Shearing scenes

The fleece room at the CCNF Arena yesterday evening after the action. Each blanket was roughly skirted and then rolled up in brown paper for later processing and/or further skirting for show.
The fleece room at the CCNF Arena yesterday evening after the action. Each blanket was roughly skirted and then rolled up in brown paper for later processing and/or further skirting for show.

We just got through the first 2 of 3 days of shearing here. All told, we sheared some 140+ animals Wednesday and Thursday and we’ve got the usual aches and pains to show for it. Because of a slight scheduling oddity that might have had us headed to a show today, day #3 isn’t scheduled until 5/13 when all around good guy Matt Best will make an encore appearance to finish up the final 69 animals we have left.

As it was, we were able to get through both the Main Barn (weaners and show animals) and the Stud Barn along with a goodly chunk of the Arena’s residents too. It’s always nice to see how the average quality of the farm’s fleeces continues to improve with each passing year and there is nothing like seeing the fiber come off the animals in real time to show that. Shearing day is the ultimate tale of the tape. It’s also heartening to see how animals that we may been a little dismissive of when they were youngsters, have really come into their own as they have matured. We now have a whole pile of would-be show fleeces (see picture at left) that Jen will be tackling in short order to get ready for the AOBA fleece show in Denver. First though, my beloved and I will be escaping for a night to go and watch a little playoff hockey up north in Montreal. For yours truly that was a definite carrot I was holding out as motivation over the past couple of days. With a little luck, we wont even fall asleep at the game!

Lastly today, for those that haven’t ever seen an alpaca shorn before (an admitted minority if you’re reading this blog) below is some video I shot yesterday when we were shearing our beloved Archangel (whom we now co own with Stillmeadow Farm in CT), who is still looking great at the age of 10!

Follow me on Twitter @CCNFalpacas

 

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cckBNWtWYk4

2 Comments

  1. Such an efficient job! Thank you for sharing. Have enjoyed your Twitter posts from the last couple of days.

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