Shearing of the dams

We started shearing on Monday, and finished up today, Saturday. I love the before and after pictures because I think the transformation is so dramatic. They change so much! They go from these very furry creatures, to creatures that look very thin with incredibly long necks. This year we did all our shearing ourselves, so keep in mind when viewing these pictures that this was our first ever attempt at shearing ourselves.

We decided to start shearing with our open breeding age females. They are past the age at what point we'd take them to a show. So no worries if they doesn't look great after shearing. Pregnant girls have the additional risk during shearing of the cria in utero, so we didn't want to start with them. The boys we want to look nice so that we can advertise them for breeding. And, of course we want our show string to look their best, since they will be going to shows again this fall.

We have 8 breeding age females, of which three are open this year. Maddie, Latte and Miss Kitty are our open girls (though they have had cria in the past). Victoria, Kateri, Sancha, Tehya, and Snickers are all pregnant.

We started shearing with Latte. This was the first alpaca we have ever shorn on our own. Keeping this in mind, I don't think she looks half bad.

Latte Full Fleece:



Latte Shorn:



Maddie Full Fleece:



Maddie Shorn:



Miss Kitty Full Fleece:



Miss Kitty Shorn:



We knew when we brought Miss Kitty home that she was overweight and needed extensive work in order to be ready to breed. When we got her on the scale on shearing day, she weighed in at 251 pounds! The average weight for an alpaca is 160 pounds. The biggest alpaca I had seen prior to this was 230 pounds, and I thought he was big.

After we finished shearing the open females, we decided to start shearing the pregnant girls. Our concern was that the heat was causing them to be very uncomfortable, and we wanted their fiber off them to help cool them down. We started with Tehya. She was due any day (and actually had her cria the day after she was shorn). We knew she was very hot and uncomfortable, so we wanted to get that fiber off of her. There are times shearing a female can make her go into labor. Most of the time this will happen only if she is ready anyway. Rarely does shearing cause a premature labor (though it could). Our experience has been that typically a female due near shearing day will give birth in the day or two after shearing.

Tehya Full Fleece:



Tehya shorn - we did not finish her head and top knot because we were concerned that she was very agitated being shorn and we were worried labor had started. In fact I do think labor had started since she had that cria the next morning. But, we could have finished her head after all. We will trim her up with a scissors so we don't have to fully restrain her again this year.

By the time I got a shorn picture of her, her baby, Cheyenne, had been born. Cheyenne is next to Tehya here, and Tehya's mother, Kateri is behind them:



Snickers Full Fleece:



Snickers Shorn (I had a terrible time getting her to cooperate with the picture, this is the best I could do):



Kateri Full Fleece:



Kateri Shorn (she didn't want to pose for the picture so I have two sort of decent pictures):




Now that Snickers and Kateri are shorn, I really have a hard time telling them apart! I had a hard enough time when they were in full fleece, shorn is much worse. I know Kateri is a shade darker (she is brown when Snickers is fawn), but that can be hard to see if they aren't next to each other. The kids don't agree with me, but I even think their faces look quite a bit alike (of course they would not cooperate with a face shot, maybe another day):



The other thing about these two, now that they are shorn, we have concerns if they really are pregnant. Neither of them have what I could call a baby belly. And the past two years Kateri has had a huge cria belly (Snickers is new to our farm so we don't know how she's looked in the past). It could be that the cria is up in their ribs. Sancha is clearly pregnant, as is Victoria (and so was Tehya, who has since delivered). But Kateri and Snickers, I'm not 100% sure. Snickers was ultra sounded last fall, and was confirmed pregnant, but they can lose or absorb a pregnancy. For now, we will keep peeking at them, trying to see an obvious cria leg jut out their sides.

Sancha Full Fleece:



Sancha Shorn:



Victoria Full Fleece:



Victoria Shorn:



My favorite part of Victoria is her very woolly face, and her very dark eye lashes, that show up even more when she shorn:



Victoria has been acting strange lately. We've found her laying around a lot. She sometimes leans to one side. We believe she is just very uncomfortable with her pregnancy. We do not know why. During shearing she was very upset. Victoria is one who typically will run and make us catch her, but once we do, she surrenders. Lately she has been feisty like I've never seen her. She was very upset during shearing and screamed the entire time. I don't know if she really was hurting or if she was upset or what. We felt her belly after her shearing and the cria was moving around. We know she's pregnant and we know the cria is active, those are both good signs. Come to think of it, since she was shorn on Monday, I haven't noticed Victoria acting strange anymore. Maybe she was just that hot.

