Alpacas
Rare and valuable wool
The alpaca, like other fleece-coated animals, originates from a two-coated ancestor. The outer coat, or 'guard hair', is still visible on most alpacas. It can be regarded as a contaminant which impedes processing and dyeing of alpaca fibre, and lessens the quality and appeal of fabrics.
SRSĀ® is a breeding system that will eliminate 'guard hair' from alpacas and will perfect the dimensions and properties of alpaca fibre so that it can become a prestigious and fine fibre, similarly revered as cashmere is, and well positioned in the luxury fibre markets.
We are in the process of genetically reconstructing the alpaca fibre. More than 100 alpaca breeders in Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, USA and Canada are involved. The fibre reconstruction is achieved by increasing the density and length of wool fibres, whilst minimising the size of primary fibres.
Figure 1. The fleece of an advanced alpaca of measurably high levels of fibre density and length and fine fibre diameter.
As density and length increases the fleece fibres become highly aligned and uniform in size and shape, and medullation disappears. The fibres become much finer in diameter and smooth surfaced as scale height decreases and scale length increases.
Bred in this way, the alpaca has the potential to produce about 50 times the fleece weight of the cashmere goat.
Advanced alpacas
We have some excellent benchmarks for being able to say when an alpaca has advanced fleece traits. Our worldwide database of leading alpacas from many herds that have been tested for density and length is available. The 309 alpacas, averaging 45 months of age, have the following mean values:
- fibre density of 43.3 follicles (fibres) per square millimetre
- fibre length, as measured by growth rate, of 0.34 millimetres per day
- primary fibres with a mean diameter of 34.7 microns
- secondary fibres with mean diameter of 24.0 microns
Alpacas sires
Among the alpaca sires we are using in SRSĀ® breeding programs are the following examples (See www.srsalpacas.com.au):
![]() | Animal: Jolimont Giovanni |
![]() | Animal: Protege |
![]() | Animal: Mars |
![]() | Animal: Accolade |
![]() | |
![]() | Animal: Yucatan |
![]() | Animal:Alloro |
Categories
RSS Feeds
New Posts
- SRS(R) Classic Ram Sale
- Willera Poll
- AFJ Article Aug 2009
- Challara
- Calcaling Poll
- Roemahkita Poll
- Leahcim Poll
- Kelvale Poll
- Baderloo Poll
- Ninuenook Poll
New Comments
- No comments at the moment






