No doubt you may have heard about, or even seen the video of alpaca shearing produced by PETA. While shearing is a stressful event for an alpaca, here at Sugar Hollow we use a professional shearer who takes great care to produce our harvest of fleece quickly and efficiently with as little discomfort to the alpaca as possible. Below is a youtube video of our shearer Jay Mariacher at work. Although the video was taken in 2011 it is an accurate portrayal of how he shears today. Additionally, click here for a link to an official statement from the Alpaca Owners Association which describes with much detail how NOT shearing an alpaca would be much more cruel than the 8 or so minutes of discomfort shearing causes. It contains a lot of information and is much more succinct than we could ever be. If you are concerned about alpaca shearing please take the time to read it.
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It was an exciting day! We were at Market Days in downtown Waynesboro while back on the farm - our long expected cria was born! Fortunately our daughter Julia was there and able to attend the birth and everything went off without a hitch. Our newest arrival is a girl and we named her Cecilia after the Simon & Garfunkel song from the 1970 "Bridge over Troubled Water" album. She weighed in at 17.7 pounds and at 5 days old is running around the pasture trying to fend off our 4-month old boys Deacon Blues and Abracadabra who are very pleased to have a new playmate! |
AuthorWe are Jay & Kathy Brown of Sugar Hollow Farm Alpacas in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania. Learn more about us here. |