Alpacas and llamas are increasingly popular as fibre animals and smallholder livestock in Britain, with welfare challenges including dental disease, parasitism, and inadequate social provision.
Alpaca and llama welfare in the UK exists at a regulatory gap - these are livestock species without species-specific welfare codes, kept by owners who may have little experience with camelid husbandry. Common welfare failures include keeping single animals without conspecific company, inadequate shearing causing heat stress, dental disease undetected until severe, and parasitism from liver fluke in wet UK conditions unfamiliar from their South American origins. The fibre industry has driven rapid population expansion without proportional growth in husbandry knowledge and veterinary expertise. Owner education at the point of acquisition is the primary welfare intervention, supplemented by readily accessible species-specific guidance from bodies like the British Alpaca Society.