At the end of the day, it’s all about the fleece

One of the ways that we evaluate our breeding program is by entering our fleeces in fleece shows. We start this process way before the entry date of a fleece show. For us, the process actually starts in the pasture! Regularly cleaning pastures of manure and weeds not only helps keep our alpacas healthy, it reduces the chances that our fleeces will contain unwanted vegetative matter at shearing time.

Shearing day on our farm is like an orchestrated dance. Each member of the shearing team knows their role, and we move through the process quickly but efficiently. This minimizes the stress on the animals and makes for a more relaxing day for everyone. The shearer starts with the blanket, which I lightly skirt as it rolls off of the alpaca. Blankets are rolled in large sheets of brown kraft paper and set aside. I’ll do a more thorough skirting at a later date. After the remainder of the fleece is removed and sorted into 2nds and 3rds, the alpaca is returned to the pen. This entire process takes less that 10 minutes.

Skirting fleeces is one of my favorite tasks on the farm. Rolling out a newly shorn fleece onto the skirting table for the first time is like unwrapping a highly anticipated present at Christmas! It represents an entire years worth of work for both the alpaca, and the farmer. And each fleece tells a story. It’s a reflection of the breeding decisions that we made to produce that alpaca, as well as the farming practices we have used over the previous twelve months to keep that alpaca happy and healthy.

Most of our 2024 clip was sent off to production, but we did send four skirted fleeces off to two shows in 2024, the PAOBA Fleece Showcase and the MAPACA IFA Fleece Festival. As you can see, we were very pleased with our show results!