Two Blue Ribbons!

Our girls have done well in the show ring, but we kept missing 1st place (Shelby got a 2nd before and Tehya has two 2nd place awards). This weekend that all changed. Shelby was the first of our animals to show. They started with full fleece animals, and they start with the darker colors and move to the lighter ones.

I was nervous when Shelby got into the ring, but even from my seat in the bleachers, I could see her fiber shining in the light. It was more shiny than any other animal there! It glistened. Shelby got 1st place of the five in her class. There wasn't a color champion because there were not enough animals in classes of her color to hold one. We were disappointed about that, especially since we heard they were only 1 animal short of holding a color champion.

The judge said that Shelby had density and fineness She has brightness and consistent crimp. He said her conformation was tight and proportionate. The only negative he noted was that her bite isn't 100% right on. But for her to place in first, her bite isn't bad and her fleece has to be good to overcome even a slight bite issue.

Here is Shelby on her big day:



Tehya hit the show ring next among the animals that we took with us. Tehya also got first place!!! Two first place ribbons in one day! My pen stopped working so I couldn't write down all the judge said, but his main reason for putting Tehya 1st is because she was the finest of group. She also has density and incredible crimp. There were six in her class.

Tehya on her big day:



Lightning Bugs was our last to show. He also hit the show ring on the first day of the show. Lightning has the disadvantage of being in the white class. As I've mentioned before, white class is the most difficult. Back in Peru, white fiber animals were the ones they did the most to improve the fiber because that is what the European textiles wanted. While other colors are now catching up to white, white still has a longer standing advantage. Plus, there are quite a few breeders who breed for white, making more in the white classes than other colors. To put it into perspective, there were 5 in Shelby's class, 6 in Tehya's class, and 10 in Lightning's class. It's even harder to do well with more in the class.

Lightning got 4th place, a very respectable place for a white. Given that four in the class got the gate (no ribbon at all), we are thankful Lightning has the quality to keep him placing in shows. The judge said that Lightning was the finest in his class, but said that he is not as dense and lacked good coverage over his front legs. I'm not sure we completely agree with that assessment. We think Lightning is dense, he's just so fine that you can't feel the density. As for the front leg coverage, we asked others what they thought of that and they did not feel that should be an issue. He does have coverage over his legs, it's just not as long and thick as what Tehya and Shelby have. But I will keep that in mind when breeding him, to make sure we breed him to girls with incredible leg coverage.