Alpaca Fibre—Shearing and Sorting

Shearing of your alpacas can be done any time after the frosts have finished; so May, June and July are the best months in the UK. Shorter fibre (one year&rsquo's growth) is more suitable for machine processing, and longer fibre (two year’s growth) for hand spinning. Start thinking in good time about which animals you want to shear, so that you can prepare those wonderful coats to be in the best possible condition when they are sheared. Whatever you plan to do with your fibre, it should really be as clean and free as possible of debris. The dust in the fleece will blunt the shearing blade very quickly.

Make sure your field has as few contaminants in it as possible. Conker shells, beech mast and holly are very difficult to remove from the fleece, as are thistle seedheads, and similar vegetation.

If you have your alpacas in barns or shelters overnight, make sure they are on dry bedding, as the ammonia in urine can ruin the fleece.

Ideally, put the alpacas into a clean, uncontaminated pasture 2 to 3 weeks before shearing, and a lot of dust and debris will fall out.

Prepare your shearing area by making sure it is well swept. Find out from your shearer what you need to prepare in advance. You will probably need a power source for the equipment; this is much quieter, and less alarming for the alpacas, than a generator. Make sure you have plenty of clean paper sacks, and a marker pen so that you can label them. You will also need to have a bottle of vegetable oil ready for your shearer to cool his cutter blades with, since there is no lanolin in alpaca fleece.

Some alpacas will stand beautifully for shearing, especially if they have been well handled and halter-trained. However, you may prefer to restrain your alpaca by tying their feet with soft rope to a spacer, and while laying the alpaca on its side, applying a gentle stretch in both directions, when the alpaca will usually lie quietly. The ropes should be tied at each end with quick release knots for safety. A shearing table is very similar to this, with the benefit that the alpaca is at a more comfortable height, and the fleece can be easily separated into boxes straight from the table. Some shearers manage very well using the well-tried sheep method of tipping the alpaca onto its back. If this is done without fuss the alpaca soon relaxes and, with support for the head, is quickly divested of its coat.

If possible ask your shearer to take off the blanket area of the fleece first. This is the area starting just behind the neck, going vertically down, then straight across at the tops of the legs, and just in front of the tail. Put all this in one bag, then the neck, apron, belly, leg and tail fibre can go in another bag. If the shearer takes the whole fleece off, pick up the main blanket area, and you will usually find that the coarser fleece will drop off and can be bagged separately. Ask the shearer to leave about an inch of fibre on the tail, to protect the alpaca from sunburn in this sensitive area. Label the bags. Then sweep the area thoroughly ready for the next alpaca—this is especially important if the next one is a different colour from the previous, as you won’t want a few fibres of black or brown contaminating your perfect white fleece! It is best for this reason to shear all the alpacas of one colour before moving on to another colour.

When you are ready to sort the fibre, in good light spread a large old bedsheet on the floor and tip the bag of blanket fibre into the middle of it. Even in here you may find 2 or 3 different qualities—your hands will soon tell you which is the best, and you may find a few coarser parts have crept in as well, so put these to one side. Pick out any large pieces of debris which may have become embedded in the coat. You will soon have the fibre graded into separate piles, and it can then be weighed and labelled.

Fibre can also be sorted on a mesh frame at table height, and a lot of the dust and debris will fall through the mesh.

If your alpaca is white with another colour, you may wish to separate the white fibre into one pile, the darker fibre into another pile, and the mixed fibre into a third pile, for blending before processing; otherwise, the entire fleece could be blended to make a lovely shade of pale grey or brown.

After sorting seal and label the paper sacks and store them in a cool dry mouseproof area, with Vapona moth repellent strips to protect your precious fibre until needed.

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