Fiber

At Sweet Maple Alpacas we love to work with the fiber, unfortunately we can’t always find the time!

Each year we have Dave Hinman from Walpole, NH come and shear our alpacas for us.  Dave uses a shearing table, which makes it a lot easier on our backs! 

After being shorn the fleece is picked over in a process called skirting. This removes the undesirables from the fleece.

The fleece is then carded into rovings on our drum carder. From the rovings it is spun into yarn.

Some of the unique characteristics of alpaca fleece are:

• Long staple length
• Allows the body to breathe
• Unusually strong and resiliant
• Contains no lanolin
• Twenty-two natural shades of color
• Considered by many to be hypoallergenic

An alpaca yields 3-8 pounds of fleece per year. Not only does it keep you warm in winter with its microscopic air pockets, but when blended with cotton or silk it will keep you cool in the summer.

Come and learn how we skirt, card and spin the fleece from our animals. See our award winning yarn! Call (802) 722-9846 or email us at to schedule your farm visit today!