Fall

Fall is here. The leaves are turning coloring and falling. The air is crisp and cool.



Quinn is getting his winter coat:



Tehya seems to grow in leaps and bounds. All the sudden one day she will look taller. It seems Shelby grows at a more steady rate, so she will finally catch up to Tehya, only to have Tehya suddenly shoot up taller. Tehya is a nice, strong, solid alpaca with great form (straight back, nice lined up bite, etc). This is a recent picture of Tehya:



Here you can see Tehya is taller than Shelby (Tehya is light fawn color, Shelby is brown. Tehya does seem to have a bit bigger build in general than Shelby, noted by a bigger rib cage and so forth). We've noticed lately how Sommerfield is looking like her mom, Sancha. Sommerfield is the closer white alpaca, Sancha is the one the furthest back. See how their faces are starting to look an aweful lot alike? They do not have the look we are breeding for. We prefer a face with more fiber (like Shelby and Tehya) and we prefer the shorter nose. In our breeding plan, we breed Sancha and Sommerfield to males who have those features we are looking for. Sancha's cria from this spring, Lightning, definately has face coverage. I nick named him Santa Claus cause it looks like he has a beard (I'll get a picture of him for a future post).



Shelby is growing nice and strong. I love her shiney brown color, and her fiber covers everywhere. The shiney looks gives her fiber a slippery feel. She has a bold crimp that is different from our other alpacas. Here is Shelby:



Zack snuggling up to Shelby (she doesn't look too thrilled, but note how much fiber is on her face, all the way up to her black muzzle):