Here’s one final set of before and after shearing shots. Morocco, Tuscany, and Merlin before shearing…
And Merlin, Tuscany and Bravado after…
Snicker.
I think I’ve said about all there is to say about shearing day. I’ll follow up at some point with a description of what we do to prepare the fiber for the mill.
If anyone would like to know something else about shearing, let me know in the comments!
Cliff House Alpacas 
Ready for a hot summer!!! 🙂
You bet! Hopefully not TOO hot, but that’s what the sprinklers are for!
Do you have to worry about them getting cold? I know I’ve seen snow in Colorado in June…
Great question! Yes, actually. We do worry about them getting cold. Last year it did snow after shearing!
Both the girls and the boys have heat lamps in their stalls, which we turn on whenever we’re worried they may not be warm enough. If it gets too cold for those to be effective, we have a diesel powered heater that can warm an entire corner of the barn. We’ve only used it that time it snowed after shearing.
They are adorable!! I learned an interesting fact about alpacas last night at the FiberGuild meeting…an alpaca can get depressed if there isn’t another alpaca around. They are herd animals and emotionally bound to each other. I’m sure you’ve discussed that here already. But I never knew that! I loved that fact! I’ve never seen alpaca in real life, but I feel like they must be really sweet creatures to be around with those kinds of tendencies. It’s no wonder they nearly always appear to be smiling!