Do alpacas eat tree shoots as goats and sheep do?

Question

I'm interested in raising seedlings & saplings of hardwood trees (mostly black cherry) and also grape vines. I know that goats naturally devour and sheep will eat both leaves and shoots of these, if they can reach them. I'm not familiar with alpacas. Do they eat these also? Clearly the advantage is that the ruminant will eat away the 'weeds'.

Answer 1

The alps will go well with any other type of production, but they ARE browsers, so don't let them into your vineyard or orchards.  They'll eat the bark from apple trees (I know from personal experience), but they're great at cleaning up windfall fruit!  Mine prefer fallen apples to their grain supplement

Answer 2

Alpacas will definitely browse on the tree seedlings. They are not so much the browsers as goats, but they would eat them. You should also be aware that black cherry can be poisonous to animals, especially ruminant animals.

http://www.vet.purdue.edu/depts/addl/tox...