Introductions

Right I am at a bit of a loss. I have been at work for the past 5 days and have 2 more to go before having the Easter weekend off. It is raining, it is soggy, the alpacas are soaked and I have no real alpaca news. No reports of cria (which is good news as it's tooooooo early) so I thought I would use this 'down' time to introduce the world to members of the herd.

I have decided that I will start at the top with an introduction to our oldest alpaca (13yrs this year),one of our favourites, Dee (full name Indira of Cambridge). She is also the only imported alpaca we have here having been imported from Chile in 2005.

Dee came here at the beginning of 2007 and was here for us to sell on behalf of EP Cambridge. She immediately stuck out from the herd as an individual. If the herd were moving one way and she wasn't ready she would just stay where she was. She was also the calmest alpaca we had seen. She was pregnant to Killawasi's Dream and in the summer of 2007 she produced a beautiful cria, Fifi. Fifi inherited her mother's calm nature and good looks. We couldn't bear to sell them so we bought them. Well we just had to! We couldn't help it.

Dee looking lovely in the sunshine. She really is an individual and will quite often be in the shed on her own when the rest of the herd are out standing in the pouring rain, she is a bit more switched on than the rest.

Fifi (pictured above as a cria) has also become a firm favourite here and is as friendly as her mother. She is one of the alpacas that I want our new alpacas to look like. She has a very compact and heavy frame, masses of fleece and a beautiful head. Fifi is pregnant for the first time having had a liaison with the mighty Jack of Spades and is due to give birth on my birthday in June. This birth is one that we are very eager to see. We hope that Jack and Fifi will produce a lovely dark brown or black female cria. Fifi will come up with the goods I just know it!

Dee was covered by the magnificently brutal ACC Killawasi and in 2008 she produced Barney, a very handsome young male with a cracking fleece. Barney also had a heavy frame and great coverage. He was right on the cusp of being stud material, and we did think long and hard but eventually the decision was made to sell him as a pet male and he went to live in Hampshire with three chums where he is doing very well. The picture below is of Dee and Barney who were lying next to me in the field. Marvellous.

Dee is also pregnant to Jack of Spades and is due to give birth at the beginning of May. She obviously has a strong colour gene as she has produced cria the same colour as herself when mated to white. What she will produce when mated to black should be right up our street, got to be brown hasn't it?

Next time we move on to one of our foundation girls, Bannock.

Sorry, bit of a boring post but as I have said, no news and the day job has sucked all the humour out of me, make it go away someone!