Alpaca shearing is done!

It's feels wonderful to get this job done for the year. Both for the  alpacas and us.  All of the alpacas are looking "skinny", but feeling very comfortable.

Some of the girls & cria

Dave Easter is our shearer that we hire.   Here is a pic of Dave shearing and Gary holding the cria's head. We like to shear the newborn cria's fleece as next years fleece that she will produce will not have "cria's tips". Not to get to technical, but when the cria is born it is exposed to amniotic fluid, which can help the fleece later  hold onto debris. Shearing helps keep the cria cool during the summer. If we have cria's born after our shearer has been here, then we do not get them sheared.  We are expecting a few more babies, late summer and early fall. They will need to keep their fleece to help stay warm for the winter. If we sheared them that late they would not have adequate time to grow it back in.

This year's cria is shorn

We had lots of help from some of our "shareholders" that opted to come out and get involved.  They did a great job and I know they left at the end of the day feeling tired and sore, but with an appreciation of where their yarn is coming from.

Shareholders

I also posted a video of the shearing on U-Tube. Here is the link. U-Tube Alpaca Shearing