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Shearing Demonstration by Trudy McCall

  Materials:

Shearing table or another method of restraining alpacas

Electric shears

Cutters and combs

Extension cords

Extra lighting

Rubber mats

Hand shears

Rotary tool such as dremel drill with diamond carbide blades and cone attachments for trimming teeth.

Toenail trimmers

Clean rags

First Aid Kit including Blood stop powder, glue

Old socks

Halters and lead ropes

Several handlers

Large clear plastic bags with a stand or person to hold them for fleece collection.

Labelled sample bags, if desired.

Preparation: 

Have a well-lit, spacious, clean area (preferably indoors) to set up the shearing table with a near-by table to hold equipment and supplies.  This area is ideally located near the alpaca pens, with a staging pen, if possible. 

If alpacas can be on green grass pasture for 10 days or so, this is the best method to clean fleeces prior to shearing.  For very dusty or heavily vegetated fleeces, hand picking will be necessary to get the fleece as clean as possible.  The cleaner the fleece before shearing, the less work after and more valuable your end product.  Do not wash your alpacas before shearing.  Do not blow or vacuum fleeces that you intend to show before shearing.  Hand picking will remove vegetation without disturbing the character of the fleece, which is an important factor in fleece judging.                      

Begin with black, then brown, fawn, white and grey.  The table and area should be swept between each alpaca with close attention to cleaning when changing colours.  This decreases the amount of cross colour contamination of the fleeces.

 When the alpaca is secure, take the sample from midside if desired, the size of the shear. 

Begin with the leg fibre, front and back.  Then go to the belly.  This fibre can go in the same bag with the leg fibre.  Beginning at the upper belly, take long strokes, following the contours of the body including as much area as possible in the blanket.  The blanket is rolled up toward the backbone as it is sheared, but not removed.  Do not allow the handlers to pull on the fleece as this lifts the skin and increases the danger of cutting the alpaca.  Remove any dung tags or urine stained fleece from the britch area.  Use extreme caution when working under the tail!  When the blanket has been sheared to the backbone, it is removed to the sorting table. 

Have the handler remove the halter.   Shear up the neck to the face.  Do not leave fibre at the top of the neck.  Use extreme caution near the ears and eyes.

Try to refrain from “cleaning up” until all of the fleece is removed to prevent second cuts contaminating the fleece.

Turn the alpaca to its other side, being careful to roll it over on its belly, not its back.  Rolling an alpaca on its back risks uterine torsion in pregnant females and aspiration.

Shear the second side in the same manner as the first side.  Once complete, clean up the alpaca as well as trimming tail and top knot.  Now is a good time to trim toenails and teeth, if necessary.  Some breeders take advantage of having the alpaca on the shearing table to vaccinate and deworm, as well.

Teeth trimming:

Alpaca teeth continue to grow throughout their lifetime.  If their bite is not correct, the teeth can grow past the dental pad and make eating very difficult.  The incisors can be trimmed using the cut off wheel on a rotary tool.  A soft cotton rope, similar to a dog chew toy can be used to hold the alpaca’s mouth open.  Someone strong must hold the alpaca’s head during this procedure.  The male alpacas have fighting teeth that come in between the age of 2 and 3 years.  These teeth are extremely sharp and as their name suggests, are used for fighting to establish dominance among breeding males.  Males have been known to castrate one another if these teeth are not trimmed.  While males can still injure one another, the chances of castration or other wounds are less if the fighting teeth have been ground down using a grinding attachment on a rotary tool.

Always keep safety in mind when setting up your shearing shed and throughout the day.  

Sorting Demonstration by Cathy Merkley

Sorting is as essential to producing a valuable product as breeding for fineness, uniformity, and density.  You can have the best fleece in the world, but unless it is properly sorted, it will lose value.  Conversely, you can have a substandard fleece that will have value added by sorting it properly.

 Sorting is separating the fleece as it comes off the alpaca by body area and skirting the blanket or prime fleece according to fineness, length and colour to produce a blanket fleece that is uniform and therefore, more valuable to the producer, the processor, the retailer and ultimately, the consumer.  If one were to simply bung all of the fleece into one bag and send it off to the processor with mixed grades and lengths, the end product will be itchy, will pill, will shed and not have the soft, beautiful handle that alpaca products should have.   By sorting, we add value to all of the grades of fibre, from ultrafine through to coarse.

Materials needed:

Sorting table – not commercially available.  You’ll have to make your own using a metal or plastic mesh with holes between 1 to 2 cm on a frame of wood or plastic.  Make legs or use some sort of stand.  Make sure it is a comfortable height to prevent backache. 

 Water squirt bottle.  A misting of water is helpful to fight static electricity if the air or fleeces are very dry.  Static also builds up with the use of plastic – sorting table and bags.  The water is also helpful to help remove fibre from clothing when changing alpacas or colours to prevent contamination of the fleece.

