What are the investment and retirement income aspects of an alpaca business?
The alpaca industry in the United States today is a breeding industry, as contrasted to the South American alpaca industry that has a booming fiber industry as well as the use of the alpaca for food. The alpaca industry in the US can be likened to a growth industry in other business adventures, in that as time passes, the herd growth compounds itself. AOBA has a model that shows herd growth (starting with 5 females and two males) to over one hundred animals in ten years. When one invests in the alpaca business, one should consider a long term investment, rather than a get rich quick scheme. Return on investment will likely be negative for the first few years. Many people establish a business plan that looks to be at a break even point at year five. After year five, the business starts to show a profit based on the sale of animals. A large number of alpaca owners use the above models to plan for retirement income. For example, in our case, we started our business about five years ago, a
