AlpacaKeepWhat records should you keep for alpacas?
You do not need to track everything from day one. Here is the short list, and below it the honest steer on where to start.
Identity: name, animal ID or registry number, microchip, ear tag, date of birth, sex, colour, and sire and dam.
Health and medicine: every treatment, the dose, and the withdrawal-clear date before meat or milk is safe.
Breeding: matings, pregnancy confirmations, and projected due dates.
Cria: birth weight and the early weight checks that catch a fading newborn.
Movements on and off the farm, and deaths.
Start with two sheets: the herd register (identity) and the medication log. The medication log is the one record EU law actually forces you to keep, so it is the non-negotiable starter. Add the breeding record and cria weight log later, when you start mating and birthing.
The four free alpaca templates
Each template is a plain spreadsheet you can open in Google Sheets or Excel, plus a printable version for the barn wall. Grab the ones you need and ignore the rest.
1. Herd register. Your master list, one row per animal. This is the sheet a buyer or an inspector wants to see. The load-bearing columns are Name, Animal ID or registry number, Microchip number, Date of birth, Sex, Sire, and Dam, with room for colour, fibre type, origin, status, and location. For the sire and dam side of things (and how inbreeding stacks up), see our guide on alpaca pedigree.
2. Breeding record. Who was mated to whom, when, the outcome, and the projected due date. The columns that carry the sheet are Date, Dam, Sire, Pregnancy check date, Projected due date, and Outcome. For the due-date maths, use the cria-watch calculator rather than working it out by hand, and our alpaca breeding guide covers the wider picture.
3. Cria birth and weight log. The birth details plus the early weight checks that flag a cria falling behind. The birth block leads with Cria name, Date of birth, Dam, Birth weight (kg), and whether the cria nursed within 6 hours, then a repeating weight sub-table tracks weight, daily gain (g/day), and body condition. For what those weights mean and a healthy birth-weight range, read the alpaca cria growth curve guide.
4. Medication and treatment log. This is the compliance sheet, so it gets pride of place. One row per dose per animal, capturing the product, batch and lot number, dose, route, and the prescribing vet. The columns that matter most are Date administered, Animal, Product name, Dose amount, and the Withdrawal-clear date (meat). Those last withdrawal-clear-date columns are the whole point: they tell you the exact day an animal is clear to sell or slaughter. This sheet logs what your vaccination schedule and deworming schedule prescribe. Keep these medicine records for at least 5 years (more on that below).
Which template do I actually need first?
Do not let four sheets paralyse you. Start with two: the herd register and the medication log.
The herd register gives you a single, tidy identity list for the whole herd. The medication log is the one record EU law forces you to keep, for at least 5 years, so it is the non-negotiable starter.
Add the breeding record and the cria weight log when you actually start mating and birthing. There is no prize for filling in columns for animals you do not have yet.
How to keep these sheets tidy for the long run
A few habits keep a spreadsheet from turning into a mess you stop trusting.
One row per animal, and never reuse an ID. If a name gets confusing, the microchip or registry number is the anchor that never changes.
Never delete a sold or dead animal. Mark its status and the date it left instead. Last year's records are the ones a buyer or an inspector asks about.
Date everything the same way, using ISO format (YYYY-MM-DD), so the dates sort correctly and never get muddled between day-first and month-first.
Keep one source of truth. Do not split the same animal across five tabs, a notebook, and a phone photo of a vet receipt.
Back it up. A spreadsheet lives or dies by the one laptop it sits on, so keep a copy in the cloud.
One honest limit: a sheet will store a withdrawal date, but it will not work it out for you, and it cannot remind you a booster is due. That is exactly the gap an app fills.
What you are legally required to keep (check your own country)
Good news first: the four free templates already capture what these registers ask for. You just have to keep them current. Rules differ by country, so find your line below and confirm the detail with your own authority.
Last reviewed: June 2026. Confirm current rules with your own authority. This is not legal advice.
EU baseline: if you keep food-producing animals (and alpacas count in the EU), you must keep records of the veterinary medicines you use and make them available to the competent authority for at least 5 years, even after the animal is sold, slaughtered, or has died (Regulation (EU) 2019/6, Article 108, applicable since 28 January 2022).
UK: the same 5-year medicine-record duty applies, and it survives the animal leaving your holding, being slaughtered, or dying (Veterinary Medicines Regulations 2013, as amended). Camelids are not on the GOV.UK list of livestock that require a County Parish Holding (CPH) number, so you do not need one simply to keep alpacas on your own land. Routine alpaca movements do not need a licence and there is no general ear-tag mandate, but ID and a movement licence are required to leave a bluetongue restricted zone, and IDs are needed for export or TB testing. Check the current position with APHA or the RPA.
Germany: register your holding (you get a Registriernummer) and keep a Bestandsregister under the Viehverkehrsverordnung, recording stock on hand plus every arrival (Zugang) and departure (Abgang) with the other party and the dates, retained 3 years. Your medicine log is the Arzneimittelbestandsbuch, kept 5 years. Austria is similar in spirit (register and keep a stock register with the Bezirksverwaltungsbehörde, reported within 7 days), but check the exact retention rule rather than copying the German figure.
Switzerland (not in the EU): New World camelids born after 1 November 2022 must be microchipped, and movements are recorded in the Tierverkehrsdatenbank (TVD) via agate.ch (BLV/OSAV). A 2026 holding survey also applies. Your data with us stays EU-hosted under EU data protection.
United States: there is no federal register or individual-ID mandate for alpacas, and they are not treated as food-producing the way they are in the EU. Registration with the Alpaca Owners Association (AOA) is voluntary and pedigree-based, needing DNA parentage verification and a permanent ID such as a microchip. Interstate transport rules vary, so check your state department of agriculture or USDA.
Australia: a Property Identification Code (PIC) for the property and camelid waybills for movements are both mandatory under state and territory law. NLIS tagging for alpacas is currently voluntary. New Zealand runs a separate system (NAIT does not cover alpacas), so check your regional council or MPI.
Or skip the spreadsheet wrangling, free up to 8 animals
The sheets are genuinely yours to keep. But a spreadsheet will not nag you that a booster is due, and it will not work out a withdrawal-clear date for you.
That last point is the honest difference. Your sheet stores the withdrawal date. AlpacaKeep calculates it from the dose, so you always know the exact day an animal is clear to sell or slaughter.
AlpacaKeep also adds due-date reminders, pedigree and COI, fibre reports, and a printable medication register you can hand to an inspector. It is a modern web app, so there is nothing to install and it works on any device. We built it on our own working alpaca farm in Val Gardena, South Tyrol.
On data: EU data residency (Frankfurt), EU jurisdiction for data at rest, daily encrypted backups, full GDPR including the right to erasure, and you can export your data and leave at any time.
AlpacaKeep will be free for up to 8 animals when it launches (multiple users, 100 MB storage, EU-hosted). It is rolling out across the EU first through 2026. See features for the full picture and pricing for the paid tiers. Start with the free sheets today, and move up only when your herd outgrows them.