• Less susceptible to parasites and therefore less drenching is required
• Digestion is more efficient than other farmed animals
• Can be grazed successfully on native pastures (on improved pastures sheep eat up to 2.5 times the amount of legumes as alpacas, so alpacas obviously still prefer grasses.)
• Alpacas place their dung and urine in specific spots and do not graze close to these, thus avoiding ingesting internal parasites - to which they also have high resistance.  (If grazed with sheep, cattle or goats, alpacas will pick up the same parasites and a similar drenching regime will be needed).
• Many breeders only drench if testing by the DPI Wormbuster laboratory indicates a problem.  Dung Beatles actively clean up the poo piles, which can also be removed and used in vermiculture.
• The alpaca does not grow fibre underneath its short tail, and avoids any contact with its urine or dung pellets.  Together with almost no grease in its fibre, this means that no mulesing or crutching is required and fly strike does not occur.
• Alpaca fleece comes in a range of 22 beautiful nature colours, from pure white through the fawns, brown, red browns, rose greys to dark brown, then through various shades of grey, including lavender, to a true blue black.  The need for (toxic) dyes is therefore diminished.
• Alpaca fleece has a low grease content.  Sheep fleece yields 60 - 70% clean wool from greasy wool (after the lanolin, sweat etc is removed using harsh chemicals.)  In contrast, the yield of clean fleece from alpacas is in the range of 85 - 95% and milder cleaning agents are suitable.

Alpacas perform better than sheep on poor quality forage

• Slower particulate passage time [microbes have longer to attack structural carbohydrates (63 hours in Alpacas, compared with 41 hours in sheep)]
• Faster liquid passage time (constant removal of microbial protein, vitamins and soluble minerals maintains a rapidly dividing population of microbes, which is more efficient.  Liquid flow is 10.4% per hour in alpacas, compared with 7.7% per hour in sheep.
• Greater volume of saliva production (in relation to foregut volume)
• Efficient output of energy and protein on limited quality feed
• Efficient nitrogen balance (by reduction of urea through their saliva)
• Alpacas do not overeat, selecting a variety of grasses and other plants without disturbing the roots, thus allowing faster regrowth and minimising soil erosion.
• The alpaca's metabolism is a third more efficient than sheep, so stocking rate can be equivalent to sheep.