Shearing 2008!

Well, another shearing season has come and gone.  It is dirty, hard work, but a blast!! Our mom enjoys it so much that she flies up from L.A. just for the shearing.  And she hates to fly!  We sheared fifty-seven alpacas and one llama in two days.  Whew!   We had a new shearer this year as the one we have used in the past couldn’t make it out.  It was a little scary using someone new.  Well, it turned out wonderful, Russell Ratti did a great job, and as a bonus, he brought along his daughter Michaela who was a joy to work with. 

The total amount of blanket and seconds (neck and upper leg) was 107.8 lbs. for our 29 alpacas. We belong to the AFCNA (Alpaca Fiber Co-op of North America www.afcna.com) which processes our fleece for products made from alpaca fiber grown in North America.  You can check out our store link for products!

Here are pictures from shearing day 2008 at Tahoe Breeze Alpacas!

Each animal has a sample of fleece taken for histograms, and one bag for the blanket and one bag for seconds.

Each fleece is lightly skirted and re-bagged for shipping.  Mike made this simple skirting table that works out great!  Skirting is the process of removing unusable fiber and debris.

We then suck the air out of the bags with a vacuum and pack the fleeces into boxes for shipping.  Can you believe 107.8 lbs of fleece fit into eight boxes?

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