Skirting
-
NEAFP Guide: Grading Fiber
Our goal is to keep fiber grading as straight forward as possible on the farmer's end. Our system is designed to be simple to understand while identifying the areas of the alpaca with different levels of fineness and staple length. We ask that all farm's submitting fiber keep it separated into the three basic grades, based on how it comes off during shearing. Fiber should be sheared, kept separate by shearing location, and quickly skirted to remove barn yard debris and short cuts under 1.5” in staple length.More » -
Skirting Suri – a Textile Process
As soon as an alpaca – suri or huacaya - is restrained on the shearing table or floor, its fleece becomes a commercial commodity. The genetics, breeding, awards and animal’s name and temperament are no longer important. The priority at that point is to obtain the highest commercial yield possible from individual and groups of alpacas with the key being ‘consistency’. That means aiming to have consistency within a single skirted fleece and within the total fleece clip of your alpaca herd.More »