Misfitmorgan's Journal - That Summer Dust

Laddie has pinned ears a lot more often than Teddy but he doesn't seem overly annoyed. Still trying to figure out their "cues".

luvmypets said:

As I have been on the other ends of those kicks, they can be pretty painful. Now it doesn't hurt for long(hr max)but they kick hard. Its more of a shock more than anything but if definetly gets your attention.
@misfitmorgan Im not surprised she didn't spit. They normally kick with no warning except pinned ears. It takes a while to learn their body language.

Click to expand...

The female Llama is flakey..im hoping it is because she is possibly due to have a cria soonish and will become less flakey after that. She is a real nutcase you look at her and she lays her ears back and runs away. The male is alright he lets us pet him for a minute or two and let us trim his nails, and put a lead on him.

He sounds REALLY calm. My boys will eat pellets from my hand but not last night when my wife was there. They don't see her much and are still wary. I've been giving them little scratches under the chin with a free finger while they are taking the pellets when I can get away with it. Any attempt to touch them farther down is met with the moving away. I figure it will take a fair bit of time.

So over the weekend i decided to pick and wash a suffolk fleece.

Here is the fleece


Lots of vegetable matter


This is after i picked out all the big VM pieces and shook the heck out of it


I did 3 cold rinses, this is rinse 1 after 45 minutes


This is rinse 2 after 30 minutes


Rinse 3 came out pretty much clear after 15 minutes...this is all cold water, the fleece was very very dirty. Here is a side by side of rinse 1 compared to rinse 2. I probly didnt need a 3rd rinse but it didnt hurt me to do it.


After the rinses i filled up my washer with hot tap water and dawn dishsoap, then shut off my washer and dropped in the fleece pushing it all under the water and let it sit for 30 minutes no agitation. I then ran the spin cycle and after that was done I removed the wool from the washer. I re-filled the washer with hot water and vinegar then dropped the fleece back in pushing it up and down a bit with a metal spoon. I let that sit for 15 minutes, then ran my spin cycle again and removed the wool. i seperated the wool and shook it out again removing a lot more of the VM, then I laid the wool out on a screen on top of our dog kennel. This is the wool the next morning.


The wool did not felt..yay


The fleece has a lot of second cuts in it and is rather short over all so not sure what i am going to do with it but it is washed now. I carded some and believe i am going to make batting out of it. I'm going to comb some just to see how it comes out if its decent i might make it into roving for an arm knit lap blanket.

Bruce said:

He sounds REALLY calm. My boys will eat pellets from my hand but not last night when my wife was there. They don't see her much and are still wary. I've been giving them little scratches under the chin with a free finger while they are taking the pellets when I can get away with it. Any attempt to touch them farther down is met with the moving away. I figure it will take a fair bit of time.

Click to expand...

The male does not want his head touched at all or his neck...just his back and only for a minute or so then he lays his ears back and looks at you like "ok lady thats enough, go away"

Wow, after all that washing, still bits of FM. How does one get rid of that? I can't do it your way, front loading washers aren't useful that way. Might have to do it in the stock tank, then use the washer spin cycle to get the water out.

My boys will be a mess by shearing time, they keep getting into more and more "stuff" that sticks in their fiber.

Bruce said:

Wow, after all that washing, still bits of FM. How does one get rid of that? I can't do it your way, front loading washers aren't useful that way. Might have to do it in the stock tank, then use the washer spin cycle to get the water out.

My boys will be a mess by shearing time, they keep getting into more and more "stuff" that sticks in their fiber.

Click to expand...

It's not FM it's VM lol...thats why i did the three cold rinses to remove FM before washing it gets the fleece a lot cleaner. If your doing cold wash rinses you can do as many as you like just keep in mind the fleece will not look white until it is actually washed in hot water with your scour agent or detergent...assuming it is a white fleece lol. No i dont think the front loader would work well for washing or spinning. You can not have agitation and spinning it vertically would cause some agitation until the drum got moving and got the water out. I would think the best alternative choice would be just use a large plastic tub with hot tap water for washing and then rinsing, then drop it on a drying rack and squeeze out as much water as you can, then spread it out to dry. In the sun on a warm day with a light breeze it shouldnt take more then a day to dry.

If your worried about to much stuff in the wool you can coat them after they are shorn. We will be making coats for our sheep this year and the Llama's.

Sorry, I was using FM as Foreign Material but I see what you are getting at I'm new at this wool/fiber thing, don't have the lingo down just yet.

I don't think the boys will be wearing coats year round. Maybe they will eat some of the plants that provide VM to get stuck in their "coats".

Bruce said:

Sorry, I was using FM as Foreign Material but I see what you are getting at I'm new at this wool/fiber thing, don't have the lingo down just yet.

I don't think the boys will be wearing coats year round. Maybe they will eat some of the plants that provide VM to get stuck in their "coats".

Click to expand...

I was thinking you ment FM as fecal matter lol. Generally its all called VM in the fleeces for vegetable matter that includes fecal matter too btw. I dont meant coats as in their flece i mean a coat to cover it, many people buy bed sheets at the dollar store and cut them down then sew eleastic straps to the legs and use those for fleece coats to protect it. Gotta make sure you leave the butt exposed though.

Those are the kinds of coats I meant, the people made ones. They are currently wearing the natural coats they started over a year ago. Can't see putting a people coat on the boys full time for a year to keep the fiber clean.