We had a great crew of friends who came out to help us. The dogs were great with everyone and the girls charmed Keyla, our most difficult alpaca. She got a proper hair cut this year. She's not currently pregnant and she usually begins to prolapse during shearing, but all was well this year. Whew.
The only injury was a cut to my little finger on the last alpaca, although there were a few bruises and a couple of raspberries.
16 alpacas are a lot more than the 13 we had last year. ;-) We are only expecting one cria this summer, so we will most likely have 17 alpacas next year. Our friends have said it would be better to break it into two days. So we'll keep our fingers crossed that they are willing to come back for two days next year. ;-)
Happy Fiber Arts Friday..
That's a lot of fiber! Do you have someone that processes it for you?
ReplyDeleteYeah, I'm with Natalie - whatcha gonna do with all that fiber gold? :)
ReplyDeleteAnd Gunnar is too cute!!!!!!
I am planning to skirt it over the summer and get the blankets to a mill for processing into roving by fall. Not sure if I'll have yarn made or not... unless someone really wants a specific yarn. ;-)
ReplyDeleteAnd thank you @VdV, Gunnar is a cutie. :-)
So glad Keyla did so well this year! Yippee!
ReplyDeleteGlad it all went well this year!!! Hey I am planning a trip out your way in July...I'd love to be able to stop and see the farm..is that possible??? It would just be me and my nephew, he's a high school freshman...
ReplyDeleteThat's a big mountain of fiber! How much yarn would it come out to? (sorry I only know fiber in the form of yarn).
ReplyDeleteLove the pictures of Gunnar with alpacas, and with you :-)
I haven't weighed the fiber yet, but it should be on the order of 50 lbs of blanket fiber, or ~800 ounces. It will be a while before it's ready for the mill.
ReplyDeleteThank you @Vivian. :-)
@NotGracey - we can talk. :-)
Nice pictures! It must be nice to have your own source for yarn, although I'm sure it's alot of work.
ReplyDeletelook at all of those bags!
ReplyDeletehangs head in shame, I haven't even touched mine since shearing last month. I need to get moving. Race ya!
We have found that doing a few alpacas each day and breaking it into 2 or 3 days works better for us. Our prime number is 6 alpacas, so this year that separated into 3 shearing days. But when you shear them yourself, you can do that easily.
ReplyDeleteWow that's a mountain of fibre, your alpacas have beautiful colours. If I lived closer I'd definitely come and help :)
ReplyDeleteLooks like you had a great shearing day!!! Love all your pictures :) Ours didn't work out so well...May I ask what brand of shearers do you use? Our fiber gear broke twice on ours now :/ We only were able to shear 3 1/2 out of our 13 before sending them in to have the company figure out what is going on. If you want to email the info to me and any helpful advice for our first year shearing that would be great flyingkfarmcsa@gmail.com Thank you so much!
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