Alpaca Shearing Day

Shearing day comes once a year for alpacas. You want to get them sheared before summer and not till after the last frost. We scheduled our shearing day last Friday. Here are all the girls that morning haltered and in a pen close to the shearing station.


We rented a 20 x 20 canopy from a party supply place so we could be under shade all day putting less stress on the alpacas. We put up the canopy the night before. It took us two hours to assemble. The rental place said it would be real easy. They lied.


We walked the alpacas in one by one for their date with the shearer. Satine was first in line.



They are placed on a mat strapped down so they can not move during the process. The more secure they are the safer they feel and the less likely of injury to occur from the sharp shearing blades.



The blanket is taken off first which is the side, back, then side.



Here she is modeling her new hairdo.



The most amazing thing was how much fleece they were wearing. It was a drastic difference and unbelievable how small they were under all that fiber. Especially the cria babies from last year. Here is Miss Bianca after being sheared.



Here is Rusty and Stef collecting the blanket off of one of the alpacas. There were 6 of us for the day. I don’t think we could have done it with out all of us.



Here is Zissou’s Blanket being sheared off. It was beautiful. It looked like black velvet.



Here is Kingsley and Klaus freshly sheared and waiting for Zissou to get done so they can go back into their pasture.



It was a long day and we were all glad when it was over. The girls adjusted quickly and were feeling good not having all that weight on their backs.



Here is Miss Bianca. I still can not believe how small they look with out their fleece. They are just so sweet and itty bitty.



Here are the boys going back out to pasture. We are all exhausted from the excitement of the day.