Buying an Alpaca: A Pre-Purchase Checklist

Buying your first alpacas usually means visiting a farm you have never seen, meeting a seller you do not know, and making a decision you will live with for many years. A little homework before the visit pays for itself many times over.

This is a pre-purchase checklist for buying an alpaca in the UK, DACH, or Italy: what to ask before you go, what to look at when you get there, and what should be on paper before you drive away. It is not legal advice, and it is not a substitute for your vet.

Before the visit#

• Never buy just one alpaca. The rule on this site is three; the associations we checked set two as the absolute floor. Full reasoning in our note on starter herds for beginners.
• Decide what the animals are for. Pets, fibre, or breeding. Our cost guide breaks the tiers down and covers the yearly running costs.
• Ask by email or phone, before you set a date: how long the seller has kept alpacas, whether the animals are registered with the British Alpaca Society (BAS) or an equivalent, whether the herd's BVDV status is known, and whether you can visit before you commit.
• Book a full hour on the farm. Bring a friend with a spare pair of eyes.

The BAS Code of Conduct for Sale asks sellers "to avoid selling alpacas which might be kept alone." A seller who is happy to sell you one animal, sight unseen, is telling you something before you have even met the herd.

At the farm: what to check when buying an alpaca#

Watch the herd at rest first, before you touch any single animal. Are they alert and curious? Do they lie down (cush) together, or is one animal standing off on its own? An animal that keeps itself apart from the group is worth asking about: alpacas hide illness well, and standing off alone can be an early sign that something is wrong.

Ask to see the animals walk on hard ground. Lameness that is invisible on grass will often show up on a concrete yard.

Then handle the animal. The University of Connecticut Extension's animal-health check for camelid keepers lists the basics to go through with your hands, not just your eyes:

• Feet and toenails. They should be trimmed and well kept, with no sign of abscess or infection.
• Body condition. It should suit the animal's age, sex and stage. Alpaca fibre hides both fat and thinness, so feel over the spine, as our body condition score guide shows. Your eye alone is not enough.
• Coat. Part the fibre in several places, on the back, the flanks and the belly. Look at the skin itself for lice, mites and lesions.

While you are there, look at the bite, the eyes, the ears and the breathing at rest. If the bite looks off, or you see nasal discharge or laboured breathing at rest, get your vet's opinion before you sign anything.

If the animal is intended for breeding, ask what congenital defects the seller has seen in their lines, and how they handled them. An open answer is a good sign, and the BAS code expects known faults to be declared anyway (more on that below).

Health papers and BVDV testing#

Ask for, and take home copies of:

• The individual animal's vaccination records.
• The individual animal's faecal egg count history.
• The microchip number, and where it was implanted.
• The seller's assessment of the herd's BVDV status.

On BVDV there is one point worth knowing before you talk to anyone. Cornell University's Animal Health Diagnostic Center is explicit: "Antigen Capture ELISA tests on skin or serum are not valid for camelids." A negative cattle ELISA on an alpaca does not mean the animal is clear. If the herd's BVDV status matters to you, your vet chooses the test, not the seller. Cornell's camelid options are PCR or virus isolation on blood.

As a reference point, Washington State University's protocol for its own university-owned herd tests incoming animals for BVDV when they will join an existing herd or stay longer than six to eight weeks, and quarantines them for at least two to four weeks. That is one US university's in-house rule, not a general obligation, but it is a sensible reference to bring to your vet.

One more thing to watch for. The BAS Code of Conduct for Sale does not mention either a BVD or a TB certificate as a requirement at sale. If someone tells you BAS demands one, that was not in the code when we read it in September 2026. You are of course free to test regardless, and if the animals will mix with cattle, ask your vet whether TB testing is worth doing anyway.

The contract: what should be on paper#

The BAS Code of Conduct for Sale gives buyers a useful contract checklist. Use these points even outside the UK, then add the legal and registry requirements that apply where you buy:

• The seller "declare[s] any known faults in breeding ability, conformation, temperament and ancestry." Ask for this in writing on the bill of sale, not as a verbal reassurance.
• If the animal is sold as pregnant, the code has two levels. "Believed pregnant" is allowed only "when mating has been observed and subsequent putting back to a male does not result in further mating." "Confirmed pregnant" is claimed "only when supported by evidence of an ultrasound scan test, or a blood progesterone assay, or a current veterinary certificate of pregnancy." Any one of those three is fine. If the price includes a pregnancy, ask for the confirmed level, in writing.
• Where the animal is registered, the seller is expected to have it "transferred to your ownership on the BAS registry" (or the equivalent register in your country) as part of the sale.

