Stud males or stud fees - discuss

Monday and Tuesday were interesting days. Oh yes very interesting for a boring old fart like me.

On Monday Angus and I were at a loose end and so accompanied the leader of the Inca Tribe to EPC headquarters. Before we left Tim cast his expert eye over the ranks of the Patou herd. He made some nice noises which was good and he summed up the new additions as I had, which means I must be learning something.

We have, from very limited resources, a show team. Cue dancing girls, fireworks and highly emotional classical music with operatic singing..............I'm thinking the Barcelona Olympics here folks, Freddie Mercury, Monserrat Caballe and a huge great orchestra comprised of musicians from around the world, sod it let's chuck in some very impressive fountain action as well.
All in my tiny head of course. Sounds great though.

Quality not quantity, maybe that should be our marketing strapline.....or whatever it is they call that sort of thing. We are looking forward to the show season kicking off with the Futurity in February. If we can afford to go that is.

We left our favourite stud male Lillyfield Jack of Spades of Inca to get acquainted with Wellground Joy and our lovely Patou Poppy. It was interesting to note that Patou Lola would have nothing to do with him and was spitting green gooh everywhere. I had never seen her spit before so she is obviously not ready yet.

Poppy, also a maiden, hit the ground with a thud at the feet of the mighty Jack and was suitably dealt with. Actually there was the sound of females hitting the deck with dull thuds all around him. He's a good looker that lad and must have a very attractive orgle. I swear I almost felt my knees start to buckle. Almost.

Anyway off to EPC headquarters where we had a wander round looking at some very impressive looking alpacas. It was only a short visit but an enjoyable and interesting one.

On arriving home we were able to have another good look at Jack. Jeepers Creepers he looks good. He was in the top paddock and the rest of the herd was out in the main field where Jake our big white whether was having a field day. The girls were all excited because Jack was in town and Jake was reaping the rewards by wandering around orgling. Cue more dull thuds as girls hit the floor around him. Poor old bugger. We think he was perhaps castrated a bit late.

A comment now on stud males and why I write about the ones we use on the blog. My chum north of the border, the laird of the Mighty Coire herd has written today on his blog about it.

We started our alpaca herd almost three years ago with the purchase of three females. We now have 14 alpacas in the Patou herd, nine of them female, two wethers and three male cria born this year. Eight of our females will have been covered this summer (plus two rent-a -wombs at our friends Liz and Peters).

We don't own a stud male but by crikey if we could afford it I would be looking extremely long and hard for two or three good ones. We can't though. We have a house in France that eats up money, a house here that does likewise and we live well. We enjoy life.

It is a struggle to meet our ever increasing stud fees budget but we are determined that unless we can buy the best stud for our girls we have to use the best we can get.
And at the moment I think we are using the best we can get, the best there is in fact.

We have been so impressed with Jack of Spades that we have 8 females pregnant to him (hopefully!), the other two for various reasons are pregnant to ATA Cambridge Centurion and Canchones Witness.

Next summer, all being well we, will have ten new Patou herd members with very good and carefully thought out pedigrees. Obviously eight of them will be ribbon winning females and the other two will be the super herdsires of the future.

Well it's what I dream about every night.

Cue very sad violin music and a man with a big red plastic hammer and a menacing grin walking up behind me.