Friday, March 16, 2012

Sentimental Goodbyes

Ultimately this farm is a business and sometimes we have to make business decisions that contradict our personal thoughts and feelings. This decision falls in that category.

Our first two alpacas were Hana's Victoria and Kateri (along with a gelding, Snowstorm). We purchased these two females in 2007, both bred to NWA, LTD Accoyo's GOLDSMITH.

This past year we made the decision that we were willing and ready to let go of Kateri. Even though emotionally she's a pair with Victoria as our first ever alpacas. We can't help but have an emotional attachment to these two. They are who got us started in this business. In addition, these two have been together their entire lives. They were born on the same farm in the same year, they grew up as cria together, living on that farm until we purchased them. They both came to our farm as adults. While emotionally I feel tied to Kateri and feel she has to stay with Victoria, I know that's an emotional response, not a logical one. It's time to build off of Kateri's daughter, Tehya. Too many alpacas from the same gene pool can make mixing and matching breedings difficult, so spicing up genetics is essential. While I am sure we could have traded Tehya extremely easily, we felt Tehya is the next generation that we want to build off of. Kateri has given us some incredible offspring, she is a solid quality producer. We expect the same of Tehya.

Kateri's info:

Kateri:
Birthdate: 6/28/2004
Dam: Meadowgate Glinda
Sire: CH Tecumseh
Heritage: 1/4 Chilean, 1/2 Peruvian
Color: Light Brown

Awards Received
First Place Brown(combined) Juvenile females 2005 MOPACA
Second Place Light brown Yearling females 2006 IAOBA


Here is a link to my exciting post when she first came to our farm in November of 2007.

Soon after her arrival, during a herd health day, Kateri was giving us an especially hard time. J turned to her and said, "if you keep that up, I'm keeping your baby and selling you." At the time I was horrified he said this, it seemed so mean. But since then we've joked about this many times over the years. How funny now that it's coming to fruition. Kateri is leaving our farm this Saturday and her baby (who was in utero when J said that), Tehya, is staying.

Kateri had already had one cria prior to coming to our farm, that is SHVN Princess.

On our farm in 2008 Kateri gave birth to Kateri's Tehya. The birth story can be found here. Both Kateri and Victoria were bred to Goldsmith, and both delivered on the exact same day! We joked that they are twins, Tehya and Shelby, from the same sire and born on the same day. Funny how looking back at that post, it wasn't Tehya's baby picture that shocked me (I knew she'd look like a newborn). It was the picture of my son, Zack, he looks so little there!

newborn Tehya:



Zack so young and cute (well he's still cute!) with newborn Shelby in the background (Shelby is Victoria's cria, Tehya's "twin"):



In 2009, Kateri gave birth to OHVNA Pocahontas. That story can be found here. And pictures can be found here.

newborn Pocahontas:



Pocahontas won us our first ever color banner!!

In 2010, Kateri gave birth to OHVNA Chaska. His birth story is here. This is one of a few births I saw start to finish and got pictures throughout.

Newborn Chaska:



Now it's time to move onto the next phase. Instead of a Kateri cria this year, we are expecting a Tehya baby (a Kateri grandcria).

1 comment:

Debbie, Barnacre Alpacas said...

It's always tough to say goodbye but sometimes its harder than others isn't it.

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