Grooming and Shearing Llamas

SHEARING LLAMAS

Our climate in Southern California is, as one might expect, quite warm. In the summer it is not unusual for our temperatures to hit and exceed 100 degrees! Heat like this is unpleasant for man and beast. We have installed misters in all of the llama pens and even have portable mister units that we can take along to shows or in case we are hit by high temps when travelling. The llamas also have plenty of shade, and wading pools in which most stand but a few lie and happily chew their cud. Our first line of defense begins before the heat hits.........grooming out the loose wool for the animals that shed and shearing for any animal, short wooled or long, that may seem to need it.

Since I am a handspinner and value wool clear of vegetation and mats I attempt to keep the llamas wool in as good a condition as possible year round culminating with a through grooming prior to shearing. I also try to maintain a schedule of bathing each animal once a year whether they are going to a show or not.

Most people don't realize the true size of a llama, here is a picture of Spicey at about 6 months of age and in a normal dry state. Spicey dry

Spicey after her bath As you can see from this second picture of Spicey now that she is wet, a llama is mostly wool with a fairly small frame. If more people could see llamas that are truely wet to the skin as this one is there would probably be fewer questions about whether or not an adult can ride them.

After the grooming and perhaps a bath the animal will look much like Caramel does in this picture.

Caramel with a full coat of wool

Caramel after shearing At this point, while the animal is wonderfully clean out come the shears. In my case I use electric shears, but I have seen fantastic jobs done with both electric shears and hand shears. The clip shown in this picture is an extended barrel cut, but now days we give all of our llamas a full body clip, including necks, and sometimes thinning their tail fiber.

Find out about their wool and aquire some for your next project

Return to Melodie Hill starting page

Page design by Cathy Norwood.
All content the sole property of Norwoods' Melodie Hill.

Most people don't realize the true size of a llama, here is a picture of Spicey at about 6 months of age and in a normal dry state.
	As you can see from this second picture of Spicey now that she is wet, a llama is mostly wool with a fairly small frame. If more people could see llamas that are truely wet to the skin as this one is there would probably be fewer questions about whether or not an adult can ride them.
After the grooming and perhaps a bath the animal will look much like Caramel does in this picture.
	At this point, while the animal is wonderfully clean out come the shears. In my case I use electric shears, but I have seen fantastic jobs done with both electric shears and hand shears. The clip shown in this picture is an extended barrel cut, but now days we give all of our llamas a full body clip, including necks, and sometimes thinning their tail fiber.