Any Alpaca Owners on FR?

Self ^ | 03/08/17 | GRRRRR

[blueplum]

Do you have huyi’s or suris? I have suris - MacGyver and Attaboy stock. My gals love cut-up baby carrots, and one, aptly named Bunny, will chase everyone away if I don’t separate her out for the treat because she thinks all carrots on the planet belong to her.

It’s ok to hold fiber over until you’re ready to pay mill prices, but if you do a little processing of at least the champions’ fiber yourself (and you can get the kids involved in most of it), you’ll have a marketable product for the gift stall you’ll build for farm days. (you) Wash, dry, and the kids turn the fiber into roving and package it. If you’d like, I can post some videos.

[GRRRRR]

That would be wonderful.
We have all huacaya, not sure if I like the larger size of the suri.

We have processed by hand a little bit of fleece.
For the life of me, I can’t get all the vegetable matter out of the stuff no mater how much I pick. We did a little washing and carding etc, and that’s the end of it. None of us have the coordination to spin...yet!

I am determined. I think my roves are a little too dense...oh well, that’s the fun of it!! Play and learn. Some of the folks on YouTube doing their spinning are just amazing.

[blueplum]

What do they taste like? Do you get milk? Can you make cheese and butter?

The main purpose of alpacas is to produce amazing fiber (measured in microns) and to pass that fiber quality on to their crias (babies), so that's where we want an alpaca's energy to go. Same as brood mares, milk production is limited to nursing only.

The alpaca industry consists of those who sell breedings and breeding stock (show circuit), those who mainly run large fiber herds (animals that haven't been shown, or that have placed below 3rd in regionals), and, finally, there's the hobby farm, which may start with cast-off older stock or fail-to-place youngsters who may have superficial flaws only a show judge will notice. Show barns may give away fiber, since their focus is entirely on breeding and moving stock fast to cut shearing expense. Large fiber herd operations will generally sell or trade raw fiber to a fiber mill in exchange for finished product such as yarn and socks. Small herd operations may hand-process their fiber or even invest in their own mill and take in piecework from surrounding hobby farms for pay or barter.

Alpacas are eaten in Peru and Bolivia; usually around 10yo when the fiber starts to thicken and fertility drops. They taste like deer, a bit gamey. There are more alpacas in the US than any other place in the world but they are still very rare. I have suris, which account for less than 17% of the entire alpaca population. The Peruvian herds have lost 1/2million head in the past few years just from blizzards (alpacas don't know to paw the snow for grass, they just lay down and wait and starve to death). So American breeders concentrate on preserving and improving the breed rather than commercial meat production.

[blueplum]

Suris can get big, that’s for sure. I know what you mean about youtube - I’ve learned most of what I know from watching and freeze-framing videos lol

I don’t think there’s any way to get all veg stuff out other than to keep the barn and animals clean for a week or two prior to shearing. The mills get it clean but it’s at the expense of fiber quality - too much handling. I pull bedding as soon as there’s no chance of frost and transfer them to a dry pasture for the week before shearing so they can roll in the dirt and dislodge as much as possible. I use bags with larger holes and use a rinse tub that holds twice as much water as the wash tub so nothing is crowded and after pulling the bag out, I’ll turn it top side down and slowly dip it again and that gets a little more out. And I’m still flicking odd bits!

so, anyway, how I learned how to make roving. First is machine carding using a (too) small machine - and she’s right, don’t put the fiber thru the small drum at all. And then a video of how to pull roving right off the card drum. I prefer manual machines around kids. And another video that shows how to make rolags/rologs instead of roving, which is just another presentation that you might find easier to use (start drafting from a pinch of the outside top of the end of the roll, not the middle part of the end).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uJzWKLupug

(skip to 3 min in) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PKAyLQKm0k

(skip to 8 min in) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKNBFWZEFQU

[SgtBob]

Hahaaha!