fiber research

That's what Zack calls his newest adventure ~ fiber research

Just like sheep produce wool, alpacas produce fiber. Fiber is our product.

Zack spends a lot of time with me outside with the alpacas and loves looking at their fiber with me. He has been my faithful halter training assistant. And recently has shown some interest in attending an alpaca show. He has gone before. A few years back he went to Nationals with us, when it was in Fort Wayne, IN. However, he was quite bored and did not handle days straight of trying to behave at a show (he's a good kid, but is used to having places to run and be loud, being in public like that was stifling to him).  Last fall he attended one day at the Michigan fall show in Grand Rapids. That went well.

Recently we discussed taking Zack to a spring show. It would mean traveling and 3 days at the show (one day to set up, two days of shows). While I had my concerns, when we asked Zack about it, he said he wanted to go to a show because he has lots of "fiber research" to do. When I asked him what that meant, he said he needed to get his hands on all the champions.  He wants to know what to look for in alpaca fiber.  I love that he called it "fiber research" :)

He's aware of all those things we talk about: fineness, density, bundling, crimp, consistency and so forth. He talks about these things, but sometimes I wonder if he really knows what they mean.

Alpaca fiber on each animal is a little different. Some are more fine, or more dense, or more crimpy, and so on. The focus of our breeding program is for consistent fiber (consistent crimp and bundling) with bright shiny beautiful color. Hence our tag line Breeding Brightness You Can Feel.   The reason you can feel the brightness is because along with it being bright and shiny it feels good, soft and wonderful.

Here are some examples of the differences in fiber:

the less crimpy but very fine fiber from Rosco

the very fine and crimpy fiber from Lightening

fiber from our first color champion Pocahontas

one of our first girls, one of my favorites, fiber from Tehya