It is that time of year again and I am getting behind on the blog. Last weekend Mr Rainman and I took Saturday to shear the alpaca. Ideally we would have done it a month ago but it was not a true priority yet. We have learned that they must be sheared before the cheatgrass comes to a head or else their fiber just gets loaded with organic matter and it is very hard to shear them when they are filthy.

They will find a dirt patch and just roll around trying to get as dirty as possible. We used to do it midsummer and it did not work out well so we have slowly been making it earlier and earlier every year. I think April is probably the perfect month but it has to be dry enough that they have not been rained on for a few days.

It went pretty smooth this year. There are only eight now, not 12 and that made it a reasonable day. Doing 12 takes a lot of time and effort. We decided early on that we would do the three siblings early as it is only their second year getting sheared. They are still smaller than most of the other alpaca and they were a lot crazy last year when we strapped them down to the shearing table. They all three did amazing! There was no standing on the table and panicking off and on throughout the shearing process. They have wonderful fiber and we have been separating out the fleeces, one to a burlap bag, so that Annmarie can clean them as a single animal, store them and spin them all from a single alpaca. We used to put their names in the bag also but we are over that. She can tell who it is now just by the fiber quality and color.

The babies are changing colors! They were all white and all brown when we got them but now they are turning into a multicolored blend. When we were shearing we noticed the color change happening. Neither one of us got spit on directly. We had one unsatisfied customer who kept drooling stomach contents onto the table and complaining throughout the entire process. The babies need a lot more work on their toenails than anyone else and we had to ground down teeth on three of the alpaca. Next year we are going to have to cut off a few fighting teeth.

I did cut two fairly badly this year, it just happened. The cuts were about 3 cm. Any bigger and I was going to have to suture the skin closed. Luckily, we just slapped some of the blue wound cleaner on it and let them go. Some years it just happens and yes I had sharpened blades. As we worked toward the last alpaca Mr Rainman and I decided that 6 is the ideal number of alpaca. Snoop looked great this year and even being old as dirt I suspect he has another year in him. He is at least 15-16 years old already possibly 18 years old. There is a brown one that is all skin and bones, I suspect he won’t last the year. So the realistic goal is 6-8 alpaca. Usually when we find them for sale there is a buddy for sale at the same time as they don’t do well alone.

It’s getting hot! The alpaca needed shearing about a month ago but with vacation and haying they seem to always get put off until July. I thought it was going to be easier this year. I honestly think this every year and seem surprised when it isn’t. I had three unused blades and had kept all of my used blades from last year. I figured I could use the old blades on the old alpaca as their coat is fairly thin compared to the young alpaca.

Mr Rainman and I pushed the alpaca toward the barn lot. I had picked some green apples off of the trees and had attempted to bribe them to follow me but they were not buying what I was selling. So instead we steered/chased them to the barnyard. When everyone was in the front of the gate I tossed the green apples into the barn lot and they all ran in to eat them. So I guess the apples did help just not when I wanted initial results. We had one of the alpaca from last year with a missing eye that was again starting to drain. It did not heal up over the winter. Before we let everyone out I put him down so the flies didn’t get into his head literally.

We sheared Snoop first, he is the calmest and mellowist old man. He just laid there and let me shear all his fiber off. He is so easy in every way, even when he is being antisocial toward his buddies he likes us. We have treats! We caught one of the older brown alpaca (I cannot remember his name) and sheared him, again very easy.

Then we caught Padre. Padre was not happy, he was less impressed when we held his head, turned his eyelid inside out and got the cheat grass from under his eyelid out. We then irrigated his eye and cleaned up all the gunk. He is halter trained so he did follow us into the milk shed and stood next to the shearing table. But he is huge, by far and away the largest alpaca we own, probably around 150#. It was all Mr Rainman and I could do to get him up onto the shearing table. Once he was up there he started to growl. Mr Rainman equates growling with getting spit on. He also has a weak stomach and dry heaves at everything nasty. So the more Padre growled the more Mr Rainman thought about gagging and dry heaving. I honestly think the alpaca knew what he was doing. The old blades did not work at all. Padre has very thick hair and required 1.5 blades to get his whole body cleaned off. Unfortunately, the last little bit was hard to get off with a dull blade so his hair cut did leave some questionable styling. We finally just had to be done as Padre kept getting more and more agitated. He was basically sounding like a motorcycle and jumping every time he was touched. We suspect that someone was fairly rough with him when he was younger.

Annmarie had me make some hobbles from a piece of rope that are self tightening and they worked great. We were doing pretty good on time about 20 minutes to shear Snoop and 40 minutes to shear Padre. I did cut Padre’s toenail a little too deep and made him bleed. We had to use the clotting powder which sort of worked.

Once that was done, we were done as there were no more sharp blades. I went in and printed a sharpening order and packaged the blades up and had Sarah ship them off that day. They should be back in 7-10 days. I did order some more ceramic cutters. I like the ceramic ones better than the metal ones. We then went out and fixed the fiber tumbler so it could be stretched out on its side and the leaf blower used on it to blow the loose fiber and dirt free. I even attached two eyebolts to the machine shed uprights so Annmarie could stay inside the machine shed and blow the fiber clean.

She tried this the next day and it worked great. Now she wants to be able to wash the fiber. I just need to find the skirting rack we made a few years ago. I am not having much luck with that task. I have looked everywhere now except the barn and the woodshed. I even checked in the root cellar! There were a lot of spider webs but no skirting rack. She processes the young alpaca fiber and we use the old animal fiber as matting to toss down and keep the areas weed free. It works pretty good for that.