Skirting made simple

Emma Taylor, promotes fibre and fibre products as a BAS board member and fibre committee chair. She is co-owner of the East Anglia Alpaca Mill and herd owner at Alpacas of East Anglia. Her guide to skirting was the subject of a recent BAS webinar and it is a topic she covers each year at the BAS National Show.

Emma’s message is straightforward – skirting adds value to fleece and it is a skill that is not difficult to learn. “If you can feel and see the difference between fine and coarse fleece you are already on your way.”

Skirting will increase fleece value either when sold as a raw product, or when sent to a mill for processing, and it ensures a fleece is presented to its best advantage when shown. “Fibre creates revenue and skirting maximises your revenue – fibre is the product and not a by-product of owning alpacas.

“Even if you keep pet alpacas you still have to shear them every year and you will benefit from some revenue each year if that raw fibre is presented to the best of your ability.”

Emma is keen to ensure owners understand that all fibre (good, bad or indifferent) has a use.

“Ask yourself what should be done with your fibre? And look at its value raw compared with the value added – you can turn your raw fleece into a product worth £300 plus/kilo processed weight.”

Before making anything the first step is to decide what to make and work backwards from there. Are you looking to sell finished garments or yarn for machine or hand knitting, crochet or weaving? Duvets are another potential source of revenue for poorer quality fibre.

There are many potential end uses but you must ensure fibre is suitable for your intended finished product fleece testing will ensure you receive an objective measure of quality in terms of fineness (micron), staple length and standard deviation or uniformity.

Prime fibre

The best part of the fleece is prime fibre or blanket (see diagram), followed by seconds (second best fibre) from the neck, belly and leg area. Seconds are different from second cuts which happen when a shearer passes twice over the same area of fleece – too many can ruin an otherwise beautiful fleece.

“You need to remember this is your annual crop and your shearer is hugely important. Poor shearing and or poor handling of fibre post shearing can ruin even the best fleeces,” Emma adds.

To avoid contamination prime fibre is shorn first and good shearers should also be able to recognise transition lines defining the blanket area and shear accordingly. Shearing in colour order from white through to black will also help to reduce contamination and ideally fleece should be skirted as it is shorn.

“You need to retain the neck fibre separately, particularly of younger animals and those with great genetics, because as long as you have a good staple length it can still be spun into yarn.”

Uniformity, or minimal variation in micron across a fleece, is key to achieving good quality. “The goal is to breed animals with uniformity across the entire fleecebody and with as little variation as possible.

“The aim of skirting is to create a uniform batch of fi bre and what we consider is micron value, staple length and colour.”

Skirting helps to achieve uniformity by removing guard hair, coarse fi bres, short fibres, and second cuts and any variation in staple length. “We don’t want any vegetation, skin tags or tender fibre as all the factors I have mentioned will have a profound effect on the quality of the final product.”

To gain a better understanding of fl eece quality Emma advises owners to take a look at a fl eece show score sheet. “Everything you are looking for in a fl eece is in the order of the score sheet so have a look at your fleeces and have a look at the elements on the sheet.”

These include: fi neness and handle, uniformity of micron, uniformity of staple length and uniformity of colour. Showing also off ers an expert assessment of fl eece quality and helps to dispel any “barn blindness” you may have when it comes to assessing your own alpacas’ fi bre.

Objective measurement

Standard deviation (SD) is another objective quality measurement to incorporate into breeding programmes. Despite the emphasis on micron or fi neness, fi bre with a higher micron and a low SD will have a better handle (softer feel) than a low micron, fi ner fi bre with a high SD.

This means a fl eece with an average 20 micron and SD 5 includes fi bres as fi ne as 15 micron and as coarse as 25 – SD 5 means there is a 5 micron diff erential either side of the 20 micron average and consequently a relatively large 10 micron diff erence between the best and worst fi bre in that fl eece. But a fl eece with the same average micron and SD 3 has a much smaller 6 micron diff erential between its lower micron value (17) and the upper value (23).

“When you are breeding to achieve a lower SD across your herd the fi neness will come down automatically, as it is a highly heritable trait and when you are looking to buy alpacas have a look at the SD ahead of the micron – if the SD is high you are not looking at a very well fl eeced animal. Be careful to consider the age of the animal when the fi bre sample was taken and not to compare animals on fi bre results alone.”

Understanding fl eece quality, good practice at shearing, skirting and careful fl eece storage will ensure that you realise the potential of your fi bre and achieve the best return from your annual harvest.

Skirting diagrams published with permission from Cameron Holt

Fibre Facts

• Alpacas produce fibre or fleece not wool

• Fineness is measured in microns (1 micron = 1/1,000th mm)

• The higher the micron the coarser the fi bre hair

• Staple length is the length of cut fi bre from base to tip

• All types of fibre have a use

• Unlike wool alpaca fibre is hollow

• Alpaca fibre is water, wind, stain and odour resistant

• It is hypoallergenic and lanolin free

• Alpaca yarn does not pill (or bobble) when knitted

• Alpaca fibre is non-flammable and second only to silk in strength