Shearing Alpacas

I forgot my camera on Saturday when we went to shear my mother’s alpacas. Even if I had remembered, I don’t think I would have gotten any photos. The three(my husband, son, and myself) of us were constantly busy for the nearly six hours it took us to get it done. We were super happy to have help from my nephew and his friend at the beginning of the day when we had to herd the alpacas into a confined space.

This was my first time shearing an alpaca. I’d only done two sheep before. It ended up being much different than sheep. I learned first hand that alpacas really don’t like their legs to be touched. I found shearing the necks to be the most difficult part. I’m not sure if the fiber on their necks is of a different texture or what, but it was the most difficult part to shear on every one of the alpacas, whether they were cooperative or not.

The first one we sheared (Casper) was super docile and cooperative. The last one (Sunsational) cried, screamed, spit, and/or struggled the whole time. Next time he will get done first. It was pretty difficult to deal with at the end of a long day. The other four were somewhat between those two in behavior. One struggled so much that his neck did not get finished, he looks a bit like a lion. It was hard work, and there was definitely a learning curve. I felt like I was much faster and just better at it by the end. I saw some photos today of some alpacas that had been professionally sheared, it made me feel better about the job I did. I was worried about how very ugly the hair cuts were that I gave them, the professionally done ones didn’t look too much better though.

The important thing is that the alpacas are all sheared so should be much more comfortable for the summer. I also have six huge bags of fiber to use to create more fun art.