CAMELID FIBRE PRODUCTION GUIDE

FIBRE TERMS

Apron (bib): the chest area of an animal that may exhibit longer, coarser fibre than that found on the neck or shoulder.

Bird’s Nest (hay mow): a small portion of the fleece that is found at the base of the neck which often becomes highly contaminated with hay or other feed materials. It may extend along the backline of the animal. It should be removed. Good compost material.

Blanket (saddle): prime quality fleece usually found from shoulder through midsection to base of tail, extending down past the halfway point on the sides of an animal. Edges of the blanket are characterized by a change in the grade of the fibre. This area of prime fleece may vary greatly in size, depending on the uniformity of the fleece on an animal.

Britch: lower thigh of rear legs.

Classing: the grading and sorting of fleeces into consistent groups or uniform lines of fibre based on recognized quality characteristics such as micron, colour, hand and staple length.

Clip: the total amount of fibre harvested by a producer in one growing period (which is usually one year). Older animals or animals with slow rates of growth may be shorn after a growing period of two years. Fleece that is left on an animal for more than one year may deteriorate in quality due to more extensive contamination, tenderness, sun bleaching, tip and fibre damage and felting.

Crimp: the degree of corrugation or regular wave found in locks of fibre. This can vary from an extremely tight crimp with many closely spaced corrugations to a lock that is completely straight with no wave or crimp whatsoever. The presence of crimp may give more elasticity to the fibre once it is processed into yarn and result in better performance of the yarn.

Crinkle: is related to crimp and is used to describe the wavy characteristics of each fibre as opposed those characteristics of crimp found in all fibres uniformly in each lock.

Fineness: the diameter of an individual fibre, often measured in microns with extremely precise laboratory instruments. Genetics, nutrition, health, stress and age may affect this measure and it can change dramatically from year to year.

Hand (handle): a subjective assessment of the quality of the feel of the fibre. Not quite the same as fineness. Fine fibre may also feel dry or brittle or harsh and so would have a poor hand. Fibre with a poor hand may be downgraded to a coarser micron category.

Huacaya: a fleece type of alpaca that has fibre with crimp and/or crinkle, that tends to grow perpendicular to the body of the animal, giving the animal a rounded, fluffy silhouette

Micron: a unit of measurement of diameter equal to 1/1000 of a millimeter.

Midside: a point approximately midway between the front and rear legs and just lower than halfway down the side of an animal.

Second Cuts: short, prickly fibres created when the fleece is cut twice. This can happen when the shears come away from the body of the animal leaving a ridge that gets cut twice. Any fleece ridges that do occur can be left on the animal and do grow out to a uniform look in several months time. Alternatively, the ridges can be cleaned off at a later time so as not to contaminate the fleeces when they are sheared.

Shear Weight (fleece weight): the weight of all usable fibre taken off an animal at shearing.

Skirting: removing coarser or shorter fibre and debris from the blanket or other parts of a fleece.

Staple: a lock of fibre containing a number of individual fibres. Staple/lock structure can vary significantly within a type of animal such as Huacaya alpacas as well as between types such as Huacaya alpacas and Suri alpacas.

Staple Length: the length of a staple or fibre measured from cut base to tip, without stretching.

Suri: a fleece type of alpaca know for high lustre with fibre that has no crimp or crinkle, that tends to hang parallel to the body of the animal and that twists into pencil or rope like locks/staples, giving the animal a slender, fluid silhouette. This term is sometimes applied to llamas with these fibre characteristics (also known as silky llamas).

Tags: bits of coarse, felted or short fibre from areas such as the topknot and lower legs. Usually not used for yarns but may work for felting. Good compost material.

Tender: fleece that breaks easily at one or more points along the length of the fibre. Often caused by some trauma, stress or health problem suffered by the animal at a time that correlates to the break points.