The Stalls

We have 7 alpacas at the show which means we have to have 3 stalls (you can have up to 3 alpacas in a stall at this particular show).

It was really hard to get a picture of all three stalls.

On the far end we have our 2 boys (Gabe & Gabe), then in the middle our 2 huacaya girls, and then the 3 suri girls.

This picture is from the boy end:

Then from the other end (suri girls first);

Our farm signs are in the back, with our tag line: Breeding Brightness You Can Feel

On the front of the pen we hang their ARI (Alpaca Registry Inc.).  This is similar to what you'd have with a pure breed dog, it's their pedigree so to speak.   It includes:

+  the alpaca's name
+  the owner of the alpaca
+  the alpaca's date of birth
+  the alpaca's registered color (this is selected by the owner at the time the alpaca is registered)
+  the type of alpaca (suri or huacaya)
+  the alpaca's dam and sire as verified through paternity and maternity testing
+  the owner of the dam and sire at the time of the breeding
+  the alpaca's dam's and sire's heritage (their entire family tree from the time of import and/or 5 generations back) including what color each of these family members are/were

When an alpaca is registered a blood sample is sent into ARI to verify the dam and sire.

We also hang up show ribbons.  We used to take all their show ribbons for every show they have been too.  But there were years where we attended 5 shows in one year, so by the time the alpaca was almost 2 years old there were too many ribbons to hang.  Then we went to hanging up every 1st place ribbon we ever got (I made the Hall of Fame a couple years ago - link to that story and picture below).  But even that was getting out of hand (we added more blue ribbons to this hall of fame and it was way too overcrowded).  Now we just hang the ribbon they get at the actual show we are attending.


As you can see in the pictures that started this post there are a couple blue ribbons hanging which means we got some blue at THIS SHOW!! Blog post to follow :)