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Preparing Your Fleece to Show

by Lee Ann King, ALSA Fiber Committee

If you want to add another dimension to marketing your llamas, try entering shorn fleece shows. There are several shows happening in our area throughout the year giving you the potential for adding value to your animals. I would like to share some tips for preparing your fleeces for competition.

Let’s start with the type of fleece you want to prepare. If you have a double-coated animal with some guard hair and crimp in the locks, you will be safe to blow out your animal before shearing. If you decide to wash your llama, it’s best to do it 1 to 2 weeks prior to shearing. Remember, cream rinses and other fiber “enhancers” are not permitted and can be detected easily by the fiber judge.

With a suri fleece or a single coat fleece that has no crimp in the locks, you will not want to blow the animal. Washing your llama prior to shearing would probably be a plus if you haven’t washed the animal much during the year.

On shearing day clean as much of the fleece on the animal as possible. Blowing, brushing, and picking should rid the fleece of most debris. I like to shear my show fleeces first before I get too tired to bother being fussy. Make sure you have new blades on your clippers. Electric clippers will provide a much more consistent overall length which helps in uniformity of the fleece. I like to wear some type of nylon shirt, like a windbreaker, so the fiber doesn’t stick to me when I’m taking it from the llama to my basket.

Now for the shearing………if you can get someone to help you, it goes much quicker. Start first with shearing only the area of the fleece you want to show; generally the barrel and sometimes including the hip – only include areas that are equal in length. We start at the top line of the llama and make horizontal strips across the barrel on one side. I usually discard the top line as it seems to have considerably more debris than the rest of the fleece.

Collect the fiber in your arms as it is coming off the animal. Ask the shearer to stop when you can no longer hold any more fiber. Before putting the fiber in a basket, try to brush off any second cuts. Gently lay the fiber in the basket just as it came off the llama. Continue shearing, stopping to brush off second cuts and laying the fiber in the basket. When you get to the bottom of the barrel, :-) discard any of the coarse belly wool. The stopping point will vary in each llama.

Go to the other side and start the process over. I will lay a newspaper on the fiber in the basket to separate each side of the barrel. Obviously, you will need to work out an agreement with your shearer since this way of fiber collecting is more time consuming. By taking the extra time before and during the shearing process, you will be pleasantly surprised how little time it will take you to skirt your shorn fleece.

Skirting a fleece is the process of removing anything undesirable that does not promote the uniformity of the entire fleece. Excessive debris, second cuts, longer growth from the neck or hip area, and coarse belly wool all apply. Gently take the sides of your shorn fleece from the basket and lay them on a table, cut side down. A screened table will allow second cuts and debris to drop through and away from the fiber. Look over the locks of your fleece and gently pick any undesirable “stuff” out. Don’t over pick the individual locks of the fleece. It’s very important to keep the lock structure intact just as it would appear on the animal.

Once you are happy with the outside of the fleece, you will want to start to roll your fleece up. Before beginning to roll, make sure your fiber sections are laid out as close to how they came off the llama as possible. Begin to roll the fleece with the cut side out. As you are rolling it, brush off any second cuts or debris you see on the cut side. Continue to roll until you have incorporated all the sections of the fleece.

Your fleece is ready to be presented to the fiber judge. All fleece shows will require you to have your fleece in a clear plastic bag. The best presentation in the bag is with the cut side showing for double coated fleeces and tip side out for single coated fleeces. Lay your rolled fleece in the clear plastic bag and include the ILR certificate of the llama along with any other required information. I always write my llama’s ALSA # in red on the copy of the registration.

I can think of only a few more suggestions. After your fleece is judged, the judge and assistant will do their best to put the fleece back in the plastic bag as it was originally. I always remove the fleece from the plastic when I get it home. If you won’t be showing your fleece for awhile, you may want to leave the fleece laid out on a vinyl table cloth so it can breathe and not be smashed. When it’s time for the next fleece competition, I’ll roll my fleece up again so it is presented to the judge in the best possible form.

This article may seem lengthy, but I’m sure once you try these ideas you will find it doesn’t take days to prepare your fleece for a show. My rule of thumb is, if it takes longer than 2 hours to skirt my fleece; it’s probably not a show fleece. Doing most of the skirting while the fleece is being shorn will save you lots of time and frustration.

Good Luck!