Like their cousin the llama, alpacas make good livestock guardians against small predators and have been growing in popularity on Canadian farms.
Alpacas are a camelid species smaller in stature than llamas – at 150 to 200 pounds versus 300 to 500 pounds, so they can fend off foxes and other smaller animals.
In addition to their protective nature, alpacas are also prized for their fur which has long, strong strands that are warmer than wool and resist wear better. This fine fur is long-lasting, exceptionally soft and water and stain resistant making it ideal for use in clothing.
But some of the fur around the animal’s neck and legs isn’t as soft or long as it needs to be for milling into yarn, which makes for a waste problem. And, when considered in tandem with the volume of alpaca manure, it all becomes s a lot of waste to manage.
Is there a way to use alpacas’ manure and fur together for the benefit of farmers? The University of Waterloo is unlocking this mystery in a new, one-of-its-kind study.
Appreciation of alpacas in Canada
According to Alpaca Canada, the first alpacas came to Canada in the late 1980s and the Canadian Llama and Alpaca Association notes there were well over 30,000 of the animals registered through the association as of 2015. Registration isn’t mandatory and their popularity has grown, putting the numbers of Canadian-dwelling alpacas much higher now an additional decade later.
Augustine Osei, a post-doctoral fellow in the Faculty of Environment at the University of Waterloo, has been working on ways to repurpose the hair and manure in ways to benefit farmers. He came into the study about a year after Maren Oelbermann, a professor in the faculty who leads the Soil Ecosystem Dynamics research Group, had been approached by the alpaca farmer at Maple Ridge Acres in Freelton, Ont.
“Maren already had a contact with an alpaca farmer,” Osei says. “In the last two decades, the amount of alpaca farming has really increased. Based on my research, it looks like there’s been quite an increase.”
Alpacas have a unique digestive system which Osei says makes their manure unlike that of other livestock. It is quite a stable form of manure, in that it has lower nitrogen levels and it can be applied directly to crops, whereas for some other forms of manure, direct application would lead to burning of plants.
“Some farmers use the manure raw on their crops,” he says of alpaca manure.
Award-winning alpaca farmer Frances Stewart of Maple Ridge Acres was piling the manure and waste hair on the farm, but as Osei explains, “nothing was happening.” The hair wasn’t breaking down and the piles weren’t composting as expected.
Combining hair and manure
While putting manure straight onto crops is one option, the waste hair presents another problem – and another opportunity. The short and coarse strands don’t achieve the quality standards of the long body hairs. That waste hair is typically burned or sent to landfills for disposal.
“They have a lot of hair that is waste,” Osei explains.
But anyone who manages and applies their own livestock manure can tell you that it’s dismissive to call something a “waste” product – and where some see a waste product, others see the potential for greatness.
“We can apply the manure to the soil and we also have the hair. The hair has a lot of protein and fiber,” Osei says.
Working with Stewart, Osei has access to abundant volumes of hair and manure for his testing.
Stewart had previously considered pelletizing the waste fiber, as is done will sheep’s wool, but it lacks lanolin, making it hard (near impossible) to press into pellets. Instead, she realized combining it with the animals’ manure was an option.
Wool pellets are often used as soil amendments, so the theory was to do the same with alpaca fur.
Recognizing the hair and manure weren’t breaking down, Osei decided to do an analysis of the hair and the manure, assuming the hair was going to have a high carbon level. But he was surprised to find that wasn’t the case.
The manure has a carbon-to-nitrogen ratio of about 16, while the hair has a ratio of only three, putting the combination at slightly below the desired level needed for composting. Osei is considering what the alpaca eats as an amendment to the mixture.
“To get a very good compost, a carbon-to-nitrogen ratio of between 20 to 30 is recommended,” he says. “A carbon-to-nitrogen ratio of 20 means that for every 20 parts of carbon, there is one part nitrogen.”
Having found this lower carbon-to-nitrogen ratio in the hair-manure blend, he saw the need to combine another high-carbon source into the mix to enhance the microbial activities that will make the hair and manure break down. His work – the first of its kind – has been to research various amendment combinations with the hair and manure blend.
“Because the soils on which the grazing pasture of the alpacas grow are not that good, the farmer buys feed from other sources,” he explains. “That includes alfalfas and hay and other things that farmers generally use to feed their animals.”
Introducing biochar into the mix
In addition to the feed amendments, Osei has begun adding biochar as an additive to the manure and hair blend. Biochar is a carbon-rich charcoal-like additive that has been used to enhance soil for centuries.
“Biochar is a high carbon content organic amendment,” he says. “Research has shown that including biochar in compost helps to reduce odor while improving the composting process. We are seeing good results from using that.”
As the study goes forward, Osei is testing eight different combinations of the four elements of: manure, hair, hay and biochar.
“The combinations were based on targeted initial carbon to nitrogen ratios,” he says. “At this initial stage, we are doing lab experiments. The idea is to select the best three combinations out of the eight.”
Those three combinations will then go to a larger scale at Maple Ridge Acres where they will be trialed at a farm-level application in separate compost zones.
“Once we get the compost, we want to apply it to the field and compare that to a mineral fertilizer as well as to a no-compost application,” he says. “The goal is to develop compost out of this waste for farmers to use on their farms to improve their soils and increase their growth.”
Offering farmers an alternative to chemical amendments that is natural and effective could improve farm sustainability as well as providing a beneficial disposal option for alpaca hair and manure.
Osei anticipates the lab experiments will be done in the summer of 2025 and on-farm tests can proceed in the fall. •
