May 2, 2009

May 2, 2009: This past week was a very busy week. Since the rain seemed to stop for several days in a row, we thought it would be a good time to try to get the barn painted before all of the untreated wood began to rot! So with both Jay and I working on it, we only got about 2/3 of it finished before the rain returned! The good news is that I really like the color (it's called Black Aspen by Sherwin Williams) because t looks like the color of the tree trunks right after the rain. Friday I had the pleasure of participating in an all day shearing at the farm of Diane and Mike Beaver. They set their farm up very efficiently so that the animal was led in, shorn, and led out- all in about 5 minutes per alpaca. It was quite an experience! The shearers, Jamie and Matt, sheared one animal, while the other was led in, restrained, toe nails clipped and bags for fleece readied. I was on the bag marking fleece collection crew. As I learned, there is a proper way to collect the blanket. It should be kind of scooped in to a center piece and held closely so that it can be placed in the bag all in one piece. The shearer then does the neck, legs and belly, which is also collected and bagged. A sample is taken from the blanket for testing and the blanket and legs and neck are weighed separately.


I think I heard the final count was something around 122 at the Beaver's, and then we moved on to the farm of Joette and Jim who own 39 alpacas. Once again, we all took our places and the fun began! There was only one really aggravated alpaca who spat constantly and I think her head was spinning around like the girl in the Exorcist! They just put a towel over her head!! The day ended with a llama being shorn. Joette said that he was her guard llama but that he was afraid of everything!! Seeing the llama next to the alpacas made me realize how different they are. The llama fleece feels much rougher than the alpaca fleece, they are much bigger and the ears are definitely banana shaped compared to the spear shaped alpaca ear.

We are having ours shorn tomorrow and we now have an idea of what to expect! We had to rent a cargo van to move them. Today my job is to keep them dry and try to get all of the dirt and VM (vegetable matter) out of the fleece. I've checked the long range forecast and it says that there is only a 20% chance of rain..I hope that's right because I don't want to close them into the barn for a day. I'm going to try shop vaccing them. One person recommended withholding hay for a day and just feeding grain until they are shorn to keep the VM to a minimum. I'll have my bags all labeled in advance. Wish us luck!!!