Around the show

Shortly after you arrive at the show you need to Compliance Check your alpacas. This is where they check their color and fleece length to make sure they are listed in the right class. Here is J and Emma walking the alpacas to the color check:



At the color check we realized we would be showing our alpacas in the shorn class. This is not ideal for us. The different classes are shorn and full fleece. The shorn class looks solely at conformation (such as their legs being the right way, back straight, teeth in line - like they do at a dog show). The full fleece class looks at both conformation and fleece (some shows are 50/50, meaning 50% of the score is conformation, 50% fleece, some are now moving to 60/40, 60% of the score is based on fiber, 40% on conformation). Since our focus is fleece, we need to show in full fleece. We do pay attention to conformation, but it's not our main focus. The way they decide which class you will show on depends on how long the fleece is. The fleece has to be 2 inches to show in full fleece. Sommerfield had the longest at 1.75 inches long. Once we realized all of ours would be showing in the shorn class we were concerned how well our alpacas will do, since our focus has been so much on the fleece.

Here J is getting Maddie use to the ring:



We were happy with how well they all did on the halter considering the struggle we had to halter train them (my advice, start young, we waited too long). Here J and Emma are letting them practice in the ring:



This is J showing Sommerfield (note all the whites, they class them by age, color and fleece length):



Emma enjoys Maddie (Maddie is so patient with the kids, but she kicked the woman doing the color check, the woman fell down! And Maddie laid down in the show ring when she was being shown.)