Alpaca breeders love their animals. More than a business, having alpacas straddle between livestock and pets in the minds of their owners. But when asked about the unique value of the animal, the answer is always the same : alpacas produce a luxuriant fiber with unique properties in softness, brightness, and warmth, plus they come in a large variety of natural colors. So if you’re a fiber fanatic like me, turning that annual shear into a bounty of yarn and product is the cherry on top of alpaca ownership and the validation of the progress of your breeding program.
Now I’ve donated my hair a couple of times in the past few years. You have to grow it out to an 8″-10″ ponytail that my hairdresser lops off. I send it in (either to Locks of Love or Pantene Beautiful Lengths) and they combine it with other donations to make human hair wigs for people suffering temporary or permanent hair loss, usually from cancer treatment or alopecia. It took about one year for the first contribution of 10″ and then two years to get enough length for the second donation of 8.5″. So in one of those moments that make you go “hmmnnn”, I had a realization:
I am a fiber animal.
Think about it! I get shorn (and believe me, when you get that much hair cut off, you’ve been shorn) and my “clip” goes to a processor who turns it into end product that then “clothes” a person.
But how good a fiber animal am I? For that answer, I decided to go one on one against a herd favorite, Gia – a white yearling female with a decided sense of entitlement.
OK, so here’s how it broke down when compared to Gia’s 2008 shear as a weanling –
Shear weight:
Me: 1.9 oz (ponytail) over 2 years
Gia: 2.9 lb (blanket) over 9 months WINNER
Fineness:
Me: eyeballed at over 30 m
Gia: 16 m WINNER
Staple Length:
Me: 8.5″ over 2 years
Gia: 5″ over 9 months WINNER
Market Value:
Me: $46/oz. How did I figure this? Well, the average human hair wig if medium to long length sells for about $700 . Divide that by 8 ponytails and then by my 1.9 oz and there you have it. WINNER!
Gia: $5/oz. If have the blanket processed into yarn (the highest profit point) and sell it for $20/4 oz skein at sportweight, that comes to $5/oz.
Oh sure, I know that I haven’t figured in cost to process, waste etc but this is just for fun, right? And I need to win at least one category and I was obviously getting creamed in comparison.
And at the end of the day when I open up the barn door to find everyone lined up at the panel expectantly, it’s obvious there’s only one number that the alpacas are interested in — the number of pellets in a bowl.
