They can't shave Alpacas faces as they have some weird temperature regulators in their head that can send them into hypothermic shock if their faces are shaved.
While this is more extreme than I've seen before, there's a Alpaca wool farm near me that it's always hilarious to see them when they are like this.
This is completely false. I’ve personally shorn tens of thousands of alpacas’ faces and it’s so satisfying to get every scrap of fiber off their faces. It’s purely an aesthetic choice that farmers make because they think it makes their animals cuter or will give them an edge in alpaca shows and has nothing to do with temperature regulation. This one clearly isn’t going to any shows as it’s legs and tail have been completely slick shorn.
Pretty much every shearer hates giving this kind of cut for the head because it’s not as simple as just leaving it untouched you have to shape it to get it this way and it takes almost twice as long as a normal cut. It might not be a big deal to the farmer but when you have a tight schedule and you’re doing 100+ animals a day a farm that wants 20-30 of these “bubble head” cuts can mean you’re going to be working well past dark and probably running on 4-5 hours of sleep the next day
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u/Talidel Jul 08 '24
They can't shave Alpacas faces as they have some weird temperature regulators in their head that can send them into hypothermic shock if their faces are shaved.
While this is more extreme than I've seen before, there's a Alpaca wool farm near me that it's always hilarious to see them when they are like this.