The Alpaca Fleece Potential

People who breed Alpacas tend to become deeply attached to the doe-eyed ruminants from South America. Some 30,000 of these cousins of the camel graze Australian pastures and on current trends, by 2007 we will have more Alpacas than any country except Peru, where the Alpaca was domesticated thousands of years ago. The attraction is warmth and feel. Alpaca fleece is almost incomparably fine and when spun into yarn and woven into a traditional Inca shawl, can deflect the icy blast of the Andean altiplano (high plateau).

The Australian Alpaca industry is small in comparison with the wool industry and most of the profit is in breeding animals rather than fleece at present. In the US, a top-line stud male can bring $100,000 and wealthy US buyers have been known to pay $30,000 for Alpacas as pets. The industry's future lies with the volume and quality of fleece and the capacity to add value to the raw fibre. The finer the fibre, the more it is worth - the same as wool and other specialty fibres such as goat cashmere and mohair.

Recently, the CSIRO and a small group of Saxon Merino breeders from the Yass-Tumut region of NSW used the latest breeding techniques to produce ultrafine fleece - that is, fleece with an average fibre diameter below 13 microns (1 micron equals 1/100th of a millimetre).

Ultrafine fleece is worth its weight in gold because it is used in the lightest woollen fabric, which is used in the most desirable and expensive men's high fashion suits.

In 1996, a Japanese company paid the "magical price" of 100,000 cents per kilogram for a 100kg bale.

Associate Professor Xungai Wang's research team has developed a device that spins fibres into finer, softer yarns, allowing even relatively coarse fibres to be woven into high-fashion fabric. The device can also reprocess poorer-quality spun yarns to make them finer and softer, enhancing their value.
Dr Peter McInnes, of the RIRDC, estimates the project could increase the value of Alpaca fleece by 8 percent. Dr Wang says the Alpaca industry is already moving to narrow the micron interval between classes because the current 5 micron interval is too broad. Alpaca has traditionally been used in blankets, jumpers and shawls, but there is potential to take the fibre into high fashion product, Dr Wang says. There is no reason not to use it in men's suits, in blends with fibres like wool, or synthetic fibres, further lowering their costs.

The trend is towards lightweight garments. To make lightweight garments we must reduce the weight of the fabric. To do this we must reduce the weight of the yarn. Comparing wool with Alpaca fleece of the same micron class, Alpaca feels softer.

Dr Wang says that the raised scales on wool fibres tend to snag against each other as the fibres flex. Unless chemical coatings are applied, wool tends to deteriorate when washed and worn. Felting is minimised in fibres such as Alpaca, but this feature is also a disadvantage during spinning, as they tend to slide over each other instead of gripping, so yarns are made thicker to avoid breakages. Dr Wang says this problem can be overcome by blending with wool. But because of the different softness in the same micron range, we need to use a finer micron wool in the mix to avoid jeopardising the unique properties of the Alpaca fibre.

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