AlpacaKeepPicture your record system right now. A whiteboard in the barn with half-wiped scribbles, a kitchen drawer full of vet receipts, and a date you are pretty sure you remember but would not swear to. It works fine until the day a buyer asks for an animal's full history, or an inspector asks for your medicine records, or you simply cannot recall which cria is due for its first vaccination.
Alpacas are stoic. They hide trouble until it is serious. A record you did not keep is the same kind of silent risk: a problem you cannot see coming. Learning how to keep alpaca records properly is not about admin for its own sake. It is about building a system that does not collapse the moment you pass a handful of animals.
This guide covers what to record, how to set up a system that scales, the honest trade-off between paper, a spreadsheet, and an app, and how long you have to keep everything in your country. For the actual treatment protocols (what to give and when), this guide hands you off to the dedicated schedule guides. Here, we stay focused on logging.
The minimum viable record set (start here)
If you keep two or three animals and you do nothing else, log these five things. This is the floor everyone needs. Everything below scales up from here.
- Identification: each animal's microchip number, name, date of birth, sex, and parents.
- Medicine given: every treatment, with the date and the meat or milk withdrawal end date.
- Births: date, dam, sire, and birth weight in kilograms.
- Movements off your farm: anything leaving the property, and why.
- Money: what you paid for each animal and what you sold it for.
Get those five down reliably and you have covered the records most regions legally care about and most buyers will ask for. The full six-bucket checklist below adds the depth a growing herd needs, one layer at a time.
Why bother: records are an asset, not admin
Good records pay you back in three concrete ways.
You catch problems early. A stoic species hides illness, so a number on a page is often your earliest warning. A weight and condition trend that drifts down, or the same issue cropping up in one animal year after year, shows up in your log long before it shows up in the animal's posture.
You sell with confidence. The moment a buyer asks for an animal's full medical and breeding history is the moment your records pay for themselves. A clean, per-animal history is worth real money at sale. A shrug and a guess is not.
You stay legal at inspection. In most regions, medicine and movement records are required, not optional. When your vet authority asks, "show me," the answer needs to be a record, not a memory.
A missing record is a silent risk, the same way a hidden-pain alpaca is. You only notice the gap when it is already a problem.
What every alpaca owner should record (the master checklist)
Think of your records as six buckets. Each one has a tight list of fields. The rule for every bucket is the same: capture the field, understand why it matters, and link out to the dedicated guide when you want the how-to depth. This guide logs the numbers. It does not teach the protocols.
1. Identification and registration
This is the spine of everything. Get the identity right and every other record can hang off it.
Per animal, record:
- Name and herd or registered name
- Microchip number and the date it was read or placed
- Date of birth, sex, and colour
- Dam and sire (name and ID)
- Registry number, if the animal is registered
- Any official holding or herd number your region requires
The microchip is your practical primary ID because it never changes and is hard to mix up. Whether a microchip is legally required differs by country (see the retention and registration notes further down). It is mandatory for pedigree registration with several associations, but that is registry policy, not a law that applies just because you own an alpaca. For the depth on lineage, foundation lines, and inbreeding, see the alpaca pedigree guide.
2. Health and medication
This is the bucket most regions legally require, and the one most likely to be inspected. Treat it as non-negotiable.
For every treatment, record the field, not a recommended protocol:
- Date, and the animal or animals treated
- What was given, the dose, and the route
- Who administered it (including an external vet by name)
- Batch number
- The meat and milk withdrawal end date
Alongside treatments, keep an everyday husbandry log: weight, body condition score (the number only, captured as a column), toenail trims, teeth checks, shearing dates, vet visits, and faecal egg count results (the result figure only). These are fields to log, not numbers to interpret here.
The withdrawal date is the one to get exactly right, because it is the record that keeps a treated animal out of the food chain until it is safe. Log it as your vet sets it. For the actual schedules, see the alpaca vaccination schedule and the alpaca deworming schedule.
3. Breeding and cria records
Breeding records sharpen every decision you make next season. Capture the mating and the outcome.