 Plastic sample bags.  Clear zip-lock sandwich bags work well.  Label them according to the sample.  These samples are sent for testing and/or for your own records.

 Large clear plastic bags.  You will need up to four per alpaca sheared.  Neck fleece in one bag, leg and belly in a second bag, skirtings in a third bag and the blanket in the fourth. 

 Bag Holders.  Metal leaf bag holders work well.  They are metal stands that hold the bag while holding it open for you.  Five gallon pails or tall, narrow, cardboard boxes also work.  

 Felt Marker, pencils, pens.  You can use a felt marker to label each bag with alpaca name, date, blanket, neck, belly and legs, and seconds.  Pieces of paper labelled appropriately can also be placed in each bag.

 Record sheet.  Many breeders weigh alpacas prior to and after shearing to get the overall fleece weight.   This should be recorded as well as the weights of the separate grades.  Over the years, this information can be used to track progress in production.  A sample record sheet is enclosed.

 Fleece Test Results.  These can be obtained prior to shearing and will tell you what grade each blanket fleece will go to and whether or not fleeces can be combined.

 Sample Board.  Using your fleece test results, prepare a board with each grade and a fibre sample that equals that grade according to its histogram.  This is an excellent reference and the best method recognizing various grades. 

Method:

 The fibre will be collected by one of the helpers and placed in the appropriate containers.  The blanket fleece should come directly from the alpaca on the shearing table to the sorting table.  This is the majority and most valuable part of the fleece and if all of the blankets can be sorted on shearing day, that will be a big job well done.   I always recommend that show fleeces be rechecked before going to the show.  If the remaining bags of fleece can be sorted on shearing day, that is a bonus but depends on the number of head and the number of helpers and may be a job for the days following shearing. 

 Blanket

The blanket fleece should be thrown out on the sorting table cut side down.  Fine, dense, crimpy fleeces will hold together and allow quite a bit of handling.  Loose fleeces, even if they are fine, don’t hold together and are more difficult to sort.  If the fleece is in one piece, cut side down, you should be able to identify the belly edge, the topline edge and the shoulder and britch.  Pull a lock from somewhere in the middle to use as a guide.  Work your way around the edge of the fleece, removing anything that doesn’t match the sample lock in fineness or length.  Pay close attention to the topline edge, as there is often short fibre there.  The angle of the backbone sometimes produces a strip of over shearing that needs to be removed.  Turn up the edges of the fleece.  This will let you see clearly if there is anything that needs to be removed.  Remember, the purpose is to remove everything that differs from the sample lock, so everything that remains should be the same.  This results in a uniform blanket fleece that will produce a much better quality end product than a fleece that is not skirted.  The skirtings from the blanket fleece are usually the next grade in fineness and should not be thrown out, but kept separate and sent for processing.  Repeat the above procedure for the second half of the blanket fleece.  Line it up on the sorting table, topline edges together and skirt it the same way as the first.  Remove any vegetation and give the fleece a shake to dislodge dust and second cuts.  These will fall through the mesh of the sorting table to the floor. 

When the skirting is complete, fold the fleece in half, along the topline edge.  One cut side will now be facing up, this is an excellent opportunity to remove any second cuts that still remain.  Roll the two halves together from the britch to the shoulder.  As you roll, the other cut side will be facing out and second cuts can easily be spotted and removed. 

Place the fleece in the appropriately labelled bag. 

Clean your work area before the next fleece comes to you, being particularly careful when changing colours.

 The neck fleece is often comparable in quality to the blanket, but is separated because of the difference in length.  The cut off for short fibre sent to CanCam is 75mm or 3 inches.

Fleece lengths accepted by CanCam are short - 1 ½” to 3”  (35 mm to 75mm) and long – 3” to 7”(75 mm to 17.5 cm).  Anything shorter than 35 mm or longer than 17.5 cm is considered unprocessible.

 Leg and belly fibre varies greatly with the quality and age of alpacas.  Some remains quite fine and is very useful.  Some is course early in an alpaca’s life.  If it feels bristly, it is too coarse and should not be sent to the co-op. 

 Once you have experience and confidence in sorting, feel free to combine fleeces of similar fineness, length and colour.  If you are not sure, it is better to bag everything separately and leave it to the classers at the collection to decide.  Mixed grades in a bag will downgrade the fibre and undo all of the good work you have done by properly sorting.

 It is not difficult to sort your fleece properly, it takes a little time and practise, but gives large payoffs.  First, you are adding value to your fleece and that carries forward to a higher quality end product.  Secondly, handling the fleece with a practical purpose teaches you a usable skill, as well as telling you a lot about your herd, your husbandry practices and your breeding program.  This is very valuable information that can give you an edge in a competitive industry while advancing the industry as a whole.