Rare Yarns

By Matthew Benge

           Ruth and I went to Australia 6 years ago to source coloured fibres so we could expand our yarn business. Since returning 2 years ago we have been able to do just that. We now supply several hundred outlets in NZ and AU and are beginning to supply other parts of the world as well.

           We produce fancy hand knitting wools with modern pattern books to support our range and colour palette. Our “signature” range is our undyed yarns made from alpaca, llama, sheep and goat. We have now added to this a dyed range but it has some special “twists” to make it different. Our yarns are mostly blends of wool and alpaca along with mohair, llama, possum, silk etc. We sometimes use an acrylic thread in the yarns to make them more robust and “userfriendly”. Purists may not like the introduction of man made fibres but even organic garments made from cotton etc do this otherwise some natural fibres will not wear well or keep their shape. Less than 5% acrylic is acceptable to the organic community and we keep below this.

We have also made blankets, throws, socks and bed underlays. One of the reasons for these is that we have wanted to take these natural fibres and make them profitable which in turn will make the farming of rare breeds more profitable than conventional stock, thus saving some of our rare breeds from extinction, Pitt, Gotland and Awapawa sheep, coloured goats, Yaks, coloured alpaca. Coloured fibres are not inferior in fact they are better in most cases but due to their now diminishing volumes and lack of supply chain they are regarded as inferior.

The reason we have made different products is because we want to use all the fleece, not just part of it and the different products allow this. Normal processors just buy the length and micron they use but we needed to use the lot. We now have the volumes to make yarns and products at a realistic price and can compete on the world market in this natural/organic type niche. We operate as a wholesaler and provide product and support for the retailer.

Six months ago Ruth opened a concept shop called “Cruella’s” (101 Dalmatian story) in Richmond which features our yarns. It also has the garments from our pattern books made up plus scarves, wraps, blankets, floor rugs, skins and many accessories including hand bags and jewelry. The shop is combined with a winery and the twice weekly knitting classes are called “Stitch, bitch and wine”. It is a vibrant colourful shop and is doing very well, with a sister shop opening in Melbourne.

All of this has led Ruth and I to examine our own future as we are getting older with the rest of you and cannot keep doing more and more. Our youngest daughter Joan has joined us and runs part of the business and we have sold our tourist business but we still have too much so more has to go. After much soul searching and hand wringing (mainly by me) resulted in us accepting (sort of) that we have to sell our farm. I have never been without a farm so I feel a bit like I’m about to bungy jump minus the bungy. We have made a living from llamas now since 1990. The other rare breeds have contributed but the llamas have been the bulk of our income. I hope to sell the sheep and Yaks as herds so I can continue to buy the fleece but the prospect of selling our llamas is sad. However, an expanding yarn business will do more for these fleece producing animals than I can do farming them. I’m sure the future will include a few “friends” - some llamas, a couple of yaks, a few sheep and a pig or two along with the dogs. Maybe we will even get time to go to some llama events as spectators!!.

A Little Indoors Magic

By Anne Thompson

         Having seen beautiful pictures of llamas in the snow I was really excited when I went to check out my own winter wonderland on the 12th June. Seeing my wonderful herdsire lying on his side in the snow soon put paid to any feelings of elation. As I approached, and he stayed down, I realised that something was terribly amiss. My big woolly boy was reduced to a shivering bundle of soggy wet fibre. He stayed down and let me halter him, refusing to budge. When I tried to pull him slightly off balance to try and get him up, he just lay flat out on the snow.

It took my daughter’s border collie to get him up, and after a couple of false starts and a call to the vet I decided the best way to save my boy was to bring him in the house to thaw him out. By the time the vet arrived an hour and a half later his temperature was up to 37 (should be 38-39 degrees), but he was lying flat out on the floor. His stomach was bloated and distended, and he had refused all food and water.

The vet confirmed that he had hypothermia, but felt that there was something else wrong with him (the vet book I had been reading had suggested that hypothermia is often secondary to something else), so took a blood test. That animated Magic enough to get him up, and it still took two of us to hold him still for the vet. He was then given a vitamin injection and slow acting antibiotic, at which time he sat back down while we worked around him. It then became a waiting game and, to my son’s utter disgust, Magic Act spent the morning in the house with us. He was fascinated by the television, and totally unfazed by the dogs outside the slider.

When he started to fidget and roll on his stomach I took him out to the dung pile, where he dutifully performed. On the second visit to the dung pile he showed a little interest in hay, and I left him to wander into the barn, only for him to sit down and start shivering again, refusing to budge. Luckily I had a secret weapon due to arrive within the hour, in the shape of two very attractive (non-pregnant) female llamas. As soon as they arrived he was up! Bless him; he must have thought Christmas had come, what with the snow. Unfortunately for him a mid-winter mating was the last thing on my mind, and he was dutifully led back into the living room. This time he refused to settle. He paced and hummed, and after 10 minutes I decided to move him out to the barn. Those girls definitely warmed his blood up!  

Setting him down on a deep bed of hay in view of Mystique and Tasha (afore-mentioned females), who were settled into the barn paddock for the afternoon, he seemed to settle well. The shivering had stopped and he sat with his legs under and in front of him, not to his side, as they had been earlier. There was a further visit to the vet to collect some scourban to sort out a nasty bout of diarrhea noted during his earlier visits to the dung pile, which was administered into his mouth with a syringe (he seemed to like that bit of the treatment, licking his lips with real gusto), and he was set for the night.  Late night and early morning checks showed no signs of the earlier shivering, although there was plenty of humming passing between him and the new girls, who were shut in the main barn for the night. I was able to turn him into his paddock by mid-morning the next day, and as he thundered over to check out his fenceline, his gorgeous girls, and the opposition (the younger boys in the end paddock), he was totally unrecognisable from the day before.

For the next couple of nights he was stabled from around 7pm, luckily we didn’t have it too bad with the snow here, and it was gone by the end of the week. The blood test revealed an unidentified infection, which had been treated with the earlier injection of slow release antibiotic. The upside of this has been that on a cold night he now puts himself in the barn, which he wouldn’t do before. My grateful thanks to Mystique and Tasha, without whom I am sure recovery time would have been much longer.

Tips for hypothermia: you should warm up your llama slowly – hairdryers, fan heaters, hot water bottles (filled with warm not boiling hot water), and milk jugs filled with warm water are all good ways of doing this. Try and get your animal inhaling warm air, and try and get them eating – internal warming through food is just as important as external warming. I would recommend calling out a vet as soon as possible, as it may well be secondary to something else. Do not ignore a sickly animal – llamas are very good at hiding illness, so if they are showing signs it may well be serious.