Tumbling the fleece is a mechanical continuation of the skirting process. As the fiber tumbles, dirt, vegetation, short cuts and some guard hairs are thrown out. We tumble most fleeces 20 minutes or more, depending on their condition. We weigh each fleece at every step of the process, in order to show where the loss occurs. We had one alpaca fleece that lost over 10 ounces of dirt from tumbling!
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| The Belfast tumbler | That was one dirty alpaca! |