Baby Alpaca is the name given to the First years Alpaca shearing where it’s at its finest. Baby Alpaca is silky soft, totally itch free, its Fibre shafts are in fact hollow providing excellent thermal properties as well as being very light in weight. Baby Alpaca is truly a luxury fibre which is not freely available outside of the Andean Countries of South America, it should not be confused with normal Alpaca which can encompass older coarser haired Alpacas, Baby Alpaca is a Grade of Alpaca fibre measured by fine-ness and must be 22 microns or less.
The Alpaca, like the llama are domesticated and farmed by the Andean Indians using breeding and husbandry methods handed down through the ages. They have two breeds: the Hucaya and the Suri. Alpacas are found primarily in Peru but also in smaller numbers in Chile and Bolivia and are now also farmed in comparatively small numbers in Europe, Australasia and North America. Contrary to the Llama, the Alpaca is not suited to carrying loads and unlike its cousins the Vicuña and Guanaco, alpaca are found in a wide spectrum of colours, the most common being white but ranging through shades of greys, blacks and browns.