Welcome to JennCria Alpaca Ranch

JennCria Alpaca Ranch in the City of Versailles which is located on Missouri Highway 5 & 52, and serves as the gateway to the Lake of the Ozarks area.  With a population just under 2500, it is located between the agricultural prairies of Missouri and the beautiful Ozark hill country.

Our goal is to deal with our customers and suppliers in an honest, moral, sincere, courteous, and compassionate manner and through selective breeding provide our customers with genetically superior alpacas…Ideal Alpacas.  JennCria Alpaca Ranch hopes to develop a herd of about 50 alpacas, and eventually acquire a share or two in “Studmaster™ Males.” 

We look forward to meeting you and showing you around our beautiful ranch.

JennCria (Jenn=Jennifer and Cria=baby alpaca. 
  So JennCria=Jenn’s babies or Jenn’s baby alpacas)

About Alpacas

Alpaca fiber is warmer than sheep's wool and lighter in weight. It is soft and luxurious and lacks the "prickle" factor. However, as with all fleece producing animals, quality varies from animal to animal. The Suri and Huacaya fleece of each animal is very different too. The Suri breed of alpacas is rarer than the huacaya, and constitutes only 10% of the total alpaca population in the world. In the US based on ARI’s (www.alpacaregistry.net) data the Suri population is only about 5.78% of the US alpaca population. It is estimated that the True Black Suri only represents about 5.33%! 

Fiber and conformation are the two most important factors in determining an alpaca's value. Animals from the Peruvian Accoyo line often have the best fiber characteristics. Alpacas have been domesticated for thousands of years, and they were bred down in domesticated form from the vicuna. They are closely related to llamas, which are descended from the guanaco, and these four species of animals are collectively called camelids.  The alpaca comes in more than 22 natural colors, and their fiber is most remarkable.

The Alpaca Industry – Their Future Trend

We have already seen a decrease in the micron size and significantly better conformation in alpacas since they were first imported in the USA. I think that we still have a long way to go for growth, considering there are about 6,000,000 horses, about 500,000 llamas, and ONLY 101,392 alpacas, of which 17,546 are Suri in the USA. Gestation for an alpaca is 11.5 months. Market growth will still be slow, and a premium paid for quality stock since the Alpaca Registry was closed to the importation of alpacas in 1998.