What is an Alpaca?

I honestly had never heard of an alpaca until Linda (mother-in-law) said they wanted some.

The in-laws are so happy to be back out in the country and it is beautiful out there!  They have been working hard on getting the yard turned into a pasture and cleaning out all the brush.  Even though we live in the city & it is super convenient, we are not city people.  We constantly have 2 trailers parked in front of our house - a job trailer and the four-wheeler/lawn mower trailer.  We get stares from neighbors sometimes.  Especially when they cannot turn around in our rather large cul-de-sac due to all the parked objects and have to back up to get out.  Oops.  We are working on getting out of the city and back to our homeland.

Back to the alpaca's.

According to Wikipedia, an alpaca is a domesticated species of South American camelid. It resembles a small llama in appearance.  Alpacas are considerably smaller than llamas, and unlike llamas, alpacas were not bred to be beasts of burden but were bred and slaughtered specifically for their fiber. Alpaca fiber is used for making knitted and woven items, much as wool is. These items include blankets, sweaters, hats, gloves, scarves, a wide variety of textiles and ponchos in South America, and sweaters, socks, coats and bedding in other parts of the world. The fiber comes in more than 52 natural colors as classified in Peru, 12 as classified in Australia and 16 as classified in the United States.

I wonder if the Rolling Stones thought of alpacas when they wrote Beasts of Burden.

So, I learned that I have probably worn an alpaca at some point and now my in-laws are going to have them in their yard.  I'm not sure if they plan on raising them and then using the wool.  I'll check on that.  I mean, my husband has gone to the Albertson Farm, shot a cow, and then brought home the meat.  So we are those kind of people.  Sigh.  For now, I'll just look forward to meeting my first alpaca in Twiggs County. :)