If the sale includes a pregnancy, the contract should also cover what happens if the pregnancy fails, and whether a re-breed is included. Those specific clauses vary farm by farm; ask the seller what they offer, and ask them to put it in writing.

Paperwork by country#

The transfer paperwork itself lives on Do You Need to Register Alpacas?, which goes through it country by country. A short note on each:

• United Kingdom. BAS expects the seller to complete the registry transfer. Movement records and the holding number are covered in the multi-country guide above.
• Germany. Your holding has to be registered with the local Veterinäramt and you keep a Bestandsregister. The multi-country guide covers both, and notes that Tierseuchenkasse duties vary by Bundesland.
• Austria. Buyers with a farm in Austria: see Keeping Alpacas in Austria for what the seller and buyer are each expected to file.
• Switzerland. Cross-border and in-country buyers: see Keeping Alpacas in Switzerland. It covers the microchip rule and the accompanying document that has to travel with the animal.
• Italy. Movements are recorded in the national database (BDN), and the movement document, the Modello 4, is only valid when it has been compiled inside BDN. A sheet typed up outside the system does not count. Ask your ASL to walk you through the Vetinfo workflow before the animals travel, and see the Italy section of the multi-country guide.

Fleece: what to ask, what to skip#

For a fibre or breeding purchase, ask for a recent lab histogram from the animal's last shearing. Our guide on reading a fibre test report walks through what the values mean. We have not seen any association require a histogram at sale, so a seller not offering one is not proof of a problem. For a breeding animal priced on its fleece, though, it is fair to ask for the numbers behind the price.

If you are buying for a breeding programme, check both parents against our coat genetics guide before you settle on a pairing. Grey by grey crosses can kill pregnancies before they show, and pairing two white-marked animals risks a deaf, blue-eyed white cria.

Red flags#

Most of this list is simply the BAS code's seller duties turned around. One red flag is a reason to slow down and ask more questions. Several together are a reason to walk away.

• Seller is happy to sell you a single animal to live on its own.
• Seller will not declare faults in breeding ability, conformation, temperament, or ancestry.
• Seller charges for a pregnancy as confirmed with no ultrasound scan, no blood progesterone assay, and no veterinary certificate.
• Seller will not put the registry transfer in writing.
• Seller declines a farm visit before purchase.
• Seller has no vaccination or faecal records to hand, and offers to "email them later."
• Seller presents a cattle-style antigen-capture ELISA as proof the animal is BVDV-free. That is usually an honest mistake, not a trick, but the test is not valid for camelids, so ask your vet to retest.

The first weeks at home#

New arrivals need to arrive quietly, and stay separate from your existing herd for a while. There is no association-wide rule on the quarantine period. Washington State University's protocol for its own herd keeps new animals apart for at least two to four weeks depending on risk. Agree the specifics with your vet before pickup day.

The same Washington State protocol expects every arriving animal to be dewormed, to have a faecal egg count done, or to come with proof of deworming in the last six months. A faecal check while the newcomers are still on their own paddock means any parasite problem is found and treated there, not shared with your resident herd. Our deworming guide explains how to read the result.

Keeping the records you are inheriting#

Every alpaca comes with a folder: vaccination log, faecal counts, microchip number, pedigree, and the transfer paperwork above. On the day you take delivery, the folder is complete. Six months later, in most farms, it is scattered across a phone, a shared drive and the kitchen table.

That is why we built AlpacaKeep: a place to keep each animal's own history in one file, including the papers you inherit at purchase. Public signups are not open yet. Join the early-access list and we will let you know the day we are open, and our free record-keeping templates are yours to download in the meantime.

Sources & Further Reading#

• British Alpaca Society. Code of Conduct for Sale.
• Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine, Animal Health Diagnostic Center. Bovine Virus Diarrhea Virus (BVDV) testing protocols and interpretations.
• Washington State University Office of Research. Preventive Health Care: Llamas and Alpacas.
• AZVD (Alpaka Zucht Verband Deutschland). Haltung.
• Swiss Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office (BLV). Lamas und Alpakas.
• SNAEL / Alpaca e Lama. Introduzione all'allevamento.
• University of Connecticut Extension. Animal Health Checks for Alpacas and Llamas.