Guanaco Coat Facts

Color

1. The guanaco's coat is nearly always brown, but can range from a light sandy color to brownish yellow or rusty brownish red. The backs of the legs, rump and belly are generally white, while the ears, head and nape are gray. This coloration allows the guanaco to blend in with its native grasslands and deserts to avoid predation.

Length

2. Guanaco coats vary in length, depending on the part of the body. Hair growing on the thighs, chest and flanks is long and woolly, while hair on the legs, face, neck and belly is quite short. The guanaco is also double coated, with a long, coarse top coat, or guard hair, and a softer, shorter undercoat. The soft wool of the undercoat is prized, and considered finer than even high quality cashmere. Guanaco fiber is around 16 microns in diameter and has a long fiber length of approximately 2 inches, allowing it to be spun into very fine yarn.

Skins

3. Guanaco pelts are still sold on the global market and were once one of the most lucrative products in Patagonia, or southern South America. The most valuable pelts are generally taken from baby guanacos aged 2 to 3 weeks. The hides of adults are usually used to produce shoes. While guanaco hunting is no longer unrestricted, it is still permitted in some areas, and the modern population is much lower than the historical high of 50 million.

Processing

4. The coat must be processed before it can be turned into yarn. After shearing, the fiber goes through a de-hairing process that sorts out the long, coarse guard hairs and leaves only the soft under-coat. This produces an extremely soft, valuable fiber, but also raises the price of the fiber. As of 2010, a yarn blend of only 40% guanaco fiber cost over $80 for only 28 g. Guanaco fiber is normally used only in premium goods like scarves, shawls and throws. A single finished scarf may cost close to $400, while shawls can cost upward of $700 in 2010 prices.

Potential

5. Traditional guanaco hunting methods involved driving the animals into a ravine or hunting on horseback with bolas, a type of weapon made of a rope with attached weights. Native hunters used the hide, meat and wool. Now that guanaco populations have been reduced by culling, hunters are encouraged to catch and shear the animals, but not to kill them. The guanacos are released after shearing. This management method may help increase the wild guanaco population.kiss on my ads...plzzzzzzzzz

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