The record that matters is built fleece by fleece. An alpaca's fleece is an annual crop with a name attached, and a keeper who records each fleece as it comes off — who grew it, the shearing under its entry label, how it weighed after skirting, how it graded, where it ended up and what the keeper noticed handling it — holds, after a few seasons, a written fiber history for every animal in the herd. That history is what breeding choices, sale prices and culling decisions should rest on, and it cannot be reconstructed in winter from memory of a shearing day in spring.
The Per-Fleece Record, Written at Shearing
Write the record while the fleece is on the table. Name the animal first, then the shearing under its entry label — 'the spring shearing' or 'Year two' — so each animal's fleeces line up in sequence without calendar clutter. Weigh the fleece after skirting and record the skirted weight, not the weight off the animal: skirting removes the coarser edges, guard hair and dirty or matted portions, and the skirted figure is the honest measure of usable fiber that a buyer pays for and that next year's fleece should be compared against. Record the grade the fleece is given, in whatever grading language the keeper or the buyer uses, entered the same way each season so grades compare cleanly across years. A fleece weighed before skirting one year and after it the next produces two numbers that look like a trend and are only a change of method.
Where the Fleece Went, and Notes on the Fleece
Record where the fleece went: a named buyer, a mill, a craft sale, or the keeper's own use, entered as the recorded value it is. That destination line closes the fleece's story and, across a herd, shows which animals' fleeces sell readily, which grades buyers return for, and which fleeces end up absorbed at home because no buyer wanted them. Then add notes on the fleece itself: color, staple length, crimp and handle as the keeper judges them, any contamination or second cuts, and anything unusual — a fleece thinner than the animal's last, damage from a wet winter, a patch of coarser growth. Notes written on the day carry the texture of the thing; notes attempted later carry only its outline. Bag and label each fleece to match its record before it leaves the table, so the paper and the fiber never part company in storage.
Keeping Bags, Labels and Records in Step
A fleece record fails if the physical fleece cannot be matched back to it, so the labeling discipline matters as much as the writing. Each fleece goes into its own bag the day it is recorded, labeled with the animal and the record's entry label, stored away from damp and moths. When part of a fleece is sold and part kept, note the split against the same entry rather than starting a new one, so the skirted weight still adds up against what left the table. At season's end, a quick pass through the store — every bag matched to a line, every line matched to a bag — catches the one unlabeled fleece while the shearing day is still fresh enough to identify it by color and feel.
What the Accumulated History Decides
Year over year, each alpaca's file carries its fleeces in sequence, and the patterns a keeper needs step forward: the animal whose skirted weight climbs as she matures, the one whose grade slips with age, the sire whose offspring consistently grade finer. Those patterns guide which animals to breed from, which fleeces to market hardest and which to price plainly, and what to tell a buyer asking about an animal's offspring. The same history protects a sale: a keeper who can show a buyer four seasons of recorded weights and grades for an alpaca is selling evidence, not impressions. When a buyer asks about grade, answers come from the Pet Passport records KinsLe holds for that fleece, not from memory.