We just finished shearing our 22 alpacas and 20 from a neighboring ranch yesterday.   This year along with our great shearers from shearingalpaca.com, we had two apprentices who are training to be Certified Fiber Sorters with NAAFP.  It was a new experience for us using the certified sorters, but we are dedicated to the alpaca fiber industry and this is one way to further the progress being made for natural alpaca fiber from North American alpacas. 

The actual shearing day is always stressful for me….it’s my fault, because I wish I could be in more than one place at a time and many times I am expected to be answering questions from two or three people – at the same time.

 

I also have a lot of concern for my females who are pregnant.  At this time of year we can have females who are due within the month and some who are due in the fall.  I am concerned that the stress of shearing could cause an early delivery or a problem with the newly pregnant girls.  I may be a little oversensitive about that too, but it is a worry for me. 

See that belly – Victoria’s cria is due in mid May!  Cute – huh?  She’s just having a little sun and warming her belly!

Shearing started with all the white animals and moved along the color spectrum to light fawn, med. fawn, dark fawn, then the browns and then bay black to black.   It took us from 8:00am to 12 noon to shear all of the alpacas.   It is so nice to have all of that fiber off of them and knowing that they will not be too hot this summer.  Yesterday I was able to set the sprinklers for them and didn’t have to be concerned about them getting too dirty when they wallow in the dirt afterwards.

This kind of leads me to my next comment…  Our AOBA National Show comes every year in May.  We have been to Nationals only once and we did have a great time – even won some blue ribbons!  But, if we had been planning to attend Nationals this year in Sandy, Utah, we wouldn’t have been able to shear our ’show animals’ like we did all of the rest of the herd on Monday, especially if we were showing in full fleece contests.  We would have to run the risk of our animals getting heat stressed keeping all of that fleece on them until May.  If you’re never been to Texas in May, it can be getting quite hot by then.  Imagine wearing your warmest coat in 80 to 90 degree weather.  Sweating hot!! 

I think it could be time to examine the possiblilty of having the National Show in early March instead of mid May.  I think everyone’s animals would be in full fleece still so all would have an equal opportunity to show in full fleece and at the same time keep their animals safe from heat stress as it is still cool in early March in most all areas of our country.   Just a thought….

Take a look at the newly shorn alpacas below.