Having spent many hours cleaning and preparing our fleeces for processing, it became obvious which fleece types required the least input, resulted in the highest proportion of prime fleece, and produced the most luxurious fibre-fine, lustrous, elastic, and silky to touch. It is these characteristics that became our breeding goals and we have strived to assemble alpacas and use stud males that will help us.

We consider a realistic medium term target is to breed alpacas that produce an average of 4 kg of prime fleece per year at a maximum fibre diameter of 24 micron over 5 years.

Much is made today of Don Julio Barreda and the Accoyo herd but it is generally regarded that he produces the best alpacas in Peru. Who are we to argue with someone who has been actively breeding alpacas for over 50 years and has achieved such consistency within his herd but has never gone outside his herd for new genetics. He has doubled his fleece weights but just as significantly during this time he has increased the bodyweight of his stock by 25%.

Don Julio first breeds for size and then for density. We here in Australasia must view the current tendency for young, small alpacas with lovely fleeces of low micron to be awarded championships in the show ring and the subsequent hype that then becomes associated with the awards with the greatest concern. In many cases the low micron is only due to restricted diets. It is genetic finess we require not nutritional finess. Bigger alpacas have a larger area to hang more fleece off and larger framed alpacas with excellent conformation are required to support and maintain the higher fleece weights over the number of years we aim for.

There are many factors that must be considered when breeding the perfect alpaca but the more factors that get into the equation, the slower the progress. With alpacas, a long generation interval and lower multiplication rate (singles) makes it all the more important to sort out a few key selection criteria.

Size has been mentioned and density is the next most important. Once again Don Julio states that you must fix the density first not the micron. Density is determined by the number of fibre producing follicles per square centimetre.

Fibre is produced from follicle groups consisting of three primary follicles and a variable number of secondary follicles. The primary follicles go on to produce the guard hair and medullated fibre.

Primary follicles cannot be eliminated, they are an essential part of the fibre producing unit. It is possible to genetically manipulate the fibre group so that the diameter of the primary follicles are reduced and therefore the diameter of the primary fibres and even more crucial, increase the ratio of secondary follicles to primary follicles.The diameter of the primary fibres will be reduced to such an extent that the primary fibres are not seen as guard hair and will not cause the prickle factor associated with them. The more closely packed secondary follicle force the fibre to be low micron and highly aligned. The high degree of alignment results in the formation of fibre bundles rather than the traditional broad staples or locks. Although the follicles on a larger framed alpaca are not packed as densely as on a small to medium framed alpaca, the greater surface area still means that the alpaca has more fibre producing follicles and therefore greater potential for higher fleece weights.