Alpacas - The huggable investment

I mentioned in our last blog entry that one of the reasons people keep alpacas is for investment reasons, that is to produce an income from breeding alpacas.

So how do you generate an income from breeding alpacas?

Well primarily there are 2 routes - selling animals you have bred and secondly, offering stud services.

How much money can you make from breeding and selling alpacas?

For simplicity sake, we will ignore the costs involved in setting up your herd & will just focus on annual income/expenditure here. We will also focus only on females.

Income - £5000 (estimated average price for a female)

Expenditure
Insurance - £380
Feed - £100 (includes supplements & winter hay)
Medical treatment - £100 (vaccinations, etc)
Mating - £750 (assuming you dont have your own studs)
Shearing - £50

Profit
Income - expenditure = £3620

I should point out that these figures are based on breeding/selling a 2 year old female, so the insurance, etc are for 2 years cover. These figures also dont include costs for agistment, marketing, show entries or any other incidental costs. If you are paying agistment, the cost will likely be about £8 a week, which totals a further £832 over 2 years.

It's also important to note that whether you are selling a male or female alpaca, the costs are largely the same. The difference being that a male (unless of stud quality) will likely only sell for about £500, which may mean you make a financial loss.

The reality is, subject to your alpacas being of a good enough standard, you herd producing a sufficient number of females and you being able to find a buyer, it is possible to make money from breeding and selling alpacas.

How much money can you make from stud services?

An average price for a mating is probably in the region of about £750.

So there you have it, alpacas are the huggable investment!