Howdy! I shear my Suri alpacas by hand with very simple inexpensive craft scissors and a few other things I can get easily. This video covers the tools I use to make hand shearing and fiber collection simple. I will be releasing a series of hand shearing alpaca demo of my herd this spring- 2020, so you can see how different alpacas are shorn. The most important thing for me is to be respectful and gentle with my alpacas. It took me a while to learn to work with them this way, so please do not expect your alpacas to be this cooperative unless you have put in a lot of work in developing trust with them. But this is very possible and I encourage you to start working with them so they are easier and easier to shear every year. If you have questions, feel free to ask- I will either try to answer in the comments or address it in an upcoming shearing video. Thanks for watching! Please share this with other animal lovers and fiber artists who purchase animal fiber- so they know this way of shearing is possible. If you don't want to miss upcoming shearing videos, feel free to subscribe and hit the notification bell ;) I do other alpaca related videos, too. https://www.WisteriaSuriRanch.com https://youtu.be/mbJ_Os3NEzo ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbJ_Os3NEzo

Milano is making great progress! He's moving right along to the next baby step- so proud of him :) Here I show you how I use a super short lead that is safe and stays on the halter to teach him what being connected to a human through the halter feels like. If you missed the first two steps in the training, be sure to watch those, too. First step with velcro halter https://youtu.be/PkAG5iIglBI Second step with real halter https://youtu.be/_ickgnFGcDM Third step is this video above :) https://youtu.be/6Rfi3x8SPMM Desensitizing demo video https://youtu.be/ZWQG19OPs_g ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Rfi3x8SPMM

Our baby alpaca unfortunately became an orphan at 36 hours when his sweet mom passed away unexpectedly. We were in shock but started to bottle feed little Milano every few hours. Alpaca babies are not good candidates for bottle feeding especially male crias. They can have behavioral problems if handled too much. We have been super careful and started to record our journey as it is relatively rare to have an orphaned alpaca baby. In the 12 years we've raised alpacas, this is our first orphan. I waited until he was growing into a very healthy well-adjusted baby before sharing this video as I couldn't handle another heartache in the event he didn't make it either. As of March 2020, Milano is gaining weight better than many of our babies and is very happy with his herd. His full sister in the video, Sophie, has really taken on a loving role and is always with him. Dezi, who initially stepped up to be with him 24/7 has also been amazing. The herd has been incredible and it is empowering to see the resilience Milano shows us daily. Animals teach us so much. We all miss his mom, Star, but under these circumstances, I don't think things could have gone better. We feel very blessed with all the support, assistance and guidance from everyone- thank you from the bottom of my heart! I have more videos I have taken of Milano and will be uploading them soon, so be sure to subscribe to be notified if you are interested. Our website is at https://WisteriaSuriRanch.com. You can learn more about our farm at the website. We believe in raising our alpacas with respect and kindness. Milano Part 2 https://youtu.be/wTZayvpNbl8 I am also creating fun Milano products. If you like to support our farm, please like my store at Etsy to be notified of new items :) https://www.etsy.com/shop/WisteriaSuriRanch Audio is from the generous Youtube Audio Library :) Thank you! Editing done in Openshot- an open source editing software. Thanks for making it available cool folks! And graphics are done in picmonkey. I am still learning all of this (although quite the expert poop scooper! hahah) so please enjoy the content and cross your fingers each of my videos will improve! Much much love from the farm! Keiko https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kmjy-IA5jyE&feature=youtu.be ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kmjy-IA5jyE

Alpacas just having fun ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2Yph7tA8UM