Shearing

This year we decided to do something different for shearing our alpacas - shear them ourselves! In years past we've hired someone to shear them, which is what most farms do. To do this you either have a shearer come to your farm, or you take your alpacas to them. The shearer does the shearing, but you help with holding the alpacas, gathering the fiber and all the other stuff. We've done all the other stuff, it was just the actual cutting of the fiber that was new to us.

We've learned a few things over the years about shearing. One is that the fiber grows back. Even if the alpaca looks terrible, even if the shearing job is terrible, eventually the fiber grows back and it doesn't look bad anymore. They outgrow even an ugly hair cut. The bigger concern is cutting the alpaca. We've had to stitch up an alpaca's leg before (yes we've done our own stitches in our barn). We hope we never have to do that again, but we've done it and can do so again. I know shearing yourself is a big undertaking, but we decided there was no time like the present. If we ever wanted to do this, why not start now?

There are several ways to shear an alpaca, and there are many opinions on what is best. Some shear all the fiber down, others leave the fiber on their face and legs, others do a mix of the two. I think what is best is what you like and works for you. This is an area that over the years we've changed our mind on, but not everyone has the same experience, and therefore, not everyone will come to the same conclusion. We used to try to keep most of the fiber on their face, head and legs. We didn't do the bobble head look specifically (leave it all on0, more of a tapered look. We love that woolly face look, and wanted to hold onto that. But we found that in the show ring it is not a good idea. Judges do not like to have the bobble head look on top (or even the tapered head look that we used to go for). We actually had a judge specifically say in the show ring not to shear an alpaca how we had ours done (ours still got 1st place mind you, but still, I don't want to be the example of what not to do). And, if the legs are too woolly they don't look straight (which can affect their scoring on conformation). We've gone to preferring a more sleek shorn look. Not only does that work in the show ring, but also helps keep the older girls trim down so we don't have to worry as much about burrs or hay getting stuck in their fiber. We trimmed back top knots last fall and that has worked so much better for us. I was scared to do it, but, as I stated above, the fiber grows back. It's not gone forever. We can trim it back, and if we don't like it, not trim it like that again. There are times that once an alpaca's face is shorn the fiber doesn't come back as full as it was. But in that case, it would fall out anyway (I've seen it happen where the alpaca did have a woolly face, never shorn, and then doesn't have it anymore). What stays on is what would grow back anyway. We've shorn down Victoria's face many times and it grows back. If the woolly face is there, it will grow back and be there, no need for a bobble head look at shearing time in order to keep it. (I'm reminding myself of this, because I still find it scary to take it all off, even though I know it will work out in the end, it's scary). With all this in mind, our aim for shearing was a cut back sleek look.

For our shearing we decided to turn our garage into our shearing station. We set up a pulley system to tie down the alpacas so they do not get injured during shearing. Note that there are two loops on each side of the pulley system, one loop for each of the alpaca's legs. Here is our garage, ready with a mat in the shearing station, a tarp and pulleys ready to go:





We thought the tarp would help keep the garage dirt off the fiber and would be easier for us to clean up the fiber. As it turns out, the tarp was not a good idea. The alpacas would slip and slide on it. And, worse yet, the fiber stuck to it with static. After shearing our first alpaca, we took the tarp up and did not use it again. So for future reference, don't use a tarp.

We set up a weigh station so we could weigh the alpacas before shearing and again after shearing. This is most important for a breeding male. Knowing the male's shearing weight and blanket weight is significant when marketing him for breeding. Before we breed to a male we want to know what his blanket weight was, so we make sure we have that information for people using our males. Another nice benefit of this is that we can get a baseline weight on all our alpacas. That way if they need emergency medication, we have a recent weight on them for reference to measure out the medication. Our weigh station was a scale on the ground in the doorway to the garage:



The other essential item is having socks on hand. While it is rare for alpacas to spit, they are most likely to do so when they are fearful. Shearing can be very traumatic for them. They are caught, taken from their herd, and tied down. They don't understand that we are shearing them. Many of them go into fight or flight mode. For the ones who choose to spit, we put a sock over their mouth. That way if they do spit, it doesn't get on us. And, it actually sits right by their mouth annoying them. Some will give up spitting once the sock is put on them. Others choose to keep spitting.

See the socks sitting out, ready for use:



On Monday we managed to shear all 8 our our breeding age females (5 of which were pregnant). Overall, the shearing went better than I thought it would. They aren't perfect by any means, but definitely good enough. And I could see improvement with each one we completed. We are saving our show age alpacas for last, hoping we can do the best job on them. The two areas we had the most difficulty with were top knots and tails. But like I've said, these will both grow back, and will be fine in the end.

