Alpaca and Llama

The alpaca is a herbivore that lives at altitude of 3,500m to 5,000m in the central Andes across Peru, Bolivia, northern Chile, and northern Argentina.
It is grazing livestock, mainly bred for its fleece. The main characteristics of alpaca are its softness, warmness, lightness, and durability. Alpaca textiles are treated as luxury goods around the world as the production area is so limited. The alpacas are sheared just once a year and an average 3.5 kg of fleece collected per alpaca.

	The llama is also a herbivore that live at high altitude in Bolivia in Peru and is rear mainly for food and load carriage. Its wool has similar characteristics to that of the alpaca and various knitted products have been manufactured in recent years. The fleece collected for knitted products averages 2.5 kg per llama.
Bolivia has the highest number of llamas of any country in the world and the Bolivian government watches the new industry of llama textiles with interest.