s e v e n i s a j o u r n e y

I was really struck by some American insanity last night. But not in the way any of you are thinking. I am talking alpaca prices.

The alpaca industry in the New Alpaca Countries (meaning anywhere outside of South America) is currently a “breeders markter”, which means the prices are artificially high. At the end of the day these are fiber animals, and their prices will have to reflect the value of that fiber. Right now in NZ the prices for a female range from NZ$4000 to NZ$12500 (~ US$2500-7750). Ouch. The fiber-values of the animals is probably about 5-10x lower. People make money right now selling animals to other starting breeders like us, a classic pyramid scheme.

But the US market makes these prices seem completely sane by comparison. Most females there _start_ at US$10,000, and it is not that hard to find $20,000, even $30,000 animals. Then last night Tam hit the “mother load” of insanity. For “Rose Grey” animals she found prices of $200,000 for a single female! Dear Lord! In another case they were asking $40,000 to pruchase an unborn Cria from a Grey- sight unseen! And with the way their color genetics works, you cannot be assured of a grey offspring. Heck, you can’t know if you will end up with a dud through the magic of genetic recombination. $200,000! Aaack! That female had better give birth to solid gold offspring!

We had known that the US market was rather more “fad driven”, with a huge emphasis on grey animals right now, but this is still a shock. Mike Safely, one of the original North American breeders and who was a speaker at the Alpaca conference 2 weeks ago, was highly critical of the US Alpaca market. Now I understand why. Apparently there are also strong trends in the US to breed for congenital traits which are not (or at best marginally) heritable! Now I really understand why he said NZ could end up with the best herd genetics in the world if we get our act together an institute systematic genetic improvement practices.

I guess we can look at the bright side, in that the US market will no doubt be the bellwether of any price crash. Paying 10x fiber value in NZ seems positively sane compared to the 100x prices up north.