Alpaca, and Vicuna

The other major hair (keratin) fibers include mohair, cashmere, llama, alpaca, and vicuna, as well as many others. Regenerated Azlon fibers are derived from soluble proteins that can be spun into fibers, insolubilized, and regenerated. Soluble proteins also may be grafted to form a copolymer, dissolved, and then spun into fibers. 

Cashmere is the fine, soft inner coat of down obtained from the cash-mere goat found on the inner plateaus of Asia. In many ways the properties of cashmere resemble those of wool, but cashmere fibers are extremely fine and soft compared to wool. Cashmere is used in luxury applications where a soft, warm, fine fiber with beautiful drape is desired. 

These fibers come from a group of related animals found in South America. They are fine fibers that are white to tan and brown in color. They 

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Since time immemorial, animal breeders have had to cross-foster motherless lambs or calves, or had to attach newborn mammals to a mother of a different species. They have been aware of odor barriers and developed methods to overcome them. A ewe will accept a non-related lamb if it has been rubbed with the hide or amniotic fluid of her own, perhaps stillborn, lamb. A classical case of successful cross-fostering between species is a technique employed by Peruvian livestock breeders to produce hybrids between alpacas and vicunas. The cross is called paco-vicuM and combines the large quantity of wool of the alpaca with the fine quality of vicufia hair. To breed an alpaca female with a vicufia male, first a male has to be imprinted on alpacas. A newborn male vicuna is covered with the hide of a newborn alpaca and presented to a lactating female alpaca without young. The young vicuna is accepted and nursed on account of his alpaca odor. Successfully raised by his alpaca mother, he will imprint on, and breed with, alpacas when adult. 

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