I'll post before and after pictures in future posts. We still have 9 alpacas yet to shear, so the story isn't over yet.

A Name

Naming the new cria is a big deal at our house. Since alpacas are so much of our life, that name will be used many times in the future. Our kids play in our backyard with the cria, and call their names many times. And, we all seem to have strong opinions on what we want the cria's name to be. So this can lead to long deliberations.

For each of our breeding age females, we picked a theme for their cria's names. This is was Tehya's first cria, so we had to find a theme for her cria's names. Tehya's mom, Kateri, has the theme of "Native American". Her offspring have been names like Tehya (means "precious") and Chaska (means "first born son"). We wanted to do something Native American for Tehya also, but different from her mom to differentiate them. For Tehya we chose the theme of Famous Native Americans and Tribe Names.

On the day this little cria was born, when I was driving home from work, I saw the name Cheyenne on the side of a barn. I just knew I wanted to that for this cria's name. It took some fighting for me to get to name her this (my 11 year old was not happy about it either).

Official name: OHVNA Cheyenne

The "OHVNA" stands for Oak Haven Alpacas.

Cria Pictures

Our first cria of 2011, and Tehya's first cria ever:



The cria is definitely a female. We believe she is rose grey. It's hard to tell grey on a newborn, she could be a fading fawn. But she has the face of a tuxedo grey, and there are grey fibers on her legs, more so than even Challenger had at birth and he is now clearly grey. Only time will tell for sure though.

She is the smallest of any cria ever born on our farm. She weighed in at 13.4 pounds. I believe average cria newborn weight it closer to 15 pounds. Our smallest prior to her was Shelby who was 14. Tehya had been our second smallest at 15. Even though she's smaller than we are used to, she is full term, with teeth erupted. She appears healthy and perfect.

All the moms are quite protective of this new baby, I had a hard time getting close enough to get a picture:





She's in there, between the moms:





She is doing well, walking, eating, and sleeping:





As you can see from these pictures, our female girls have been shorn. We did that on Monday (yesterday). I will write about that in a future post. I just had to get these newborn cria pictures up as soon as possible!

1st Cria of 2011

This morning when I went out to feed the alpacas, I just knew Tehya was in labor.

For one, I noticed a few days back that her back hips were very loose. If you've ever been pregnant or watched a pregnant woman, near the end of the pregnancy their hips really loosen up. I remember feeling like I was walking all funny with hips that didn't work right. This is nature's way of helping in the birthing process.

Then, on Monday we decided to shear all our older female alpacas, one of which was Tehya. In the middle of shearing J says "is she even pregnant?" We looked at her belly, felt her belly, and were skeptical. Then he went to shear her back end and exclaims "I can practically see the cria's head poking out the back!" There was no doubt there was a cria and it was in birthing position. We actually sped up shearing her out of fear that cria was coming right then. After shearing she didn't act like she was in active labor, but we knew it would be soon. That cria was in position, and Tehya was already on day 355 (average due date is 350 days gestation).

When I got up this morning and went out to feed the alpacas, Tehya walked over to eat her grain, but walked slow and loopy with her loose hips. Now I'll give some additional details that some of you might not want to read about, and if so, feel free to skip the rest of this post. In my next post I'll post pictures of this new cria :) (I'm working half way across the state right now, pictures will have to wait until tonight). For those that want to know the impending labor signs, I'll post on.

Tehya walked over to her grain bowl, she walked and pooped at the same time. This is NOT normal for alpacas. They typically poop in a communal pile and are deliberate about pooping in the spot (for the most part). They don't walk and poop. This tipped me off that she was not completely in control of all that was going on in her back end. I also realized that when I came out with the grain, all the other ladies were cushed outside. Tehya was cushed alone in the barn in front of the fans. It was cool last night and these girls were all just shorn. Only a woman in labor (or having a hot flash) would want to be in front of the fans on a morning like this.

I watched Tehya walk and peeked at her back end. She was very puffy, which usually indicates dilation and effacement. I was just sure she was in labor. But we've had so many false alarms over the years, I was still cautious. I told the kids I was sure she was having that baby today, but we better get on with our day.

I had to work today, I had to be in court half way across the state. J had worked overnight, so I left a note for him that I thought Tehya was in labor, but it also could be a false alarm. Just before 1 p.m. J called to say Tehya had her cria. It is a female and he is pretty sure she is rose grey!!! That is what I've been saying she'd have (J kept saying it was what I wanted her to have LOL).

What a great start to cria season!!!

I won't be home until later tonight. Stay tune for new cria pictures.

