Fibre

Alpaca fibre is fine, soft, warm and light, yet strong and durable (second only in strength to silk). The Incas prized this luxurious fibre of the alpaca. Archeological finds in Southern Peru have revealed the success of their breeding strategies with mummified remains exhibiting fibres of less than 18 microns.

The aim of modern breeding strategies is to produce an exceptionally fine, soft and lustrous fleece which is also very dense. Whites have been the subject to very intensive selective breeding and therefore exhibit much more advanced fleece characteristics. In recent years, these advanced characteristics have begun to be transfered to the fawns, and greater focus is now being given to the darker coloured alpacas.

At Town End Alpacas, we have a herd of mixed colours so that we can capitalise upon all strengths and opportunities for our breeding programme. Our recent successes include some exceptional rose grey and black fleeces which show the characteristics (ultra fine and exceptionally soft with strong crimp definition) more usually found in the top light coloured alpacas.

Astro’s fine and dense fleece exhibits the matchstick staples, well defined crimp, uniformity and brightness that top Huacaya breeders strive to achieve.