FIBER TYPES
We recommend that all alpaca and llama be dehaired to remove vegetation, even if guard hair is not a concern. Dual-coated wool cannot usually be dehaired successfully.
- The charge for dehairing most camelid fiber is $10.00/lb, including washing, picking and up to two passes through the dehairing machine. Each pass removes more coarse fiber from the fleece, but also reduces the amount of finished product. Suri alpaca is $12.00/lb.
- Clean bison, yak, or quiviut is $12.00/lb, or $15.00/lb if we are washing it . Bison generally needs to be carded and then given three or four passes through the machine.
- Cashmere and Pygora are so highly variable that they will be priced somewhere between $12.00 and $18.00/lb depending on how difficult it is to dehair. Most Cashmere ends up costing around $14/lb to wash, pick, and dehair.
Cashmere that is combed at the optimum time (this varies from one animal to another) can be relatively free of guard hair and may dehair adequately with two passes. Cashmere tends to noil, and often needs be carded after the first or second pass through the dehairing machine to straighten out the incipient noils. Cashmere that is combed late, when the guard hair is shedding, or cashmere that is shorn will almost always take extra passes through the dehairing machine. This usually involves one or two passes through the machine, carding, and one or two more dehairing passes.
There is a 2 pound minimum for dehairing orders.
Orders less than 2 pounds can be processed, but small batches will be billed at two pounds.
If you would like to have your fiber carded after dehairing, the charge will be $8.50/lb., based on the weight of the usable fiber recovered from the dehairing process.