May Cria

We only have one female due to May, our very own Tehya.





Tehya was born in 2008, the first year we had cria born at our farm. She was the third one born that year, but the only birth I saw from start to finish. It feels like things are coming full circle now, our own baby is going to be having a baby.

Tehya is a fawn girl who is bred to a grey male, Our Peruvian Navigator. This is Tehya's first cria. As for what to expect, we have a 50% chance of a boy and 50% chance of a girl. For color, it depends what Tehya's secondary color is. All alpacas have two colors, one from their dam (mother) and one from their sire (father). To generalize, typically the lighter color is the color they exhibit (that is kind of a simplified version of how it goes). If the alpaca passes on grey the cria is grey, so grey beats out any color. Tehya is fawn, a color she got from her sire. Her dam (our own Kateri) either gave her a brown gene or a black gene. It depends what her secondary color is what color her cria could be.

If Tehya's secondary color is brown, then her type would be fawn and brown (FB). If her secondary color is black, she is fawn and black (Fb).
Navigator is grey and black (Gb).

So the choices are:
Tehya (FB) x Navigator (Gb) = FG, Fb, BG, or Bb
FG = grey would be exhibited
Fb = fawn would be exhibited
BG = grey would be exhibited
Bb = brown would be exhibted

or

Tehya (Fb) x Navigator (Gb) = FG, Fb, bG or bb
FG = grey would be exhibited
Fb = fawn would be exhibited
bG = grey would be exhibited
bb = black would be exhibited

Either way there is a 50% chance the cria will be grey, and a 25% chance the cria will be fawn. The other 25% depends on if Tehya's secondary color is brown or black.

Tehya is due any day now, and we can't wait to see what wonderful cria she has!

Question of the Week

I've had several people ask me lately why we are doing so well in the show ring. This is a much more loaded question than I think people realize. I think the best way to answer it is to explain how we got where we are.

First, we started out with show quality females. It's always important to breed a girl up, but if you are starting with a lower quality female, you have much more breeding up to do. Our first two girls, Kateri and Victoria, had been shown and did respectable. Kateri won 1st and 2nd in her day. Victoria didn't do quite a well in the show, but her fiber has no crimp (in another post I'll show fiber and what crimp and bundling and structure mean). I said from the beginning a Victoria with crimp would do great in a show, and her offspring, Shelby and Challenger have.

But, we haven't always done great in the show ring. While waiting for Victoria and Kateri's cria to be old enough to show, we had some other yearlings that we acquired. We were so excited to bring them to shows, and couldn't wait to hear what the judge had to say. We were crushed that first show. Every one of the three alpacas we brought either came in last place or got the gate (which is essentially last place too). That first show season was rough. For anyone reading this who has had a rough time in the show ring, believe me when I say I know how that feels. I have been there. When I see farmers at a show having that same experience I really feel for them. It's tough. But trust me when I say most other alpaca farmers are willing and will help you. We certainly welcome it. Having been there, we know how difficult it can be. Ask questions, get your hands on other farm's animals, ask other alpaca farmers to evaluate your animals. If what you are doing isn't working, it's time for a change. The hard truth is that you will have to give up on ideas you are sure are true in order to get to that new spot where you want to be. It's a process, at times a very difficult process.

Thankfully we had several more experienced alpaca farmers take us under their wing and helped us tremendously. We learned so much, at every show we went to (and still do). We got our hands on the color champions, so we know what is winning in the show ring. We have other alpaca farmers evaluate our animals. We discussed fiber with many different alpacas farmers to get their opinion on things. We talked to big farms and small farms. In addition to the hands on personal information, we also do a ton of research online. Not everything you hear or read will be right, and I think that's where the biggest difficulty comes in. You will need to filter the information. I think this can be the most tricky part, because if you are holding onto a false truth as being the truth, you will miss what is really going on. You need to be honest and open and accepting of things you might not want to be true.

I know there are farms who never show, or used to show but felt they couldn't complete with the big farms so they no long show. I hear many opinions, and there are people who think the big farms have all the resources and the rest of us can't compete with them. I don't agree. I think we can compete. We just have to be smarter because we have less resources. I don't have a 20 time color banner winning male in the pasture to use on my girls, I don't have a big bank account to buy whatever breeding I want. But we can make wise decisions and create the kind of fiber that will win in the show ring.

