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Livestock diversificaiton the potential for farming camelids in the united kingdom

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 November 2017

Colin Campbell
Colin Campbell*
Affiliation:
U.S. Feed Grains Council, 80 Westgate Street, Gloucester GL1 2NZ
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Extract

The British government is encouraging livestock diversification and the production of those animal products which are still being imported. Currently most farm animal fibres such as mohair, cashmere and alpaca are imported with the result that there is a potential for developing production in the U.K. South American camelids can all be farmed for their fibre and present few nutritional or managemental problems. The llama is the largest of the four species with the male weighing about 116 kg. It produces coarse fibre of various colours. The alpaca is smaller than the llama, has short ears, a woolly face and a rounded rump. It averages 1 m in height and the male weighs 64 kg. There are two types of alpaca with different characteristics, the Huacaya and the Suri. Yields of 2.00 kg of good quality 18-30 micron fibre are normal. In South America the vicuna and the guanaco exist only in the wild state. Guanacos have shaggy coats of fine texture, usually chestnut borwn.

Type
Novel Forms of Animal Production
Information
Proceedings of the British Society of Animal Production (1972) , Volume 1990 , March 1990 , pp. 75
Copyright
Copyright © The British Society of Animal Production 1990

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References

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