Note: I tried to link back the original blog posts about all these events (there are usually more pictures on the original post).
10. Surviving our roughest year yet.
We lost 3 alpacas this year ~ little guy, Cheyenne and Maggie. And, we had our first retained CL (blog post about that here). Despite all this, we pulled through and are pushing our farm to the next level.
Little Guy ~ July 18, 2011 to July 19, 2011 (link to birth and passing story):
Cheyenne ~ May 17, 2011 to July 24, 2011 (links to birth and passing stories):
Magnolia (Maggie) (her welcome and loss):
9. Adding new genetics to our farm.
This year several alpacas joined our farm:
Dodge City Miss Kitty
MPAF Jewel
ATA Peruvian Harley
ATA Peruvian Boppana
Gabriel Star of RobAsia
Butterscotch Bay
JLFA Pot of Gold's Northwester (AKA Sig)
JLFA Leonardo's Dutch Harbor
ATA Peruvian Shamballa
and ATA Peruvian Lady Bing
The arrival of Miss Kitty (story here and more pictures here):
I can't find the post about Jewel's arrival. I fear I may have never blogged about it!
The boys, Boppana and Harley (Bo's story, Harley's story)
Bo:
Harley:
The arrival of Gabriel Star of RobAsia (blog post here):
The arrival of Butterscotch Bay, Sig and Dutch is here.
Bay and Dutch:
Sig:
Shamballa (story here):
The addition of Lady Bing (story here):
8. Sheared our own alpacas!
This is a goal we had for some point in the future, but as it turned out, we did it ourselves already this year. And I have to say, given it was our first year, I think we did a great job with it. There were several blog posts about shearing, the main one here.
Our shearing station:
7. Developed a new tag line:
Breeding Brightness You Can Feel
6. Becoming known as a farm with a "grey program".
While I fought this notion for quite some time (we breed for all colors), we gave into this fame and accept it as a compliment that our greys are so well known.
5. We had an incredible show season during 2011.
During our 2011 show season we came home with 7 1st place ribbons!!
Enlightenment's Rocky Rose
+ 1st in the fall of 2010
+ 1st at GMAF
+ 1st at MBS
Smokey's Twilight
+ 1st place at Best of the US
+ 1st place at GMAF
+ 1st place at MBS
OHVNA The Challenger
+ 1st place at Best of the US
Gabriel Star of RobAsia
+ 1st place at MBS
Here are a few of the official 1st place pictures:
We never did get our official 1st place pictures from MBS (we only recieved the ones with Gabe as color champion, not the first for all our others). And at the Great Midwest show in Madison WI they only take pictures of the color banner winners, not the 1st place.
4. Adding Lady Bing to our herd (did I mention this already? I just know she is going to provide a huge boost to our breeding program. We are so excited to have her as part of our herd).
3. The birth of Our Peruvian Thunder ~ not only is he our one surviving 2011 cria, but he is the first cria from our male, SA Peruvian Greyt Exxpectations. We had high hopes for this cria, and we are so excited how incredible he turned out. Birth story here.
2. Finished paying off our alpacas ~ what a relief!! A huge milestone, indeed!
1. Our Color Championship ~ Gabriel Star of RobAsia won us a Color Champion in blacks at the Michigan Breeders Show in May of 2011. Our first ever Color Champion. Blog story here.
Links to past years:
10 for 2010
10 for 2009
The end of the year (2008)
We began our farm in 2007, with our first alpacas arriving in November of 2007. The top 10 for that year was starting our farm (with more than 10 things involved in that preparation).
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