The ABC of Shearing Alpacas

Shearing alpacas is an essential part of keeping alpacas. We shear once a year in September. Not only does it give the alpaca some freedom to breathe again with it’s winter coat coming off, it also leaves us with some of the most luxurious natural fiber to create an amazing range of lovingly hand crafted scarves, shawls, blankets, ponchos, beanies, mittens and other items. 
I love shearing as tedious as it is, so here’s some thoughts on it:

A – Alpacas are the most essential part of shearing alpacas
B – Blower, the machine used to clean alpacas before shearing
C – Cutter and comb, parts of the shearing machine
D – Dirty, is what we are at the end of each shearing day
E – Electricity – please no power outages whilst shearing
F – Fleece, luxurious and super soft
G – Grading of fleece into different qualities
H – Happiness, that is me shearing
I – Interval of shearing is one year
J – Joy is looking at a beautifully shorn alpaca
K – Kilogram of wool shorn per year
L – Length of fiber is growth since last shearing
M – Micron, that is fineness of alpaca fiber
N – No spitting, please!
O – Ongoing, shearing, to be repeated year after year
P – Personality – all alpacas behave differently at shearing
Q – Questions? Many!
R – Rubber mat – to work on while shearing, saving our knees
S – September, the month of shearing
T – Team effort, that is what shearing is
U – Uniformity of fleece is what we thrive for
V – Variety of colors – from white through fawn, brown and grey to black
W – Welfare – the well-being of our alpacas is of utmost importance to us
X, Y, Z – for all the other small details of shearing, compares well to TLC