They say it's important to have a goal for your farm. In the 3.5 years we've built our alpaca farm, we have refined our goal. It started out with the desire to combine both breeding for show quality alpacas, and hands on use of the wonderful fiber they create. (When we started in this industry farms typically did one or the other, few were involved in both. As the economy has changed this is changing within the industry.) We have refined this goal to a certain type of fiber we want to create, one that is show quality, but also great for making into yarn. We look at our breeding females and match them up with a male who has what they need. J has done extensive research into fiber histograms. He wants to see the alpaca's histogram before making a breeding choice. He has specific stats that he is looking to create in our cria's fiber. I admit I go more on the look of the fiber and the feel, but his input is essential in making the right match. Every breeding choice on our farm is specific and deliberate, based on hours of research into fiber specifics (not just who is open and what male haven't we used yet or by color). J has spent hours and hours researching, reading and learning about alpacas, fiber, and breeding.

Not so say every breeding will result in the right alpaca or the exact fiber we want. It's nature and the traits you want to show through won't always do so. But even the big farms create a fiber boy here and there. The difference would be on a big farm the fiber animals never see the show ring, they only show the top 10% of their cria. On a smaller farm like ours, all our cria get to at least one show.

There is also the fact that the industry is constantly changing. What would win a 1st place in the show ring even two years ago is now coming in 3rd or 4th place. Every year there are advancements in the alpaca's fiber. One of the reasons we go to as many shows as we do it to keep up with the changes and see what other farms are producing.

I guess the short answer to why we've done so well in the show ring is because of our hard work in learning and applying that to our farm to reach our specific goal. Our dream is to stay true to our farm goal and continue to produce the kind of alpacas that we can be proud of.

Dare to be There

I've been training for months, and this morning I ran in the Fifth Third River Bank Run. I've never run in a race, never even ran track or anything when I was growing up. This was a completely new experience for me. About seven years I started running purely as exercise to lose weight and get into shape (I started running at a time in my life when I was almost done losing 70 pounds, it was a complete transformation). But my running was either by myself on a treadmill, or with my dogs in the woods. Nothing formal about it. I know it's more common to start with a 5K, but I had already been running 3 to 4 miles at a time, and I wanted to work towards something. So I decided to challenge myself and signed up for the 10K.

Since I'm not a runner by trade, I did some research on some good training methods. I alternated my trainings: long run, short run, interval run and hills run. Now that the race is complete, I feel like my training was exactly perfect for the race. I'm so glad I pushed myself with every workout, especially with the dreaded hills routine. When the hills came up on the course, it was no big deal at all, I was prepared. I'd say the only struggles I had were that I struggled to pace myself and I struggled because I didn't notice the mile marker signs. Pacing can be hard to do anyway, and I am easily distracted. I am so used to running alone, that at the race I would get caught up in other people's paces. I was worried for the first half of the race that I was running at too fast of a pace and I would regret it with the second half of the race. In the end, that wasn't the case. In fact, that last 0.2 miles, I started sprinting. I had enough energy left to push myself a bit further. The mile markers would have been nice to know since I was only guessing how much further and started to slow my pace a bit in case it was a long way. Neither issue was a big deal because I finished in a faster time than I anticipated.

In the end I crossed the finish line a 1:06:35 according to the clock and 1:04:06 according to my chip time, giving me a pace of 10:20/M. I was thinking I ran an 11 to 12 minute mile, so I was faster than I anticipated.

For me this was never about winning or even making a certain time. It was about challenging myself, pushing myself out of my comfort zone, and finishing something I never would have thought I could do. Now I'm ready to do it again next year!

Adding a picture of me. I was home alone prior to the race so I had to take my own picture. I attempted the picture in the mirror technique:

Hot Girls

I'm sure many 2nd graders beg their parents for this or that on the way home from school, but I doubt too many of them are begging to hose down some alpacas when they get home. Zack loves to put on his swimsuit, turn on the hose, and help the ladies cool down. The alpacas love to be sprayed off. It's especially helpful to hose them down right between their front two legs. That part of their chest is where they regulate their body temperature, and cooling it off with hose water is just what they love on a hot day. We went from cool 60* temps to 80* in a couple days time.

Here they are lining up, all wanting their turn on the cold water spray:



Some of them will cush in the cold water spray:



Often after they are sprayed they will go roll in the dirt.

The girls will fight over who gets to be sprayed down, they love it so much. Here some felt refreshed from being sprayed so they went over to eat some hay, others want another turn in the water.

1st and 2nd place for all

We are proud to say that every one of the six alpacas we took to the show this past weekend either came in 1st place or 2nd place in their class! We couldn't be more proud of our babies.

I already posted about Gabe coming in 1st place and receiving Color Champion. I also posted about Boppana coming in 2nd in his class. We are thrilled! Bo is ready to start his breeding career this year and we have some girls picked out for him.

