Alpacas Prove to be Profitable and Lovable Pets
By Shaheen R. Syal

The movie Napoleon Dynamite made the llama highly recognizable, especially to high school and college students. But take a ride to Fuquay-Varina, and you'll meet an animal that’s a close kin to the llama, but unique in many ways.

It’s called an Alpaca. Native to South America, these cuddly creatures have soft padded feet and one set of lower teeth which they use to feed on grains and grass.

Cathy Knight is one of the owners of the Kipling Pines Alpacas farm in Fuquay-Varina.

“We saw the alpacas on a TV commercial and said, ‘Ooh what’s that,’” Knight said. “We visited a farm and fell in love with them.”

Dusty, Barnabus and Rosie’s Mia are just three of the 14 alpacas the Knights own. Because each one is so different, Cathy said every day she learns more about their individual character traits.

“Every one has a distinct personality just like people do.”

Like the Knights, one of the main reasons people breed alpacas is for their thick fleece. Once an alpaca is sheared, the raw fleece is collected, washed and made ready for spinners.

Raising alpacas and learning about them along the way has brought so much joy to Cathy and her family.

“They definitely bring out the gentler side of you because they like to be calm…they’re calm themselves,” she said.

The creatures are calm and curious, indeed. But just like their cousins, Alpacas definitely are not camera shy.