I think my husband forgot to mention...

This weekend was certainly one of the most exciting, interesting, and educating weekends we, as a family, have ever had, but I think my husband forgot to mention that in everything we had learned up to the show that we were never made aware of the fact that you can indeed give an alpaca the "heimlich maneuver"...and we did have to.

The morning of showing our boys, Alexander decides (as usual) to go crazy eating the grain. Apparently, he ate too much too fast and choked on it...literally. As we were sitting there beside the stall, Ashley lets us know that Alexander is foaming, so we look over our shoulders at him and see a little white foam starting to come out of his mouth and we are just assuming that he might be a little stressed. It happens sometimes. Before you know it, the foam is turning brown...never seen this before.

We are just looking at each other and back to Alexander, and luckily, the gentleman in the stall across from us, says "You know he's choking, right?" Immediate action begins now as the dumbfounded look on our faces tell him that, no we didn't know, and nor do we know how to rectify the situation. He jumps up and comes running into our stall and between him and Mike, they manage to work the grain out of Alexander's throat onto Oddyssey's head and back. Then he lets us know that we should give him a shot so that he calms down, he was generous enough to give us the medication and reassure us that our alpaca that was falling down drunk now would only be doing that for short period of time (he was right, but us noobies freak out at everything).

I would say the worst part of this, other than Alexander choking of course, was that he had to do it about 45 minutes before he went into the ring. I have always said he eats like a pig!

Did anyone order an alpaca flip?

Well it's all over but the crying. We came, we saw but we failed to place. Our boys are all white, which is a very very tough class to be in. We had over 60 alpacas in that class alone. Though we didn't win anything our spirits are not broken but we do have to decide how to move forward from here.

There are the pending questions of shows, processing fleece for shows, or processing fleece for product/money. The more distant future will have us doing more shows for sure as we feel all of our animals should improve over the next year or we are hoping so. If we had fleece issues I think we'd be a bit less hopeful but as luck would have it we have certain issue areas with each that can improve over the next year of growth. Our oldest boy is a bit off in conformation and though he got a 2nd look but the judge, when she viewed his profile again, she then moved on. Our middle boy has a great blanket, but he is very undersized for his age. Both of these issues may be fixed as the boys age and grow. The youngest boy, who also got a great comment from the judge on the softness of his fleece, is lacking density. This is the least likely one to be fixed over time but I have heard of changes over age and after shearing so we are hopeful on him as well.

My wife and I will be sitting down to decide on our short term direction and then working to implement that plan. I think she prefers to show them at nationals, but I'm more of the opinion of shearing them and trying to show the blankets. The later one is great because you get back hard numbers on the qualities of the alpaca’s fur.

Oh and before I forget, my title is not without substance... We have 3 very well behaved boys. They are normally very easy to walk to get to stand and just about anything else. I do want to say that Alexander and Ashley were a dream out there. He was very well behaved and we could not have asked for much more out of him as far as how he handled the show. Ashley seemed to be able to do what was needed without any issues. The other 2 boys, well that is an alpaca of a different color. Both Odyssey and Coronado were a bit harder to handle once they were split up from each other. Neither of the younger 2 alpacas seemed to handle being around other alpacas very well. Odyssey is very small and always seems a bit off when around alpacas he does not know and it showed. Alli struggled with him a lot though it was nothing she was doing. In the end, she did a good job of getting him up at the right time and showing the teeth as she was to do. She handled it very well and will do well in shows in the future. Coronado was the most interesting though I guess we probably should have seen this coming. He has always been the follower. Though he loves Haleigh, once split from the other two his normally cooperative self changed into the little alpaca that couldn't. Though it was very hard on Haleigh, she kept things together enough to let the judge get a good look at him and did what she needed to do. As noted by the title our show ended on an odd note as Coronado did a forward roll almost out of the ring. It was funny but a frustrating end for both Haleigh and our farm. Luckily for us, we have learned many thing we need to work on and will strive to have a better showing our next opportunity.

The day is finally here!

Well we had another long day yesterday. Though we did not show a single animal, we spent lots of time watching our friends in various events. We also went to all the shops and stalls to meet people and learn more about the industry. It's obvious that there is lots we just do not know.

The alpacas are odd in that we had to spend some time yesterday cleaning them up just a bit. Mainly just removing droppings that are not supposed to be on them. They keep laying right in the stuff they put on the floor making us do that over and over again. I'd think they would quit doing that since they hate getting cleaned off.