On Sunday we had a busy day ahead of us, knowing we had 4 of our 6 alpacas yet to show

The next one of our alpacas to go in the show ring was Chaska. When we looked at the show book, we saw that one of the males in Chaska's class was one that the judge at the Indiana show had said was the best animal at that show! While we like Chaska and he has some wonderful qualities, I know he's not the best on our farm even, we knew at that point we were fighting over 2nd place with the others left in the class. We were so proud to have Chaska placed in 2nd place!!

Then we hit the fast pace stretch with our three grey alpacas. This is a much smaller show than others we have attended, so at least there was only one show ring. We didn't have to worry about J showing in one ring while I'm in another ring, and having back to back in one of those rings (like we've had at every other show we've attended this spring). I had the added difficulty of having a migrain and allergy reaction all day Sunday. My eyes were red and hurt and I was pretty miserable. But at least I didn't have to worry about going in the ring, I just kept the alpacas ready so J could get them in the ring on time.

Our Greys: Twilight was in the Juvi Silver Grey Class, then Rose in the Yearling Rose Grey Class and lastly Challenger in the Juvi Rose Grey Class.

Twilight has shown in both the Indefinite Dark Class and the Silver Grey Class, depending on the show (she's shown twice in each class). Here she was in the Silver Grey Class and came in 1st place! Twilight's show record is now three 1st place ribbons and 1 third place.

Unfortunately Rose had no competition in her class. Since we've seen her take 1st of 6 before, we welcomed some competition. She received a 1st place here, giving her a show record of three 1st place ribbons and two 3rd place ribbons.

There was no female grey color championship which was very unfortuate because we had two girls in 1st place who would have been in competition for it. There has to be a total of at least 10 alpacas in a color class for there to be a color championship and there wasn't at this show.

Challenger showed in a tough class with five other grey juvenile boys. He came in a close 2nd place. This gives Challenger a show record of one 1st place ribbon and three 2nd place ribbons.

This has been our best show season yet! We are so happy our babies are proving themselves in the show ring. It's been a rough road for us, we haven't always had such a great show season. I'll post more about that in future posts.

Boppana Won 2nd Place!

This is the first show we took ATA Peruvian Boppana to. He is almost 3 years old, so was placed in the class of Adult Fawn Males. It's fairly common for farms to show boys at the juvenile age, and the yearling age, but few show them once they hit the 2+ age (part of this is because they start breeding and can be hard to handle at shows). But since Bo had never been to a show, we really wanted to hear what the judge had to say about him. We know what we think of him, but it's nice to get further feedback.

Bo placed 2nd in his class of 4 males. We are very happy with this placing. The judge said that Bo has excellent conformation, and if anything was a bit less fine than first place.

I didn't take any pictures of Bo at this show, but I have these from on our farm:





Bo and Gabe both showed on Saturday. Sunday we will be showing: Chaska, Challenger, Rose and Twilight - a very busy day.

I did take couple pictures around our pen. Here is our hall of fame (all their ribbons)



At this show they lay sod down for the stalls which is really nice. Here is Gabe snacking on some:

Gabe Won Color Champion!!!

Gabe showed this morning in his class of juvenile true black males. There were six in his class. We had heard that one of the boys in his class won 1st and Reserve Color Champion at the Indiana Show (the show I have said I believe has the most fierce competition). We were beyond thrilled for Gabe to take 1st in this class!! That boy who had won 1st and Color Reserve at Indiana came in second place here. The judge stated that their fiber is very similar, the only difference was that Gabe was stronger on his front and rear legs (but also stated that these are very young growing boys and that could change at any time).

After all the black and bay black classes showed, then the 1st place of each class goes into the color championship. Since Gabe was first in his class he was in the competition. There was some very stiff competition, one of the males in this group had won Reserve Color Champion at the AOBA National Show last year. Gabe beat them all!! He won Color Champion!!!

This is the first Color Champion that we have won on our farm. Our own OHVNA Pocahontas won color reserve, and that was a high honor, but this is an even bigger step for us.

After the Color Champion is chosen, then the ones who had won 1st in their class and the 2nd place for the class who won Color Champion compete for the Reserve Color Champion. The 2nd place from Gabe's class won Reserve. That's fairly rare for them to pick from the 2nd place, usually they like to award it to a 1st place from another class, but in this case both these boys were so good they were the top of the black color group.

Here are his ribbons ~ 2nd place from the Wisconsin show and 1st + Color Champion from this show (red is second place, blue is first place and purple is Color):

Michigan!

