Hi
I am in the same position, I want alpaca's, would love to breed them and make money, but know too much to believe this is a possibility for me as I only have 4 acres, people are branching out now, offering their expertise to others on vaccination, foot trimming, birthing etc., as a way to make money, some are making it pay but you need to know your market and be either cheaper than the rest or better and market yourself cleverly but the best you can hope for is to cover your costs even if you are very successful.
We are still getting some but as an attraction and to keep the grass down and I am hoping to learn to spin and then offer craft classes to holiday makers, I believe there is still a great deal of interest in them and people will pay to have a session helping out with the alpaca's, having their photos taken etc. and buy the things made from the fibre of the cute alpaca they have just seen.
I have heard more and more reports of people been unable to sell them giving them away but not in my area that I am currently aware of, there are a lot more alpaca's in the south west (which is also a big TB area which is a shame as this is a no go area for me).
Advice that we have had recently is if you like the cute young ones look for cria about to be weaned as the breeders may appreciate them going to live somewhere else at this point (and a better deal could be struck), or if you are not intending breeding consider young intact males (as long as there are no females around they Apparently get along fine), these are much cheaper and you get a better quality animal with better fibre for a lot less, they are not meant to be gelded until they are two (this does though leave the cost of gelding with you or you can buy older gelded males).
My thinking is also that if you get them young you can bring them on as respectful friendly animals, if they are not confident or friendly adults when you buy them I understand they rarely get there even if treated gently or if they do, it takes a long time.
I would love to go along to a few breeders and see what they have, but I don't want to offend them if I don't like their animals and I only want ones that I personally consider cute with good breeding and a good fleece. I would still like to breed a few as a way of increasing my herd slightly but if I went for intact males and had them gelded at 2 this would still be cheaper than the stud fees and I could see what I was getting unlike the unpredictable nature of breeding, all in all I could have a small herd for the price of one female and still have the cute experience of the cria bouncing around the field together.
By the way I also bought Ouessant sheep, very friendly and easy to handle due to their small stature, they come running whenever they see anyone who might feed them and happy to eat out of your hands so are perfect for petting, also seem to be pretty sought after as a breeding option.
K