Taken from The New World Encyclopedia:-
Fiber
Of the various camelid species, the alpaca and vicuña are the most valuable fiber-bearing animals: the alpaca because of the quality and quantity of its fiber, and the vicuña because of the softness, fineness, and quality of its coat.
Alpaca fleece is a lustrous and silky natural fiber. While similar to sheep’s wool in that it is a natural fiber, it is warmer, not prickly, and bears no lanolin, which makes it hypoallergenic (Quiggle 2000; Stoller 2006). It is also soft and luxurious. In physical structure, alpaca fiber is somewhat akin to human hair, being very glossy. The preparing, carding, spinning, weaving, and finishing process of alpaca is very similar to the process used for wool.
The fiber comes in more than 52 natural colors as classified in Peru, 12 as classified in Australia, and 16 as classified in the United States (Horn and Horn).
I have also found mention that unlike sheep wool, alpaca wool is water repellant.
I assume the items you have been asked to clean are quite expensive and subject to your normal types of test i can see no reason why you wouldn't clean it like any other wool product.
That said your tests should be checking to see what the backing and warp and weft are made of. If the alpaca is water repellant and the warps etc are natural fibres there could easily be a chance of shrinkage.
Rog
