What do they taste like? Do you get milk? Can you make cheese and butter?
Good question, I have no idea. They do suckle their cria for about a year.
I don’t think they produce milk in a cow like manner. Will need to check!
The main purpose of alpacas is to produce amazing fiber (measured in microns) and to pass that fiber quality on to their crias (babies), so that's where we want an alpaca's energy to go. Same as brood mares, milk production is limited to nursing only.
The alpaca industry consists of those who sell breedings and breeding stock (show circuit), those who mainly run large fiber herds (animals that haven't been shown, or that have placed below 3rd in regionals), and, finally, there's the hobby farm, which may start with cast-off older stock or fail-to-place youngsters who may have superficial flaws only a show judge will notice. Show barns may give away fiber, since their focus is entirely on breeding and moving stock fast to cut shearing expense. Large fiber herd operations will generally sell or trade raw fiber to a fiber mill in exchange for finished product such as yarn and socks. Small herd operations may hand-process their fiber or even invest in their own mill and take in piecework from surrounding hobby farms for pay or barter.
Alpacas are eaten in Peru and Bolivia; usually around 10yo when the fiber starts to thicken and fertility drops. They taste like deer, a bit gamey. There are more alpacas in the US than any other place in the world but they are still very rare. I have suris, which account for less than 17% of the entire alpaca population. The Peruvian herds have lost 1/2million head in the past few years just from blizzards (alpacas don't know to paw the snow for grass, they just lay down and wait and starve to death). So American breeders concentrate on preserving and improving the breed rather than commercial meat production.