One of our main aims as a Alpaca Breeder is
to improve the overall quality of the fleece and to increase the area of the fleece on individual animals, aiming for a top
quality fleece to produce a top quality fibre.
There are two types
of alpacas - Huacaya and Suri.
Both have fleeces that are
extremly soft to feel; and a good quaility fleece should be virtually free of guard hair.
Approximately Ninety-five
percent of alpacas are huacaya, whose crimpy fiber grows perpendicular to the skin and gives them a "fluffy" appearance.
When you handle a raw huacaya fleece, it will feel warm and inviting to the touch. A premium huacaya fiber is so soft,
it feels like you are touching a fluffy cloud.
The rarer Suri Fleece is a lustrous, straighter fiber fleece
that hangs down in "dreadlocks," giving the suri alpaca an entirely different appearance to the fluffy teddy bear
look of the huacaya alpaca.
A high-quality suri coat is so lustrous, it glistens in the sunlight and feels like cool
silk to the touch.
There is nothing like the elegant look of a suri moving in full fleece, its like a curtain of fibre
swaying in the wind.
From Fleece to Yarn.
