Shearing Day 2025
- doctorjnazz
- May 30
- 2 min read
I can’t think of a better inaugural blog post about my small alpaca farm than about our recent shearing day.
Shearing day is the one day each year when alpacas get their thick coats of fiber shorn off. It was also where we first met our alpacas at their original home.
During my training as an obgyn resident, I had an attending physician (the supervising doctor) who had been breeding and showing alpacas for decades. At one point, he had over 30 of them. I love animals so much and got really curious about his alpacas to the point that he invited my husband and me to their shearing day in 2019.
One week before that shearing day, my dad passed away unexpectedly. He knew we were thinking about owning alpacas because he called them “alfalfas”.
In that same week, though we didn’t know it yet, our first Livestock Guard Dog was born on May 15.
We went to this doctor’s house for shearing day and saw all of his animals (he also has donkeys), had lunch and overall a lovely afternoon.
It’s interesting to look back at the pictures we took on that shearing day, knowing how deeply sad I was after losing my dad, to see what a nice day we had and now how far we’ve come. I'm sure my dad is laughing.
We left with three alpacas that day: Jaci, Lavender, and Pearl. Pearl was just a year old, that was her
first shearing day ever.
We just had our 2025 shearing day last week. We now have five female alpacas. It was a cool sunny day. We’ve had some shearing days that feel like winter, but this was a beautiful one.
We use a company called Shear Relief, owned by Brian. He is knowledgeable and very efficient. The alpacas not only get their fiber shorn off but teeth trimmed, nails trimmed, skin maintenance (they often have cysts) and medical treatments as needed.
It takes them about one hour to set-up, do all of the above treatments, clean up and leave.
The fiber off each alpaca’s back and sides is called the blanket. We take the blanket from each animal and store it in its own bag. We save the neck fiber as seconds, and discard the ankle and other fiber.
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