Caring for Alpacas

Fleece Care

Fiber is what we ultimately raise alpacas for – so developing good fiber care habits early is essential. Keep your alpacas as clean as possible. This means keeping pastures clean. Remove briars, thorns, and any other plants that will stick in their fiber. Don’t let the grass grow to seed heads because these are a messy contamination to have in fiber. The little seeds can hide in the wool and cause knots and matting. They are almost impossible to get out by brushing or blowing.

Clean the dung spots in pastures, barns, and sheds daily so the animals don’t lie in or near these spots. Dung sticks to their feet and travels with them, so raking up their living area will reduce this kind of contamination.

Alpacas roll in dirt and coat their fiber daily. This dirt is not as bad as it looks. It can be blown out before shearing with a blower made just for that purpose. You might put sand or fine chat on their rolling spots once they’re established and it will act as a cleanser.

Alpacas rolling in dirt.

Shearing

Make sure the alpacas are dry before shearing.

Prepare everything needed for shearing before you start. Have a clean working space. This means a floor that has been raked or swept clean of debris. Have bags to collect fiber in so it doesn’t have to land on the floor if you can help it! The ideal shearing spot is a clean wooden floor with excellent lighting, but not all barns are made like that! Make the best of what you have by cleaning.

You will need shears and clippers, oil or lubricant for the clippers, storage bags for fiber, paper and pencil to record fiber identity, broom to sweep up after each animal is sheared and some food for distractions if alpacas get testy about having a hair cut.

An alpaca before and after shearing.

You can shear an alpaca with scissors, shears, or electric clippers. We’ve used all three. Given a choice, I prefer shears and clippers, but the first time I sheared all I had was scissors, so I used those and it took about 45 minutes to shear one alpaca by myself. But my hands were tired because scissors don’t have the spring that shears do. Shears spring open by themselves, so your hand only has to make one move with each cut, whereas with scissors, your hand must both open and close the cutting blades. After about 30 minutes, your hands wish they were doing only half as much work, and that’s when you get serious about getting shears!

Better still are electric clippers. They cut faster and smoother in the hands of an experienced shearer. As your herd grows, you’ll want to be more efficient about getting the fiber off. There are several different kinds of clippers and it helps to have someone show you how to use them. We took a sheep shearing course that is put on every year by the University’s extension service.

When using shears, I put a halter on the alpaca and tie it to a post with some room to move. Moving slowly and working my way around his back and sides, I shear the blanket first. How close you shear to the skin is up to you. Some leave an inch or so of fiber just for looks - and sun protection - others shear to the skin for more wool. I always like to have one or more people help! It makes a full day more fun.

If you want to use electric clippers there are several good models. To begin, have someone with experience show you how. One of the most important skills is knowing the shape of the alpaca’s body. The wool is usually long – 4 to 8 inches – so knowing what’s underneath is important.

Electric clippers are fast and efficient. They make varying amounts of noise. Some alpacas are more sensitive to this than others. Try to gauge their reaction and proceed accordingly. Always turn the clippers off when they are not cutting the wool. This will keep the clippers sharp, and will be less stressful for your animal.

If an alpaca is having a very negative reaction to the electric clippers, I have two methods. One is to cover their eyes with something soft like an old tee shirt. Not seeing can sometimes be calming and you can get the job done. The other is to go back to the shears. No matter how you shear your alpacas, getting the job done as quickly as possible is less stressful for the animal and easier for you.

Alpacas who haven’t had their legs desensitized by touching (look up training methods by John Mallon and Marty McGee) may protest when you want to work on their legs. As you learn more about shearing you will discover many variations in methods. Pick one that works best for you and your herd. This is something you will do every year, so the more approaches you have for the different animal’s personalities, the less stressful the job will be.

And finally, if you do not want to shear your animals yourself, sheep shearers adapt very well to shearing alpacas and you can simply pay someone else to do it! And if you’re really lucky, you will find an experienced alpaca shearer to do the job.

Sorting

Alpaca fleece varies in quality on different parts of the body so it must be sorted while shearing or immediately after to keep these fiber sections separate.

The prime fiber comes from the blanket which is that part of the animal that would be covered if you threw a blanket on its back that hung down almost to its belly and covered it from shoulders to tail. Shear this prime fiber first and put it into a bag labeled blanket. Sometimes the neck fiber is a good as the blanket and my be sorted with blanket, but if it appears to be coarser, keep it separate.

The apron is a section of fiber under the neck – what we would call the chest area - often with coarser medullated fibers that you don’t want mixed in with the finer fiber. It may be variable in size. Keep it separate.

The upper legs may be fairly good fiber but always keep it separate from the blanket. Then you can assess it carefully to see if it is fine enough to keep with the blanket or should be kept separate.

Any fiber with urine, dung and mud stains should be discarded. This process is called skirting, a term you will become familiar with as you learn about fiber preparation. Some areas of the alpaca, notably the top of the neck, may have excessive vegetable matter in it that is beyond cleaning. Discard these areas.