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 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. Pastures should be maintained on a regular schedule Lama "beans" as they are called are a excellent source of peat when dried in a compost pile. We regularly deposit "beans" or paca-poo onto our garden or landscape areas. Their beans are so refined from being a ruminent (three compartment) animal that the waste product is a valuable source. Gardeners and landscapers seek this product. Ask us for details.

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.

Alpaca fleece has many variables. It can be huacaya or suri, first or later shearing, and comes in 22 different colors. Once you have classed your fiber by type of alpaca and shearing age, color is the next variable to consider. For hand spinners, each of the individual colors can be a delight for special projects. But if you opt for mill processing, you will find it more economical to sort your colors down to seven basics from the greater variety your herd produces. White and black stand alone. The other five colors are light fawn, fawn, brown, rose gray, and silver gray.

To determine which colors belong to which group, the ARI Natural Color Chart can be obtained from AOBA, PO Box 1992, Estes Park, CO 80517-1992.
Learn About Fiber

FIBER, YARN & ROVING

Alpaca fiber can be sold as is to handspinners and weavers. Many people enjoy spinning fiber to their own specifications for projects such as knitted or woven garments, rugs, and felted items.

Fiber can also be sent to a mill to be cleaned and processed into roving, which can then be sold. This frees spinners and weavers of the cleaning and carding processes. Roving is fiber that has been cleaned and carded. The carding process causes fibers to line up parallel to each other in readiness for spinning. Roving can also be used for felting or for making locked-hooked items such as rugs.

Fiber can be handspun into yarn or sent to a mill that completes the final step and machine spins the yarn into skeins or cones as you designate. Cones are used on knitting machines and skeins are what most knitters are used to buying in a store.