A Champion Grows at Alma Park

Thor - Fleece at 5 months

Ever since we first looked at alpacas, I was drawn to the white ones. Sure, I love the colors and my patterned line of alpacas, and the beautiful yarn and roving I make from them, but I always envisioned my perfect alpaca in white!! Well, over the last few years I have produced some pretty wonderful white animals. Alma Park Mr. Frost (the subject of my latest child's storybook) is an incredible male, but we never showed him as it took 2 1/2 years to figure out who the sire was, so I was never validated. Also, since the male who turned out to be the father is not the male I chose to breed, I do not this I "grew" him. Frost is a very special male who will always have a home here at Alma Park and I do expect great things from his progeny. I will be showing his fleece at PAOBA this weekend. Another amazing male we have is Ant'ny, who took 4 out of 15 at PAOBA in 2010, however, he had a compression fracture of his leg recently and had to sit out the 2011 show season due to surgery! Ugh - I will also be showing his fleece this weekend. Again, I bought his mom pregnant, so he again was not "grown" at Alma Park. And then there was Thor. . . my choice, my female (Juliette) and my little champ!! I did not expect Thor to be a white, as his mother is a rose grey, I was hoping for grey, but I am truly happy that Thor is what he is. His mother, FMF Juliette, is a spectacular full Chilean with a remarkable handle to her fleece. His dad is a mostly Peruvian White who normally throws color and is partially Aliznza, dense with high frequency crimp and good fineness.  I was impressed with Thor from birth, he was strong, upright and very masculine and had fiber to his toes! His fiber was bright and crimpy and I had high hopes!

We have been breeding since 2002, and had no mentor, and the internet did not have the info on it that it does today. So, I started my breeding program basically by trial and error, and breeding "pretty" animals to each other. Then I got a little more savvy and since I have an engineering background decided that there had to be some science behind it. I started keeping my own set of EPDs (although that is not what I called them because I never heard that phrase until 4 years ago) on fleece characteristics (subjective), histograms (objective), conformation (somewhat subjective), and lineage including country of origin. I have done very few outside breedings over the years because I prefer to own the genes.

I always said, jokingly of course, that "I want a WHITE COLOR CHAMPION" Banner and then I can retire!! Well, this weekend we got the banner - but of course I am NOT retiring!! Now that I have one in the white category, I want MORE.

Alma Park Thor took the blue in a yearling class of 7 and then went on to get the champion banner at the New Jersey Alpaca Show and Sale, May 1st, 2011. Unlike my shock of winning Sebastian's Champion banner in 2008, I was a little more prepared and a little more confident in this one because Thor's blue ribbon was won in a larger class and Tim Lavan (who also gave Sebastian the banner), looked at 12 different spots in his fleece on his inspection. In my mind, I knew that must be good and that he was seeing just really how consistent this little guy was!!

 

Alma Park Thor at 2 weeks old

That is my second banner under Tim Lavan, and he definitely has a tell (I would love to play poker with him). When he has the banner in his hand, he looks at each animal in the line up EXCEPT the one he is going to win. He did that with Sebastian and he did that with Thor. So him stepping toward me with the purple banner, while exciting, was no shock.

Tim Lavan's comments included: solid conformation, very upright, proud stance, high frequency crimp and very consistent through the entire blanket, fine, dense and amazing brightness to his fleece. My friends told me that the crowd "wowed " when Tim opened the blanket and the comments included : "how bright" and "how white" his fleece was.

It was a good day indeed!!

Sebastian Takes Color Champion

MLS Peruvian Sebastian just joined our farm in October. I first saw him on a cold day in January 2008 and knew that he had to be part of my breeding program. He has amazing presence, fine fiber, density, crimp and coverage from head to toe. In addition to all that - he is a love bug and likes to be touched, kissed and loves to pose for pics. After finally wearing Terry and Donald (from Atlantico Ranch Alpacas) down and letting me purchase him, we took him home on October 22, so that he could breed my girls. He has been a busy boy!! We decided to take him to his first show at 4 1/2 years old to see if others thought as I did - that he was an amazing, elite male.

At lunch the first day of the show, the herdsire showcase was in the ring. Sebastian walked into the ring, ears up, proud and tall. He walked like he owned the place and seemed to know people were looking at him. When we came out of the ring, all the folks in the food court wanted to take pictures of him with their camera phones. Of course, Sebastian paused, put his ears up, and stood still until they got their fill of pics of him. I put him back in his pen and he settled in to eat some hay. More folks came by and as soon as he saw them with their cameras, he picked his head up, posed and when the flash subsided, he put his head back down into his hay bag. Many people think animals are unintelligent creatures, but he knew they were there to see him!

When we went back into the ring for the Mature Male Medium Fawn class, only 2 other males were in the ring with us. Sebastian was well over a year older than them, and in the alpaca world that is a disadvantage as breeding males fiber does not retain its fineness, UNLESS they are an elite male like Sebastian. He stood perfectly still, his lead loosely in my hand. When the judge (Tim Lavan) came to look at him, he did not move a muscle and I barely held him in the bracelet hold like Marty showed us. Tim walked away and Sebastian straightened back up and stood there like a statue.

Tim finished looking at all the males and came back to Sebastian for a second look. My heart was racing. There were many lookers on, but I only saw the folks in the crowd that were supporting Sebastian and me. Most of those folks have females bred to Sebastian, others were friends and others were boarders at my farm who came to check out the show and cheer me on. Tim motioned to me to come up to first place - I was so happy I wanted to scream, but I remained reserved and professional. I was never into the shows, and tried to avoid them, but with Sebastian at my side, it was a thrill. Tim placed the other 2 males and then gave his oral reasons. I looked into the crowd to my fans giving me the thumbs up, all smiles! Tim said that although Sebastian was well over a year older than the other males in his class his fineness of micon could not be ignored. He was the complete package along with confirmation, crimp, density and presence.

I walked out of the ring, handed the blue ribbon to someone (it is all a blur) and walked right back in to the championship round. We were now up against juveniles (under 1 year of age), yearlings and 2-3 year old males. There were 4 animals in the front row including Sebastian, one from each age category. Tim went and examined the other 3 males, came to Sebastian, looked at the fiber briefly and walked back to the front to visually inspect the 4 males. He looked at one male and then at Sebastian, the second male and then at Sebastian, the third male and then at Sebastian. He was not looking at me and Sebastian and I had no idea what he was thinking. What I was thinking was, there is NO way a 4 1/2 male could win color champion!! Tim walked to the ring steward to get the banner, looking down at the male standing furthest from us, but standing in front of me. He then walked forward and handed me the banner!!! I was like oh my goodness!!!! He placed the reserve animal (at that point I was in shock). He gave oral reasons stating the same for placing Sebastian. An animal his age with that fine micron count, density, presence and confirmation was the clear winner.

My friends in the crowd screamed, applauded, high fived each other and gave me the thumbs up. I still remained reserved but now had a big smile on my face!!!

When we came out of the ring, everyone wanted to touch his fiber and he gladly let them. People were at his pen the rest of the weekend letting them snap his picture, touch him and in between eating hay.

He came back home, settled back in with his pen mates and acts like all is ok and he is no more special than any other male he shares his space with.

So Sebastian - here is to you !!! A premier, elite male now proudly standing stud at Alma Park.