Per mating, record:
- Dam, sire, and mating date
- Receptivity or spit-off check results
- Ultrasound or pregnancy-confirmation date and result
- Projected due date
Per cria, record:
- Birth date and time
- Birth weight in kilograms, sex, and vigour at birth
- Whether colostrum or plasma was given
- Dam and sire, and the microchip number once placed
- Weaning date and weaning weight in kilograms
One practical reason to keep a per-dam history: an individual female's gestation length tends to repeat from year to year. Once you have logged a couple of her births, her own pattern sharpens next year's due date better than any general figure. For the husbandry depth, see the alpaca birthing guide and the cria watch calculator.
4. Fibre records
If fibre is why you keep alpacas, this bucket tells you whether your breeding is actually working.
Per shearing, record:
- Date sheared and fleece weight in kilograms
- Mean fibre diameter in microns
- Standard deviation (SD) and coefficient of variation (CV)
- Comfort factor
- Staple length in centimetres
The reason to log it every year is simple: it is the only honest way to see whether fineness is improving across the herd over time, rather than just hoping it is. This section captures the numbers. For how to read a fibre test report and what the grades mean, see the alpaca fibre grades guide.
5. Finances
Money records answer one question that nothing else can: is this animal paying for itself?
Record:
- Per-animal cost basis (purchase price and vendor)
- Per-animal income (sale price and buyer)
- Running expenses (feed, vet, shearing, stud fees)
- Stud-service income
Keep it per animal wherever you can. That is the only way to see which animals earn their keep, and it feeds straight into your tax return. For the bigger picture on margins and whether a herd pays, see are alpacas profitable. No profitability maths here, just the ledger.
6. Movements and sales
This bucket is short but legally important in several countries.
Per event, record:
- Date and animal
- From holding and to holding
- Reason (sale, agistment, show, stud visit, slaughter)
- Buyer or seller details
Why it matters: several countries legally require camelid movements to be logged or reported, including Italy (into the BDN), Switzerland (the TVD), and Germany (HI-Tier and the Bestandsregister). The country specifics live in the retention section below.
One point of difference worth knowing if you are in the UK: alpacas and other camelids do not require movement licences, unlike cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs. In most cases you also need neither a County Parish Holding (CPH) number nor a holding register simply to keep alpacas on your own land. A CPH is only needed in specific cases, such as keeping them on land you do not control or for certain schemes, and individual IDs are needed for export or TB testing.
How to set up a system that actually scales
The structure matters more than the tool. Get the shape right and any tool will hold it.
One row per animal is the spine. Think of it like a medical chart: each animal has one master record, and every dated event (a treatment, a weigh-in, a shearing, a sale) hangs off it. The microchip number is the stable key that ties an event back to the right animal, because names and tags can change but the chip does not.
Write it once, in the field, the same day. The single biggest way data rots is the dual-entry trap: a note scribbled on paper in the barn that never gets transcribed. Pick one method you will actually keep up with and record straight into it.
Start small but consistent. A 3-animal hobby setup and a 30-animal operation need the same fields, just more rows. Elaborate but abandoned loses to simple but reliable every time.
A short word on the other direction: do not over-record. A 3-animal keeper plotting fleece CV histograms is solving a problem they do not have yet. Log the minimum viable set reliably first. Add depth only when the herd, and your time, can support it.
Paper vs spreadsheet vs app: an honest trade-off
There is no single right answer here. Each option is genuinely good at something, and each has a real limit. Lead with what fits the way you actually work.
In practice, many owners start on paper or a spreadsheet and graduate when reminders and withdrawal tracking start to matter more than flexibility. If you already keep your records in a spreadsheet and want to move that data into something with reminders, that migration is its own job (see switching from spreadsheets).
How long do you have to keep alpaca records?
Here is the rule of thumb first: keep medicine and movement records for at least 5 years, and keep financial and tax records for the longest period your country requires, which is often longer. Retention clocks usually start at the end of the year, not the day of the entry.
The specifics vary by country and by whether your animals count as food-producing. The table below is a compact reference. Read each country's own line and do not cross-apply one country's figure to another. For the deeper question of whether you have to register at all, and where, see do you need to register alpacas.
A few plain-language notes, because the dense terms deserve to be introduced before they are named.
The medicine rule is the constant. Across the EU and the UK, anyone keeping food-producing animals must keep veterinary medicine records (proof of purchase and administration) for at least 5 years after a treatment, even if the animal has since left, been slaughtered, or died. This comes from the EU veterinary medicines regulation (Regulation 2019/6, Article 108) and its national equivalents. Records can be electronic, but they must be durable and available for inspection.
