Francesca's Beautiful Fleece

I stopped by my parent's house the other day just to say hi.

I'm glad I did! My mom and Lizzie were skirting Francesca's fleece and getting it ready to send to a show. Alpaca fleece can be judged and it's a wonderful way to earn ribbons, increasing the breeding value of your animal. This fleece is from one of the new girls. She is a beauty!!!!!

I only had my cell phone on me, so the pictures aren't great quality, but you'll get the idea.

 What you see here is the fleece that was sheared off of the alpaca. 

I'm not the expert on this, but I'll do my best to explain.

You place it on a wire table that allows the dirt, hay, yucky stuff from the field to fall to the ground.

 After carefully going over the fleece, you flip it over. Ta Dah!

 Liz is gathering the fleece into something called a "mushroom". This is the best way to send it to the show. It will spill out beautifully for the judges to view.

Then it is oh so carefully placed into a clear bag.

 And this is how it looks.

The pictures don't do any of this justice!!!! The fleece was heavenly and we think we have a winner on our hands.

 For now, it will be stored and shipped to a show for judging. Good Luck Francesca!

 

 This is a sample of how the fleece is scored and what the judges look for.

And here is that pretty girl :)

2011 NJ Alpaca Classic

Don, Liz, Dee and Andee spent the weekend in Logan, NJ at the 2011 NJ Alpaca Classic. Along with three of our alpacas: Sanda, Ox and Kigo. We all helped volunteer with different jobs during the show like registration, gate keepers, setting up tables, center pieces, obstacle course set up, and just about anything else that we could find to do. Liz spent the entire weekend in the ring with the judge and helping control the animals while they were being judged. She did a fantastic job. We had a wonderful time talking to other alpaca owners and seeing all the different alpacas from all the different farms.

(in the picture above is Dee and Liz checking in another farm's alpacas at the show)

Our alpacas did a great job. Kigo placed second and Ox placed fourth in their divisions. Sanda did not place, but he was a fantastic public relations for all the visitors of the show. There were many people that attended the show that have never seen alpacas before. Many were interested to find out more about them. When people arrived through the main entrance they passed by the vendors, fleece skirting display and then there was Sanda standing eagerly at his pen to meet everyone walking by. I have a feeling there are about 100 different cell phones that now have a picture of Sanda on them.

We also won awards for the fiber arts and spin off. Once everything settles down I will get a list of all the awards we received and I will get them all posted.

In the end it was a wonderful weekend with great people and great animals.

-Andee

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

Spicy- 1st Place Ribbon

Tka "Kigo"- 2nd Place Ribbon

Tka "Kigo" and Spicy are on their way home from the North American Alpaca Show. Both are coming home winners! Tka took the second place ribbon in his class and Spicy won the blue ribbon for her class. We're so proud of them!!! Looking forward to giving them an extra carrot for their good performance.

Abenaki Acres also took home tons of ribbons. Every animal that went in the ring won. Great Job!!!