Alpaca don’t produce lanolin, but they do sweat. Dirt sticks to that sweat and as we all know after being in the heat for a while,sweat is sticky. If it’s baby alpaca, there will be residue from the birthing fluid that oddly, doesn’t cause the fleece to feel sticky before shearing but does so after shearing. So alpaca fleece feeling somewhat sticky or greasy makes sense to me.
@eddavanleemputten9232 correct. The higher quality fleeced animals definitely produce a waxy coating for protection but it's not at the level of lanolin.
@@thefibercircus6313 - True. Processing a sheep’s fleece taught me about lanolin and how scouring a sheep’s fleece is different from washing an alpaca fleece. Recently I washed some alpaca and the water looked like coffee. That same week I’d scoured part of a sheep’s fleece (back issues keep me from doing an entire fleece at once) and even though the colour of the water was lighter, it was more like… brown soup if that makes sense. The water even felt different to my skin. One definite advantage to alpaca is that there’s no danger of the lanolin clogging up your drains. That means you can wash it inside if the weather is really crappy and no schlepping of buckets. You can just tip them out. I’d still prefer to do it all outside, but at least you have the option.
Thank you for this. This is the first alpaca video I've found that feels doable for me.
This is exactly how I do it. Wool locks are different than what you get with alpaca so I just fluff and wash.
Thank you for a lovely video, very accessible for most people!
I think wet alpaca smells like wet dog...does anyone else think the same? 😆
They definitely have a distinct smell
Thanks so much for this video!
Awesome, thank you for your video
Alpaca don’t produce lanolin, but they do sweat. Dirt sticks to that sweat and as we all know after being in the heat for a while,sweat is sticky. If it’s baby alpaca, there will be residue from the birthing fluid that oddly, doesn’t cause the fleece to feel sticky before shearing but does so after shearing. So alpaca fleece feeling somewhat sticky or greasy makes sense to me.
@eddavanleemputten9232 correct. The higher quality fleeced animals definitely produce a waxy coating for protection but it's not at the level of lanolin.
@@thefibercircus6313 - True. Processing a sheep’s fleece taught me about lanolin and how scouring a sheep’s fleece is different from washing an alpaca fleece. Recently I washed some alpaca and the water looked like coffee. That same week I’d scoured part of a sheep’s fleece (back issues keep me from doing an entire fleece at once) and even though the colour of the water was lighter, it was more like… brown soup if that makes sense. The water even felt different to my skin.
One definite advantage to alpaca is that there’s no danger of the lanolin clogging up your drains. That means you can wash it inside if the weather is really crappy and no schlepping of buckets. You can just tip them out. I’d still prefer to do it all outside, but at least you have the option.
Thanks!
Thank you for the video. H
How do you let it dry?
I put it on a mesh rack with a fan on it and every few hours itease/fluff it apart more. It definitely takes a while to dry