This weekend we are attending the Michigan Alpaca Breeders Show and Fiber Fair in Davisburg, Michigan. In years past we've sent a couple of our animals to this show, but we have never attended.

We mixed up our show string a bit for this show. For one, we've added Gabe to our list of animals to take. We also decided to get Boppana to a show, since he has never gone.

Our show string for this show:

Smokey's Twilight
Enlightenment's Rocky Rose
Gabriel Star of RobAsia
OHVNA The Challenger
OHVNA Chaska
ATA Peruvian Boppana

It's been a very busy week on our farm between getting home from the show in Wisconsin in the early hours of Monday morning, to leaving for another show on Friday morning. Two weekends in a row really is a bit much. But, this is our last show for this spring season. It's always sad to see show season come to an end.

memory lane

This past weekend we attended an alpaca show in Madison, Wisconsin. As a child, I lived in Madison for most of my grade school days (1st grade through 5th grade). I have very fond memories of living there. Since we were in town anyway, I couldn't help but check out the house we lived in back then:



While I realize this might seem a little too quaint for some, the truth is that when we lived there my father was pastor of the church, that was next door to our house:



It was very fun to take a trip back in time. I don't think I've seen this house or neighborhood since we moved away in 1984. The interesting part is that the main road leading up to the street we lived on, has been completely updated. Not only was the road redone but the stores and businesses all looked almost brand new. Once we turned down the street I lived on, it was like a trip back in time. The houses looked like they did back when I lived there (J's statement was that it was like going back to the 80's with the colors of the houses and older looking houses). There were only a couple houses on the entire street that looked like they had been updated. Now I realize the house I lived in was brick, so there wasn't much they could do to it. I did notice a fence around the backyard, but otherwise, it looked the same. What I did find intersting is that I thought this was a long street, and really it isn't (or maybe it's the fact I now live in the coutry and have seen what long country roads are like). It was less than a mile long, which to a kid might seem long, it's not.

It's been neat to reaffirm my childhood vision that this was a nice town. Sometimes it's hard to know how our memories stack up to reality.

1st Place Girls

Enlightenment's Rocky Rose had a birthday recently, which means she is now 1 years old, and showed in the yearling grey class. I worried a bit that being the youngest in her class would hurt her in the showing. There can be disadvantages to being the youngest. One disadvantage can be being the smallest, which I knew wouldn't be an issue for Rose since she's a good size girl. But I did know that while Rose was shorn last year, she was shorn a bit earlier than we would prefer (we did not have her at that time, so it was not our choice to shear her at that point). This means she has a bit of tui tips yet, whereas the older girls in her group would not. Those tui tips can affect the organization of the fiber.

As you can see I spend way too much time worrying about the possible disadvantages our alpacas will have in the ring, because there was no disadvantage to Rose, she got 1st place!

The judges words were that her handle is "exquisite!" Handle refers to how the fiber feels. Our breeding goal is to produce alpacas with an incredible handle. That is what feels good when made into yarn, and that is what we believe is the future of the industry - a good usable product. We want to be known as having animals who's fiber has an incredible exquisite handle.

Lately Rose has been acting silly when I pull out the camera so I don't have any good recent pictures of her.

At this show Twilight was placed by the judges in the Indefinite Dark Class, which was combined with the multis. Every show she's been in a different class, which is one frustrating thing about her color, it's in between and not clear cut what it is. I believe she is a dark silver grey, with a bit less grey than would be preferred. Some say once she's shorn she may have more grey, but we were told that with Pocahontas and that didn't happen for her, so I'm skeptical.

Twilight was one of two in her class, a very small class. We just assumed Twilight would receive a 2nd place. When we caught a glimpse of the competition, she was almost all white. The owner had tried to get her placed in the white class. He felt she could hold her own in white (well known to be the toughest class there is). This animal had also represented her sire in Get of Sire where they took 1st place! We just figured the judge would put Twilight in second place and say that the other alpaca was finer (it's well known that lighter colors are typically more fine). We were shocked to see Twilight placed in 1st!!!! (the owner of the competition was too). The judge said Twilight was finer (just goes to show you can't assume things).

My beauty at our farm:



At the show:

2nd Place Boys

Our new boy, Gabriel Star of RobAsia, showed in the first class of the show: juvenile true black males. His class was broken into two sections. The alpacas enter the ring, oldest first. When they split a class, the older half show in the first section, the younger half in the second section. I believe there were 10 in his section (there were two sections of 10, so 20 total). We were thrilled to have Gabe take 2nd place!!!

