Quelvehin Alpagas: June 2014

Oh am I a happy girl tonight ?…….., I love it when a plan comes together !!!

When our herd sire Atlas first started working, we decided to test the strength of his coloured genetics and put him over 5 solid white females with the aim of turning quality white Accoyo Peruvian/Australian genetics into quality black genetics. We were pleased with the results, all solids, 3 dark browns and 2 dark fawns, and four out of the five females. Not bad. One of which was our Hannah, dark fawn. We have been lucky enough to have Popham Daniel, another Champion Black pensioned with us for the last five years, so, of course, it was obvious where we were going next. Last year, Hannah produced a lovely Bay Black male, Kane, an exact replica of his father, Popham Daniel, in everyway, but this year we hit the jackpot with a beautiful blue black female born this morning - Meet Miss Liqourice, weighing in at 7.7 kgs.

Liqourice is our fourth cria this year and our fourth female, so really it was against the odds she would also be female, but hey, someone must be looking out for us this year.

In her pedigree we have, to name a few, Cedar House Licifer,Purrumbete Highlander, Fine Choice Peruvian Ultimo, Auzengate and Accoyo Osobali. It’s a shame we are going to have to wait another three years to find out how strong her black genetics are, but, like all breeders, I’m already thinking about where to go next. Getting pictures today wasn’t easy as the weather wasn’t good and every time I got the camera out it started to rain. Luckily Hannah is a wonderful mother and immediately takes her into the shelter. Its females like that, that make a herd what it is.

As I said, Liquorice is our fourth cria so far this year, so time for a role call. First born, was this lovely fawn girl, from Blossom, as yet unnamed as her mother was sold recently so the cria doesn’t

belong to us.

Then within 24 hours, our second, a lovely white female, from Snowdrift, sired by Popham Columbus, lovely curly fleece even at three weeks old.

Then a real surprise. A surprise for two reasons, one because we had it in our minds it wasn’t due until August (don’t ask, misread a 6 for an 8 !!) and secondly because it was a true solid white out of Bali, our dark brown female, who has always given us coloureds even when put with white sires. Sire Popham Columbus.

Lovely little girl, full of energy, also unnamed as her mother is going in the same package with Blossom.

So there we have it, another three to go, could we be lucky enough to see another girl ? who knows

Except for today, the weather here has been hot and I mean hot, working in the fields has been uncomfortable and even ironing looked more inviting. The weather coincided with a visit from my brother and sister in law and their twins, now three.