the Andean people. Prior to colonization, alpaca images were used in their rituals and religious practices. Since the people in the region depend heavily on these animals for their food, the alpaca is seen as a gift from Pachamama. Alpacas are used for their meat, fiber for clothing, and art, and their images are in the form of conopas.
Conopas took their appearance from Suri alpacas, with long locks flanking sides and bangs covering his eyes, and depression on his back. This depression is used in ritual practices, usually filled with coca leaves and fat from alpaca and old, to bring fertility and luck. While its use was prevalent before colonization, attempts to turn the Andean people into Catholicism led to the acquisition of over 3,400 conopas in Lima alone.
The origins of alpaca are depicted in the legend which says that they came to the world after a goddess fell in love with a man. The goddess's father only allows her to be with her lover if she cares for her alpacas. On top of caring for herd he should always bring a small animal to his whole life. When he comes to our world, alpaca follows him. Everything was fine until he lowered the little animal and the goddess fled back to her home. On the way back home, the man tried to stop him and his flock fled. While he can not stop him from returning, he is able to stop some alpaca to return. The Alpacas are unsuccessfully re-seen today on the swampy land in the Andes waiting for the end of the world, so they can return to their goddess.
See also
- Alpaca fiber
- Llama
- Skrjabinema
- VicuÃÆ' a
References
External links
- International Alpaca Association (IAA)
- Alpaca Owners Association (AOA) (AS)
- Alpaca Association of Australia (AAA) (AU)
- See the alpaca genome in Ensembl
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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