Welcome to Paco-Vicuña.org

This site is dedicated to promoting a new world of camelids! Supported by breeders with valuable expertise in breeding alpacas, llamas and paco-vicuñas, this site provides a wealth of educational materials specific to "the face of the future" – the paco-vicuña. Please browse the site and learn how you can become involved in this exciting species of camelid.

A paco-vicuña is a special alpaca that exhibits the phenotype traits of its ancient Andean ancestor the vicuña. Paco-vicuñas are a cross between alpacas and vicuñas and have existed for some time in small quantities in Chile, Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina. A very small number are now in the United States. These animals have the super-fine fiber like the wild vicuña, but with a longer staple length and a quicker regrowth. Their fleeces are also finer and denser than alpaca. Alpacas were domesticated from vicuña over the last 6000 years. Today many of them exhibit vicuña traits. Father Don Julio Cabrera had a breeding program in the 1840's where he attempted to breed the alpaca to the vicuña, but in the long term the resultant animals were assimilated into the alpaca herds. However, many of these vicuña traits can be observed in the alpaca herds that exist on the altiplano of South America today.

Why breed for paco-vicuña? Vicuña fiber is renowned for its softness, fineness, rarity, and color. The vicuña is a wild animal and is difficult to maintain in captivity. Breeding, birthing, shearing, and medical care would be quite a challenge. The vicuña is also a threatened species which makes the animal and its fiber difficult to obtain, as the animal is protected by international laws. The solution is the paco-vicuña breeding for the same fiber attributes of the vicuña and the attitude of an alpaca.