Alpaca fleece
Our alpacas produce a very fine quality fleece. We believe this is a reflection of the care we give to our herd. This fleece is processed into high-end luxury yarn and sold to local specialists as part of our sustainability policy. Along with other professional alpaca owners we are dedicated to contributing to the production of superb fleece for British alpaca fleece industry.
Shearing Alpacas
Sheering alpacas is skilled work. We are fortunate in the South West to have a very experienced alpaca shearer who takes great care of our animals and handles them with care and compassion.
It is important that your shearer understands how you want your fleece to come through the shearing process. If you are going to show a fleece then patience, extra time and care will be required to ensure the saddle comes off the alpaca in optimum condition. The saddle is the prime quality fleece, the ‘firsts’; fleece from the neck, legs and belly will go into ‘seconds’ and/or ‘thirds’ bags. We sweep clean in between each alpaca shearing, otherwise there would be rather a mess and the fleece would spoil. As we have not been able to skirt at the time of shearing, we put each fleece into a bag with the alpaca’s name on it ready for skirting and weighing.
We take three or four samples of fibre from different parts of the saddle and put them in a clear self-sealed bag carefully named and dated for comparison with previous years’ fleece and also for fibre testing.
Processing Fibre
Skirting:
We look for the uniformity and consistency of our fleece, by thorough skirting and sorting to remove all the debris, stains and guard hair.
We check for the following when skirting for the mill:
· Clean fleece
· Even colour
· Quantity and weight
· No guard hair
· Fineness
· Crimp/brightness
· Uniform fineness and length
· Tensile strength
· Staple length
Once we have our fibre skirted and sorted, we take it to the mill. Many mills courier fleece for you. You should ask others in the alpaca community about the pros and cons of a variety of processing mills and make a considered decision on what best suits your needs and ethos.
Talk to the people at the mills and ask as many questions as you need to learn how each mill is different and come to a decision about what you would like.
Alpaca fleece back from the mill
In preparation for sheering