The Suri Fino Story
El dos Cadena Alpacas was established in 2006, in Swannanoa, North Canterbury. From the original purchase of 3 females, 2 Suri and 1 Huacaya, I have steadily built up to a core breeding herd of about 40, the majority are Suri with also a smaller herd of Huacaya.
My initial goal for the Suri was to produce a range of dark coloured Suri, to specialising mainly towards the dark rare brown shades of chocolate and copper. Then this progressed to include a breeding goal of producing ultra fine uniform fibre. Using my own coloured Stud males coupled with careful selecting of outside males from different genetic backgrounds, enabled me to concentrate on developing and improvement of these goals over several generations. By breeding like to like colour this has produced a more genetic colour consistency. Concentrating on establishing genetic lines to produce fine suri fibre, in a narrower micron band, plus with overriding aim to lowering the SD for uniformity, has enabled myself to produce a much more consistent and therefore usable fleece for end use.
The main goal for the Huacaya was to produce soft handling fibre in a range to lighter colours for the fibre and a quiet temperament for the pet market. Their fibre is used to blend with the wool from my Black and Grey coloured Merino sheep or blended with the Suri cross fibre.
Four years ago, I purchased a Medium Fawn Suri Stud male with superb genetic breeding to improve the overall density and conformation of my herd. Although this resulted from his first progeny ranging from white through to pale fawn shades with slightly higher micron, selected females were then crossed back to my finer Dark Brown Stud males, and I finally have on the ground progeny that are dense with multiple flat layers of locks, fine, very uniform in handle and beautiful range of lustrous darker colours. The first shear of these successive generations has been on average around 3-4 kilos of fibre of raw blanket weight and the cria born this year are also showing similar traits.
El dos Cadena Suri’s have been successful in the regional and national show circuits with majority of my elite herd achieving Championships awarded for both Breed and Fleece. Since 2011 our Brown Suri’s have successfully won the majority of all the Champion Brown Suri in South Island, New Zealand and have major success at NZ Nationals. Under El dos Cadena, we also breed the first Brown to win overall Supreme Suri at the prestigious Royal Canterbury A&P show in 2011. Since 2019 the selected show teams have been shown under Suri Fino Alpacas.
By choosing only the best fine fleeces with low SD range to be turned into Alpaca yarn, and trials using different processing mills and scouring methods, I have a range of beautiful yarn for sale and produce luxury handcrafted NZ Alpaca knitwear. As I buy back fibre from my alpacas sold as well as selecting carefully outside quality fleeces around Canterbury to increase stock, 90% of my fibre used is from my own herd of alpacas that we have breed.
My philosophy is to utilise the entire fleece, so the balance of the blanket and suri neck fibre is either commercial carded or hand carded for craft market or turned into a variety of felted Alpaca products and gifts. All fleece seconds are sold to a NZ fibre pool.
My first luxury Suri Alpaca yarn was processed in 2018, which I have called Suri Fino. The lustre, drape and silky handle of this yarn once handcrafted into knitwear is divine.
Selecting from our El dos Cadena herd, the best genetic, coloured and fine females and males have been transferred in 2018 to our new Elite herd, called Suri Fino Alpacas. Fino, meaning fine, which continues to be our top breeding goal to produce fine uniform fleeces from coloured Suri. Fine uniform fleeces low SD, coupled with dense well-structured locks, has directly resulted in real gains of lustre.
The remaining El dos Cadena herd, has largely now been phased out, and all still breeding, are now under Suri Fino Alpaca Herd Code.
Alpaca Fibre
There are two fleece breeds of Alpaca. The commonly known Huacaya Alpaca and the rarer Suri Alpaca. Both Breeds are alpaca, just produce different fleeces.
They both have similar thermometric properties to each other, produce next to nil lanolin, have fire retardant properties and wet weather warmth protection. Alpacas are bred from a large range of natural colours and shades. Colours can range from ice white, ivory white though to pale fawns, darker fawns, bronzes, ginger and red browns, dark chocolate and copper browns, bay blacks and blue blacks, silver greys and roan. No other fibre livestock has such a varied and rich range.
There are roughly 90% Huacaya Alpaca compared to 10% Suri in New Zealand, so it is the Huacaya Alpaca that is generally is pictured and seen as the popular image of an alpaca. The Suri with their long ringlets of fibre, appear at first glance to be a different type of camelid, but they are in fact alpaca as well.
There are many types of Camelids, they are all cousin species, closely related to each other. The Huacaya and Suri Alpaca were both bred from their camelid ancestors by the ancient Inca peoples of South America to produce fibre for textiles. Historical evidence indicates that Suri Alpaca fibre was most likely solely reserved for royalty. Huacaya even then were more numerous and supplied the population with all their clothing and textile needs. Llamas, their closest cousins were bred for meat production and their much larger heavily frame for carrying goods.
The Huacaya (pronounced Why-kai-ya) produces a horizontal growing fleece, a more smooth scaled fibre than fine merino sheep wool, but similar structured. It grows outwards into bundles of crimped staples of fibre, which can vary in crimp style, and density. Quality Huacaya is light-weight, extremely soft to touch and can be extremely fine. Being similar structured to merino, it can be easily processed into yarns and knitwear. Huacaya micron is tested similar to sheep wool. It is a dry fibre in that it carries very little grease, so can be cleaned without harsh chemicals therefore it is a environmentally friendly fibre when processed commercially or by hand.
The Suri (pronounced Sir-ree) produces a vertical growing fleece, it has a smooth scaled micro structure, quite unique from other fibre livestock. It grows in layers of hanging ringlets which can come in various styles, from tight pencil locks, corkscrews to flat waves. Suri is heavier than Huacaya and wool, it is ultra-silky smooth and buttery to touch. The main desired trait of Suri is the superb lustre, that glows from within. The silky handle of Suri lends itself to beautiful draping fabric. Yet it can be processed into an ultra-fine silk like yarn, suitable for luxury fine knits or crochet, and is ideal for weaving fine work. The nature of Suri is that its micron, tends to feel lower than it is, which can be confusing to some used to dealing with wool. Most micron testing is calibrated for wool, and therefore this needs to be taken into account. It also considered a drier fibre than wool, although it does small amount of natural grease content, this is considerably less than merino and so also can be cleaned without harsh chemicals.
It is the rarity of the Suri breed and simply divine feel of it’s fibre, that attracted me to them in the first instance. Once you feel a Suri fleece, you will understand. To see a Suri in full growth of fleece is to really appreciate this unique animal, to witness one in full flight running is simply a pleasure to see.
