Thursday, October 6, 2011

Shearing Days

It’s that time of year where shearing is once again upon us. Prados Alpacas in conjunction with Kobler Alpacas will be running open shearing weekends in November on farm in Meadows. Booking for these is essential as places fill up quickly, so contact us soon.

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How do these days work?

When contacting us to book a place for shearing your alpacas we will agree on the date and a guide time for you to bring the alpaca to us. We will want to know how many alpacas and when they were last shorn, animals with more than a year’s fleece take longer to shear and will most likely incur an additional charge.

Upon arriving on farm you will be asked to either hold your alpaca in the transporter or unload to holding pens. Please do not unload alpacas until directed. The aim is to structure the days so there is never a queue however sometimes this cannot be helped.

The alpacas will be shorn one at a time on a table. The fleece that comes of will be bagged for you to take away. Once shearing is complete and before the alpaca is lowered of the table any additional husbandry can be performed including teeth, toenails and vaccinations. This will be repeated until all your alpaca are shorn.

Things to remember

We cannot shear wet animals so if during the weekend you are booked it’s raining or has rained very heavily on the lead up to the weekend we will need to reschedule the shearing.

We only shear alpacas please don’t bring along sheep, goats or the farm dog.

Please try to get to us for the booking time; this keeps the days flowing for everyone.