Well we are all a bit tired, but ready for today. Wish us luck in our first showing! Oh, we did catch a huge break, none of our boys are in the same groupings so they do not have to immediately compete against eachother. In the even that we get any 1st or 2nds then we have a chance they could meet up in the color champion round.

Off to the show!

When is a vacation day not a vacation?

Well the day has finally arrived. We are now officially checked in to the Fort Wayne Alapaca show for this weekend. We learned much about what you get, need to take and so on. It was a very long day but well worth it and overall a good experience.

We have purchased fans, which I still do not quit understand why only the huacaya need it but we have them now. Just a heads up to any other Noobs out there, you should make sure you have an extention cord. My 12 foot actually worked out just fine though I had several other size I could have taken. You may want various additional parts like the ability to split the power 3 ways.

After much review all of our boys did come back in the white class... ...I'm not sure if this is good or bad really. On the bad side we have 3 males, all juvi males, so they could all end up against each other. We had some people give us opinions of the boys and really in the end I am very happy with the outcome of that. I have always been a bit worried about Coronado due to not having a lot of noticable crimp as well as lacking bundling, but I was told that we will not know for sure until after his first cut. Of the 3, he was said to have the finest hair. Odyssey has been given many thumbs up because he has crimp like no ones business and he has lots of luster on his fur. He is fairly dense, but pails in comparison to Alexander. In the end Alexander and Oddysey have a better chance of placing this time around based on the opinions we have got but all 3 boys look to have a fair enough future in front of them.

In the end, I'm overall excited for the weekend no matter the outcome. We will be learning and positioning for the future. I hope we can walk away with a few notches under the belt on understanding shows, alpacas, judging, competition, etc... Wish us luck and more importantly, fun!

1 Week!

Well we have 1 week left before the Fort Wayne show. It is going to be interesting. I sure hope we have 1 that places in something! I'm really interested to see if they stay in the color selections we sent them in as because to me they all look white. We did the forms based on the ARI color.

All of our boys are ready to go for the show. Well, considering we did not attempt the skilled/showmanship events. We are really hoping to show for the quality of the animals, not really try the tricks, jumping and other things like that.

We had a last minute scare with paperwork on one of the boys and I want to think Roxanne, owner of Lands End for helping us try to get the information we needed together. I also want to thank Bret and Erica at WRF for the care they have given our animals and making sure we have what we need for the upcoming show.

Wish us luck!

We are official!

Lots of things occurred this past weekend.

First, we are an official AOBA member farm now. "Shadyside Alpaca Farm" is the official name of our farm. The farm name comes from the name the farm has had since it was started by my wifes family over 120 years ago. Well without the alpaca part anyway. We are happy to be continuing in the tradition of keeping live stock as well as using the farms name.

Secondly, the boys are officially registered into the Fort Wayne show next month. This was a joy, not really, but it had to be done. A special note for those of you who might be new or do not pay attention, you can save a little money by getting in early! Anway, we have all the paper work done and the money sent for the show. Now only time will tell how things will go.

Last night was just another night of training but it was a good one. I took the 3 girls up and we are now constantly taking time to walk the alpacas, put them in lines, stand them side by side, showing teeth and playing judge each time we go. It really is amazing just how smart they are.

A special note to Roxanne, the boys are all doing GREAT! Coronado is probably the second best at dealing with everything now. Alexander is still the best but actually does not take the "judging" things as well as Coronado. Oddyssey is hit or miss and decides what he wants to do and how easily he wants to do it. However, considering that they are not supposed to be "pets" they are all pretty easy to deal with as things could be going.

Well, I have to get the new pics up on here, but that is for another time.

Learning to Lead

We have gotten our routine down to a pattern now of when we can go to visit our precious little boys so that the training can really get underway. We go every weekend and twice during the week. As Mike had said earlier, the training for Alexander is pretty non-required, it is more for getting Ashley used to what will be required of her in the show ring and how she needs to control the animal rather than vice versa. That is something that all three of the girls are working on right now...learning how to take the lead.

Oddyssey is a lot like Alexander in that Alli can walk up to him and put his halter on by herself and start working with him, leading him, trying to get him to take her directions, but every now and then you just see the ornery in his eye and he decides to take her for a run...we can't help but laugh.

Coronado, for never having been away from his momma until we brought him home with us is proving to be a wonderful spirit. Haleigh still needs help with getting him haltered but once we have the gear on him, she can lead him where she wants him to go.

The girls and boys are making a fantastic effort at learning something new. It is really fun to watch and help. I think we would all agree that the most rewarding part is that all three of the boys now trust us enough to come up and eat grain directly out of our hands.