Only after the simple things have been checked and eliminated should the more unusual causes of infertility be considered. The animal's history often provides some of the most important, and frequently overlooked, clues to the cause of the problem. While we don't have good information about when fertility naturally declines in the alpaca, empirical observations suggest that fertility normally begins to decrease somewhere between 12 and 16 years of age. Although there are numerous stories of animals delivering annually up to age 20 or 22, these are the exceptions rather than the norm. Unfortunately, methods for determining the age of mature alpacas are extremely unreliable.
Age is a particularly important issue with some of the animals from early importations.
Many of these were reported as 3 years plus at the time of importation and today may be 8 or 18 years of age. The important issue to consider is that some animals may have reached reproductive senescence that is, the reproductive equivalent of a human female of 50-plus years. In these cases no reasonable amount of treatment is going to restore fertility. Another critical piece of information in evaluating reproductive problems is the animal's own history. These questions are important because the alpaca is more susceptible to reproductive problems than many other domestic livestock species.