The Alpaca Breed Standard
The Alpaca Owners Association has recently approved a breed standard for both Huacaya and Suri Alpacas.
Huacaya Breed Standard
Suri Breed Standard
Breed Standards encompass the ideal conformational or physically apparent traits and behavior of a particular breed of animal.
They provide a guideline for our shows as well as our breeding programs. Deviations from the standard are considered faults and may be minor or significant enough to prevent consideration of breeding. There are many other uses for alpacas who may have significant faults.
The above links go over all the details of the breed standards. A good resource with some excellent photos that demonstrates ideal vs deviations from ideal is the book " The Art and Science of Alpaca Judging".
The book is available for sale on the AOA site.
Buy The Art and Science of Alpaca Judging
|