Spring Shearing

The last 8 days have been very productive.  All the goats and llamas and alpacas have been sheared!  And I didn't have to do it.  Yes!

Soft and fluffy to begin with but sleek and scrawny afterwords.

They always end up with a concentration camp look with all that fleece gone.

None of the animals seem to appreciate how much better they will feel once they are free of the fleece they've been growing for 6 months or a year.  Their feeling is always "No, no.  Really.  I'm just fine as I am.  Honest."

Sean Price, our very own llama whisperer, arrived in his slick shearing trailer.

It's air conditioned and fully equipped with blade sharpening equipment and a radio.  The llamas are not usually thrilled about being led up the ramp and through the vertical plastic panels but once their heads are through and they can see where they are going getting the rest of them inside isn't difficult.

My llamas were pretty well behaved but the alpacas were little monsters.  Sean has something like 18 years of experience shearing llamas and like many llama people isn't totally thrilled with the smaller alpacas.  Based on my animals, he is absolutely correct.  The little guys jumped and threw themselves on the floor, spit at him and generally threw a fit about the entire procedure.  Yet another reason why I'm really pleased I don't have to shear them.

So we are good for another six months when the goats will need to be sheared again.  The llamas are good for another year.  Whew!