There are alpaca owners who are known as breeders and those who are known as fiber artists. In between those two extremes are all possible combinations, from breeders who send their fiber to the co-op to those who convert their fiber themselves to finished product for resale. Whatever your preference, the only unacceptable choice is to do nothing with your clips. Why?
If you’re telling potential new breeders that the reason we raise these animals is for the fiber, but treat the clips as waste product, then you have an invalid business premise. But as a breeder who also spins, dyes, and knits, I’ve grown to believe that you are also robbing yourself of a valuable resource to advance your breeding program: your own fiber production.
Take two white animals I have with nearly identical histograms. Surely, there would be little difference in the processing of either. Not true. Animal #1 has a particularly silky slick feel that is not quantifiable by any current methodology. The fiber also tends toward a long staple with a slightly bolder crimp style and buttery tinge. In contrast, Animal #2 has a shorter staple with a higher frequency crimp style and a pure white color. Although equally fine, it lacks the buttery feeling of Animal #1. When I spin Animal #1′s fiber by itself, it’s tricky. It slips through the fingers like a wet eel and the staple is just long enough that drafting becomes difficult. When I have a mini mill process it into yarn, it comes back with more debris and more noils than Animal #2. Animal #2′s fiber, on the other hand, easily spins to a fine ply, the tiny crimps catching on each other to allow long draws. This yarn tends to be loftier. But it doesn’t have the buttery feel of Animal #1′s yarn. The solution, of course, has been to combine these two into the same batch for processing or spinning.
So what’s the point of this when looked at from a breeding perspective? I’ve found that as I work with the fiber, it shapes what fiber qualities I want to breed for. If solid conformation is a given, then I tend to cherish those fiber characteristics of animals that give me a superior product. And that doesn’t always mean the animal with the best histogram or the most prestigious wins. What it’s come to mean for me when considering fiber as a priority is an increasing shift toward fineness, brightness, handle, uniformity of micron, and lingering fineness as cherished attributes. These are all interrelated as they speak to that “aaah” factor when you pick up that alpaca yarn or alpaca product. Higher frequency crimp also has risen on the list for its indication of spinning ease, loft, and compression (higher memory).
Oddly enough, working with the fiber has also defined my preferences for color. White, fawn, black are my top choices. White can be dyed any color and so can fawn. It yields muted shades that are wonderfully elegant. Dyed gray can do the same but the handle tends to not be comparable due to the mix of stronger fibers. Black, of course, is always classic for use by itself or combined with any color. But I’m just not into the myriad shades of brown. That’s just me.
You may be wondering where density fits in here. I do value density but not just as a measure of yield per animal. At this time in our pre-commercial industry stage, density to me has more value as a precursor for the premium qualities it enables: higher secondary to primary fiber ratios and therefore uniformity of micron, fineness, and crimp style.
So maybe you’re scratching your head by now. I’ve told you that working with fiber arts has caused me to breed for those qualities that you probably breed for anyhow. So did I take a long road to arrive at the same place everyone starts from? I don’t think so. The point was understanding how those qualities translate from animal to finished product to help make the breeding choices that best reflect your own chosen preferences. Because it’s not just about breeding by the numbers: numbers in a histogram, numbers in a shear weight, number of show wins. It’s about quality…and using the fiber, handling it, understanding how its characteristics manifest in product…help you to determine just what that word means in your own breeding program.
