No News is Good News

  Posted on 06/07/2018  by Barbara  No comments

My apologies about the lack of news about Little E. Whilst the title of the blog might be a little optimistic (she isn’t quite fit as a fiddle just yet) she is however making progress. Her weight was 14.25 kilos this morning, and we are struggling to catch her to give her a bottle, such is her speed. We had hoped that by leaving her to suckle from mum, this would bring Elvira back in to full milk, and whilst this has worked to some extent, she just doesn’t drink enough to keep her weigh up. She is, at least, taking 250 mls each bottle feed.

We have had only two cria born since my last blog. Two boys, making it four up for the males with ten still to birth. Although I love them all equally (as is only right and proper) I always have some favourites. In some cases it is their character and with others its is their fleece, but Beck Brow High Jinx was top of both groups.

I say was, maybe she still is. She does however have some serious competition in the fleece stakes. Ep Cambridge Courtesse (a Comissario daughter) has had a Beck Brow First Edition son on Wednesday, who appears to be exceptional. I can’t do him justice with a photo. His fleece is so fine and dense, it is organised into the tiniest staples absolutely everywhere (including his head and tail) and so bright (yep I quite like this boy). We have named him Beck Brow A-Lister (lets hope he can live up to the grade – or will he be destined for reality TV )

Of course I am biased. We are all biased about our alpacas. However, yesterday had the pleasure of having Prue and Ada visit from Millduck Alpacas in Australia. We enjoyed their company, and admired their beautiful alpacas, whilst visiting the AAA National Show last year. We had such a lovely time going through our fleeces and assessing the cria together. We independently agreed on the top three (at present). The third to join A-Lister and High Jinx is Little E.

 

 

Another cria that Prue picked out as being particularly special, was that of Inca Havannah’s (sire Gilt Edge Samurai of Beck Brow). A lovely brown female with great density. The type of cria that insists that you repeat the pairing of dam and sire, whatever your previous plans were before the birth. I had actually had her down for Beck Brow On The Money but this was changed. Who wouldn’t want a duplicate of this lovely female?…Paul it would seem! You may recall Paul mated Havannah with Black Sabbath (the instruction was to mate Chaska with Black Sabbath not Havannah)…well today was pregnancy spit-off… all I need to say is that Paul has decided that he id desperately in need of a hair cut. He never goes for a hair cut without being nagged to do so…maybe she will have another stunner anyway, but there is a lot of suffering to be done in between:))

In truth, we are so far, having a lovely year on the cria front. Some of the tried and tested pairings just keep giving excellent results. It might seem boring to keep getting duplicates, but we are happy to say Beck Brow Encore is looking increasing like being a carbon copy of his full siblings, especially Beck Brow First Edition. Photo at top of blog.

Some of the rest of the cria. Click on photos to enlarge:

Must go. Our evening stud service slot is arriving soon (18.30). All stud services are being done early morning and evening at the moment, avoiding the midday sun. Not something we normally have to worry too much about. Still mustn’t complain….