Gabe at our farm:



Gabe at the show:



Gabe's ribbon:



Our own OHVNA The Challenger was in a class of 7 juvenile rose grey males. He took 2nd place in this class!!!! I mentioned in a previous post that the male who beat Challenger was technically a silver grey (the owner had told me he thought so, and I could hear the judge tell the owner that the alpaca was really silver grey, not rose grey. The judge did not kick this alpaca out of the class, but could have done so. She didn't say why she didn't kick him out, but it may have been because the silver grey class had already shown). Really, had that alpaca shown in the correct class, Challenger would have received 1st place!

Challenger at the show:



Challenger at our farm:



We were so incredibly busy at the end of the show with our three grey alpacas, that I didn't have time to get pictures of their ribbons. At one point I was in one ring showing Challenger, while J was in the other ring with Rose. Then we both had to go back in for the color championship (me with Challenger and J with Rose), at the same time Twilight was on deck to show in the next class - crazy busy!!! Every show we've been to this spring has been crazy busy like that. J teases me that he doesn't want any more grey alpacas. He doesn't like that they show at the end of the shows, meaning we stay busy to the very end. While we are winning in the ring, many other farms are packing up or have already left. There are few there to see our accomplishments. And, we don't have many alpacas in other colors, making the start of the show rather slow. The reality is that we breed for all colors, so every year, depending on what color cria we have born, it will alter our show experience. We love our greys so we'll take the hectic ending to the show, especially when they do as well as they have been.

Unfortunately at this show they do not take official show pictures for 1st and 2nd place like they do at the other shows we attend (here they only do those pictures for Color Champion and Reserve Color Champion). Had they done pictures for 1st and 2nd, we'd have 4 official show pictures from this show! That's a record for us.

The Pairs

Our show results came in pairs. There were our two girls who each came in 1st in their class. Then our two boys who came in 2nd in their classes. Then there was our 4th place pair, Ginger and Chaska, who each came in fourth in their classes.

I don't have the show book in front of me, but I believe there were 11 fawn juvenile females in Ginger's class. We were worried how she would do, given such a big class. At the last show one of the judges told us that the fawns at that show had better fiber than the whites. Whites have been well known to be superior, this is a signficant shift in the industry (though at this point I don't know if it was just true of that specific show, but I believe it's a trend as farms work to improve the fiber of the various colors). Ginger had the disadvantage of being the youngest in her class. She also had all her cria tui tips, she has never been shorn. It's harder for the fiber to organize itself when those tui tips are still on there (which is why we typically shear our cria, but she was born so late in the season we left her's on for warmth).

We were very proud for her to take a 4th in that class! I know it's not a 1st or 2nd, but we know not every animal is the quality to take that high of a placing. The big thing is to figure out their weaknesses, and make sure you address that with every breeding decision so that next generation doesn't have the same issue.

Here is Ginger at the show:



Here is Ginger's ribbon:




Chaska was in a smaller class, I believe a class of 6, where he recieved 4th place. Chaska has been a very hard one for us to evaluated. He has a different sort of fiber, with a very bold crimp. I like it, but I don't know how to compare it to others. At that last show we were told he is not as fine as the ones who placed higher. At this show we were told he wasn't as fine or as dense. We have been evaluting our program because we fear the hay we used this past year was higher in protein and may have caused our animals to be less fine. In years past we never had comments that our animals lacked fineness, now this year we have heard that. We will continue to evaluate this to make sure we aren't causing a problem.

Here is Chaska at the show:



Chaska's ribbons (from this show and his last show):

Our best show yet!

This weekend we attended The Great Midwest Alpaca Festival. This is the 9th year that this show has taken place, our second year attending it. We enjoyed it so much last year we wanted to come back.

We are thrilled to say that our animals did incredible at this show!!!

Our girls rule! Rose was in a class of 7 yearling grey females where she came out in 1st place!! The judge stated that her handle is "exquisite". Twilight was shown in the indefinite and mixed class at this show. She received 1st!!!

Our new male, Gabe, received a 2nd place in a very tough and large class of juvenile black boys. Our male Challenger received 2nd place in a very tough class of rose grey juvenile males. He was beat by a male from Hiben Hollow Alpacas, LLC, an established farm who has an incredible grey program (I will also note the male from Hiben Hollow is really a silver grey male, but was placed by color check in the rose grey class where even the judge stated he technically did not belong - so really Challenger was the 1st of the rose greys there).

I'll post more about the show, including some pictures, when I have time tomorrow. We got home at 12:30 a.m. and I have a ton of stuff to get done today. I only did this quick post because I couldn't wait to brag :)

A special thanks to Valerie and Dave who took care of our farm in our absence. They did a fantastic job, the animals seem happy and well cared for.