To give you an idead of what is included in our "ALPACAS - a Getting Started Guide", below is the Table of Contents.

Introduction.......................................................................................................... 4

Breeders’ Market vs. Fiber Market...................................................................... 4

Why Alpacas and What to Do With Them?......................................................... 5

Owning Alpacas as Pets............................................................................... 6

Owning Alpacas for Fiber Production.............................................................. 6

Managing a Small Scale Alpaca Operation...................................................... 7

Becoming an Alpaca Industry Leader.............................................................. 7

Focusing on Genetic Improvement through a Herdsire Operation....................... 8

Putting it all Together.................................................................................... 9

Define Your Strategy....................................................................................... 10

Alpacas.............................................................................................................. 11

What are they?............................................................................................... 11

Herd Objectives................................................................................................... 13

Fiber Structure................................................................................................ 14

Differences between Suri and Huacaya Fiber................................................. 15

Follicle and Fiber Types............................................................................... 16

The Correlation between Density and Fineness.............................................. 17

Fiber Criteria................................................................................................... 18

        The Histogram.................................................................................... 18

Staple Length............................................................................................. 18

Micron Count.............................................................................................. 19

Standard Deviation....................................................................................... 19

Co-efficient of Variation................................................................................. 20

Comfort Factor............................................................................................. 20

Breeding Goals............................................................................................ 20

Culling............................................................................................................. 21

Farm Infrastructure............................................................................................... 21

Fencing........................................................................................................... 21

Gates.............................................................................................................. 24

Guard Animals................................................................................................. 25

Shelter............................................................................................................. 26

Video Monitoring............................................................................................... 27

Land................................................................................................................ 28

Pastures.......................................................................................................... 29

Clean-up.......................................................................................................... 30

Infrastructure.................................................................................................... 30

Equipment....................................................................................................... 30

Office/Lab equipment......................................................................................... 31

Supplies........................................................................................................... 31

Show and Event accessories.............................................................................. 31

Health and Nutrition............................................................................................... 31

Veterinary and Health Care Supplies................................................................... 32

General health................................................................................................... 33

Teeth and toenails.............................................................................................. 34

Conditioning....................................................................................................... 36

Genetics............................................................................................................... 36

Mendelian Genetics?.......................................................................................... 36

Line breeding or inbreeding?................................................................................ 37

Selecting Your Foundation Herd.......................................................................... 37

Breeding Methodologies...................................................................................... 38

Breeding and Birthing.............................................................................................. 39

Breeding Methods......................................................................,........................ 39

Confirmation of pregnancy.................................................................................... 40

Birthing.............................................................................................................. 40

The stages......................................................................................................... 41

Conclusions........................................................................................................... 42

The bottom-line................................................................................................... 42

The next step..................................................................................................... 43

What Heritage Farm has to Offer............................................................................. 43

Alpacas for Sale................................................................................................. 43

Breeding Services.............................................................................................. 43

Agisting (Boarding Services)............................................................................... 44

Consulting Services............................................................................................ 44

New Customer Care Services.............................................................................. 44

Hands-on Training Program................................................................................. 45

Action Plan........................................................................................................... 46

Suggested Bibliography.......................................................................................... 48

Glossary............................................................................................................... 49

Endnotes............................................................................................................... 51