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!

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!