Italy. Any holding keeping camelids must be registered in the national livestock database (the Anagrafe Zootecnica, or BDN). Since 17 April 2021, camelid movements to or from farms or to slaughter must be recorded in the BDN (the Modello 4 telematico, recorded electronically rather than as a legacy paper form). From 1 January 2026, completing an initial training programme is a condition for registering operators and activities in the BDN. Business and accounting records run 10 years under Article 2220 of the Codice Civile, with the clock starting from the last registration.
Germany. Register your holding with the veterinary authority (the Veterinaeramt) and the animal-disease fund (the Tierseuchenkasse, which issues a registration number), and keep a holding register (the Bestandsregister) under the livestock movement ordinance (the Viehverkehrsverordnung). Births and movements are reported into the HI-Tier (HIT) database, generally within 7 days. The Bestandsregister itself must be kept 3 years, with the clock starting at the end of the calendar year of the last entry. Since 1 January 2025, invoices and booking documents are kept 8 years (down from 10), while other commercial books stay at 10. Because the tax-evasion assessment window is still 10 years, many advisors keep everything 10 years to be safe.
Austria. Report the holding to the district authority (the Bezirksverwaltungsbehoerde) through the veterinary information system (the VIS) within 7 days of starting to keep camelids. Business and tax records are generally kept 7 years (Section 132 BAO), with the clock from year-end.
Switzerland. Switzerland is not in the EU, so confirm the specifics with Identitas and the federal food-safety and veterinary office (the BLV). Holdings with hoofed animals, including alpacas and llamas, register in the animal movement database (the Tierverkehrsdatenbank, or TVD), and report births, arrivals, departures, and deaths through agate.ch. Camelids born in Switzerland after 1 November 2022 must be microchipped. Business records are kept 10 years (OR Art. 958f).
United Kingdom. Camelids are exempt from movement licences and, in most cases, from CPH and holding-register requirements (the genuine point of difference noted above). Veterinary medicine records still apply at the 5-year standard. For financial records, confirm the current self-employed and business retention period with HMRC, commonly around 5 to 6 years.
United States. There is no single federal alpaca registry. Pedigree registration is private through the Alpaca Owners Association (AOA, formerly the Alpaca Registry, or ARI, renamed in January 2014), which requires DNA parentage verification and uses microchips for ID. Camelids sit outside the scrapie flock-ID scheme (that covers sheep and goats), but you do need a Premises ID for interstate movement. Premises and movement or health-certificate rules are set at state and USDA level and vary widely, so check your state department of agriculture and the USDA.
Australia. Pedigree and ownership are recorded through the AAA's eAlpaca and the International Alpaca Registry (IAR); supply of new IAR ear tags ceased in February 2024. Traceability runs through the NLIS, which needs a Property Identification Code (PIC). NLIS is currently voluntary for alpacas but trending toward compulsory tagging before an animal leaves the property, with camelid waybills and PICs required for movements under state and territory law. No fixed compulsory date is published, so check alpaca.asn.au and your state department of agriculture for the current status. Business records are generally kept 5 years.
Verified 2026. This is not legal advice. Retention rules change and vary by country and by food-producing-animal status. Confirm the current requirements with your own national authority before you rely on these figures.
Keep it off the whiteboard
The hardest part of records is never the writing. It is the remembering: which cria turns eight weeks old next, which dam is due, which animal is still inside a medicine withdrawal period and cannot be sold yet. That is exactly the load a real system lifts off you.
This is what AlpacaKeep is being built to do. It is a modern web app (no install, works on any device) put together on a real working alpaca farm in Val Gardena, South Tyrol. The idea is simple: one record per animal, every treatment and weigh-in and sale hanging off it for life, so the history is always there when a buyer or a vet asks. When you log a treatment, the app records the withdrawal end date and flags the animal. Withdrawal periods are a starting point, so it asks you to confirm with your vet for your medicines and region rather than inventing a safe-to-sell date.
AlpacaKeep is not live yet. When it launches it will be free for up to 8 animals, with room for multiple users on one farm, hosted in the EU. If that sounds like the upgrade your whiteboard needs, join the early-access list. In the meantime, the six-bucket checklist above is something you can build your own record book or spreadsheet from today. Start with the minimum viable set, keep it consistent, and let the depth grow with your herd.