These increasingly popular animals are catered for by The Natural Fibre Company which specialises in spinning alpaca yarn in pure and blended form. Alpaca yarn produces particuarly successful results when blended with wool. Alpacas are camelids and originally natives of Chile, Peru and Bolivia. Other camelids include llamas, vicuna, guanaco and camels.

There are two main types of alpaca: huacaya and suri. Huacaya is the more common of the two and has a fluffy coat. The suri coat is both lustrous and wavy; the fibre is also much longer. It may help to compare huacaya and suri to short and long-wool sheep. Most camelids have a double coat combining both coarse and fine hairs, but alpacas have a fine, soft fleece.

Some alpacas have coarser 'guard' hairs, which increase with age. Each animal produces a wide variety of hair, much more so than sheep or goats. The best comes from the back and sides, the worst from the legs and there is currently no market for this.

The fibre qualities are usually defined as baby, adult and coarse, but as with sheep, due to the wide varieties of breeding, adults can produce finer fibre than babies. Generally the micron count increases with age: it is usually under 22 for baby, 22-27 for adult and over that for coarse.

Some of the fibre is lustrous, but the crimp is generally low. The fibre can be difficult to spin, particularly if it's very fine. We have used 50-50 blends of leg and coarse fibre together with strong wool to produce a successful carpet yarn.

Alpacas come in 23 colours ranging from white to black and dark brown including chestnut and ginger. These are our names for the colours, not the official ones! Like mohair, it is hair rather than wool and feels smoother.

Around 20,000 alpacas live in the UK and many owners are members of the British Alpaca Society. Most of the top quality breeding stock comes from Australia where a lot of research has been done to improve the quality of fibre.

There have been attempts to set up national co-operatives in the UK, but nowadays owners tend to work alone, in groups or consortia. Some owners are more interested in the animals than the fibre they produce and sell it, but they are frequently unhappy with the going rate.

The Natural Fibre Company specialises in spinning alpaca yarn in pure and blended form and it can often put owners in touch with potential partners. There are also a number of active regional groups in parts of the UK.