101 Secrets: Fiber (Off Animal)

How to organize your shearing setup
Author: Maple View Farm Alpacas
Ed & Deb Brattan

At shearing time, the shearer typically wants to move as quickly as possible from animal to animal. This leaves little opportunity to label the fleece bags properly during the shearing process. Instead, I create labels for each animal ahead of time using a label template on my PC.
I change just a few key fields (name, color) and quickly have 3 labels specifically for that animal; one each for the blanket, seconds and thirds. As each animal is stretched to begin shearing, I place the 2nd and 3rd bags in large kitchen sized trashcans labeled for 2nd and 3rds. You want the cans labeled because the bag label won't readily be seen and you want to be able to quickly and easily determine which bag to place the fleece in as it comes of the animal. And, the cans are easy to move around where you need them as you move around the animal to shear. When finished, simply remove the bags and replace with bags for the next animal.
Ed & Deb Brattan
Maple View Farm Alpacas

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