Bernie's Llamas and Alpacas Get Haircuts

Bernie Sippin brought the first llama to his Westview Drive farm in the mid-90's and it wasn't long before the entire town knew about it. It got loose and police officers spent the day trying to track it down. The story made headlines in newspapers, including The Monroe Courier.

"I wound up getting someone else to come who had a llama," Sippin recalled. "They let you come up to them if there's another llama with you."

His first llama did not work out.

"He was mean, spitting all the time. Bruce Benedict and I gave him away," Sippin  said.

But that experience did not make Sippin give up on the animal. He now has one llama and six alpacas on his farm. Once a year their coats are sheared and sold to people who want to use the fiber to make yarn, felt and other material for warm blankets and clothing.

Ziggy Jurglewicz of Southington was at Westview Farm to buy fiber to use as stuffing for a comforter he's been working on.

"I'm going to make a sleeper, a nice big sleeper for any bed," he said. "And I'd like to have a jacket and a vest made. It depends on how much material I have left over."

Jurglewicz was there to pick up llama and alpaca fiber for himself and a woman in Newtown, who could not make it.

Jeremiah Squire, 30, and Rick Trojanski, 50, two farmers hired to the animals, arrived in a white Ford F350 pick up truck at 2:30 that afternoon. They came from Hope Hollow Farm in Portland.

Trojanski has been shearing sheep and other animals for close to 35 years. He first asked Squire to help him when Squire was nine-years-old. Now the men own Twist of Fate Spinnery, a wool mill they started together.

Jeremiah takes one on the chin

When Trojanski and Squire first started shearing alpacas, they initially shaved off the hair while the animal was standing up.

"Jeremiah was working in back of an alpaca and it kicked him," Trojanski recalled. " Luckily it just caught the end of his chin and his chest. I didn't see the kick, it was so fast."

Ever since then, they lay the animals down, secure all four feet with rope and stretch it out length-wise. Trojanski said this is for the safety of both them and the alpacas.

Using electric razors, they shave the mid-section of the alpacas, then the tail, legs and neck. As they worked on Tuesday, Jurglewicz gathered up the fur and put the material into a plastic bin.

After shearing an animal, Trojanski and Squire took advantage of the animals being secured by the ropes to do some grooming. First they clipped the toe nails, then they opened the alpacas mouths to see if the back teeth — known as fighting teeth — had gotten sharp. If so, they drilled them down.

Sippin said the alpacas sometimes attack each other and will bite their ears with the fighting teeth, though he said he had never witnessed a scuffle on his farm.

Sippin gave his animals shots to immunize them from worms, a parasite that preys on animals in the summertime.

He led the animals into the barn to be sheared and used a leash to bring them back to a flatbed the alpacas and llama were tied to outside.

A donation to Beardsley Zoo

Three of Sippin's llamas had gotten too big — about 250 pounds each — to shear without four men being needed to hold them down, so he decided to give them to the Beardsley Zoo in Bridgeport.

"It was George, Henry and I can't remember the other one's name. It was black and white. He was beautiful," Sippin said.

Some of Sippin's llamas were sold or given away and one recently came back to his farm.

A woman's daughter had bought a llama from Sippin, but the young woman soon had to go to college and had trouble selling her pet.

"I took it back for nothing, but I donated $1,000 to the college in her name," Sippin said.