Suri versus huacaya

Although both are types of alpaca, with many similarities, they look very different from each other. The huacaya have a crimpy fleece, more like sheep wool and the suri have silky dreadlocks.
About 5 to 10% off all alpaca is suri, the rest huacaya. The reason for this is probably because of the conditions in the mountains of South America. The alpacas used to live in the valleys, but when the Spanish cattle was brought into the countries, the alpacas where forced to move to the higher altitudes. With the fleece of the suri falling open at the backbone, a logical explanation for them being so rare is that they are less well equipped to withstand the extreme cold and temperature changes then the huacaya who are covered all over.

Huacaya fleece with crimp	Suri fleece with locking

In Peru the focus when breeding suri was white, as the demand for the white fleece was there. Also, the South American people love to use bright colors, and as alpacas don't come in red, yellow or blue, it is easiest to dye the white fleece into all possible colors. Therefore, all suri exported from Peru are white and their fleece has been improved through selective breeding.

The estimate is that of all suri in the world, only 5% is colored! This makes it clear why we have a long way to go breeding colored suri with good quality, usable fibre.

Genetics
It is possible to breed suri from huacaya, as there is only one gene that controls the fleece type (woolly or dreadlocks) and the suri gene is dominant. This means that if one parent gives the suri gene to the cria, the animal will look like a suri. So here we have the key to increasing our suri herd!

Crossing a huacaya with a suri results in a F1 cria. This cria has one suri gene and one huacaya gene. Crossing this cria again with a suri can result in a full suri (two suri genes) but also again in a cria with one suri and one huacaya gene. It is quite obvious that the alpacas with two suri genes usually have better suri characteristics then those with only one gene. This shows itself in the head and the fleece characteristics.

General consensus is, that the fourth generation will always be a full suri, chance that the huacaya gene is still there is almost zero. Therefore we call a fourth generation a full suri.

A suri that has two suri genes is called homozygous, and a F1 is always heterozygous. Being homozygous is important for suri males, as this gives you (almost 100%) certainty that mating the male to a huacaya will result in a F1 suri cria. And also that mating a F1 female will produce a suri, possible already a homozygous one.