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: