Signature range

In Debbie's alpaca blog the other day, Debbie mentioned the advantage of being able to show a buyer of alpaca products the animal that the fleece came from.

I couldn't agree more, so I thought I'd share our approach:


We've found this to be a very popular idea with customers - they just love being able to associate the product with a specific alpaca.

On the naming of Alpacas

How do you choose the names for your alpacas?

Most of the breeders we know have different naming schemes - there are a couple who simply start each year with a new letter of the alphabet, another one used the first names of members of his extended family (which is why we go to shows with a broad ribbon winner called Colin...).

We thought we were being so clever... We went for characters from Shakespeare's plays. 2007 was The Tempest (mistake number 1 - it's my favourite play and we only had one cria on the farm in our first year - Prospero), 2008 was Midsummer night's dream - Cobweb, Titania, Puck, Mustardseed, Lysander and on Christmas Eve - 'Summer's Dream'.

So, with 10 due this year and the first one on the ground it's time to choose the the play for 2009. At the moment it looks like Much ado about nothing - yesterday's fluffy little thing definitely looks like a Friar Francis (Frankie to his friends).

Which brings me to mistake number 2 - there are over 2000 names in Shakespeare, more than enough for us. Trouble is that most of them are male...

First of 2009

Well, I posted over a week ago now that we were expecting our first baby of the year any moment. It turned out that it was just one of those alpaca false alarms. We expect them, but still they catch us out. Some girls just seem to like to have a rehearsal 10 days or so before the event.

So, born at about 10:30 this morning at a chunky 8.3 kilos is the result of our little breeding experiment.

If you read the earlier blog entry you'll remember that Juno, the mum, is a pet rather than part of our breeding program. On the one hand, she's cute and affectionate, on the other, while she's classified as black under our regulations because her saddle is solid black, she has a white face and socks, odd patches of brown and even a small circle of slate-grey on her neck. The only way to get any crimp in her fleece would be to plug her into the mains. I half expected any offspring to have a hump...

So...

Some time ago we did some work for a South Australian suri breeder. Payment was a mating to one of their animals. Mundawora Zarion is a stunning alpaca. he's won a huge number of broad ribbons and the trophy cabinet is overflowing.

In for a penny, in for a pound as they say...

What we have today is positive proof that, when it comes to matings - you get what you pay for. Here we have probably one of the poorest quality females in the country, yet, to an outstanding sire, she's produced what is really a quite good, dark fawn F1 suri.

He's a great colour and is beginning to pencil nicely. Unfortunately of course, as an F1 male, he's destined to be a pet for some lucky owner, but at the moment we're more than happy with the result.

LaViande and the question of meat...

Controversial subject warning...

I wrote this last week but have been in two minds about whether or not to post it because, if there is one subject that is guaranteed to polarise alpaca farmers, it's the subject of selling our animals for slaughter.

Personally, it's not something that I can see us ever doing here at Prados.

Of course, they've been eating alpaca in South America for thousands of years but here in Australia, the sums involved are only just starting to make sense.

Females are definitely off the menu for the foreseeable future, their value alive far exceeds what they could reach for food. It's the males that are the issue. Trouble is that there is only a finite market for pets and guardians and, as the Australian herd grows into a viable industry, it's a question we have to face - only a tiny number of males produced will go on to be certified for stud work but there aren't enough yet to have a commercially viable fleece-only industry. In a commercial breeding program, what happens to the rest?

The people at LaViande are quite sure of what the answer is - commercial fleece, meat and hide as a combined industry. WARNING - Many small breeders I know find some of the images on their website, particularly those in the brochure showing cuts of meat to be uncomfortable viewing - you have been warned!

I have tried it, Steve from LaViande came to our last regional AGM and provided steaks and sausages.

Now, I'm an unapologetic carnivore and I can understand the commercial imperative that is leading our industry down this path but, I have to say, apart from the queasiness about the idea of eating animals that we are still small enough to know by name and character, I have to say that I was unimpressed - the simple fact is that, on the plate, it's quite bland. The bottom line is that there is much tastier meat available which is much cheaper to produce - currently I remain unconvinced.

My own opinion is that it will happen, it will become part of the industry. Here in Adelaide alpaca is already served at the Hilton and I know of one butcher in the hills that stocks it from time to time. But I think that there will be, at least for the foreseeable future, a split in the industry based on size of breeder. Pets and guardians sell at a higher market price per head than as food but they carry a much higher overhead to the breeder in terms of sales and after-sales support for the new owner. I think the meat industry will appeal far more to the biggest breeders who can produce larger numbers of stock animals and don't necessarily want to take the late night phone calls because little Susie's pet alpaca is off its feed. Smaller breeders who are more suited to the personal touch should then be better positioned to satisfy the needs of the lower volume market.

Hope I haven't put anyone off with this post. I know this an issue that is only really relevant in Australia at the moment as we pass the million animal count, but it will inevitably follow in other countries as well as the various national herd sizes increase.

Mad dogs and ex-pat Englishmen...

Running a small farm means that you never have nothing to do. There is never a time when there aren't several jobs that need to be attended to. Many of these are essential maintenance or are related to the care of the animals but then, in a class of its own, comes fencing...

I can't remember a time when there wasn't fencing that needed to done, nor can I imagine a time in the future when there won't be still more that needs to be done. Maybe it's one of the basic physical laws of the universe, probably something to do with quantum - most things are these days.

Anyway, this weekend saw the start of another fencing project as the advancing army of Alpacadom annexes another part of the garden. It's a sensible idea - we're going to make a small area next to the house into a hospital and show paddock. Somewhere to keep clear of debris, clover and other nasties where we can put animals that need a close eye kept on them and where we can put the show team for a week prior to a show to try to minimise the rubbish in their fleeces.

So, Saturday morning comes along and the post hole borer won't start (let this be a lesson for me about buying cheap kit from EBay - it may be a third of the price, but it's a third of the price because it's a quarter of the quality of a decent make). After an hour of mixed and creative tinkering and swearing, the inevitable defeat is conceded and it's off to the hire shop where we were introduced to the Stihl BT360 two-man earth-auger. What a monster! It takes two people to lift it, let alone use it.

Then it's time to discover another failure in planning - there's a good reason why people round here don't do much heavy work on the land during summer - we're on clay - you know what happens to clay when it gets baked...

So, after two days of (very) hard labour, we have the posts in, but no gates or fencing yet and everything aches, creaks or is sunburned. It's almost good to get back to the day job.

Weather... Again.

It's probably bad blogging form to talk about the same subject in two consecutive posts.

It's been considerably cooler today having just crept above 30 degrees - hardly news at all here, but it's still a bit on the warm side for the animals and it gives me an excuse (as if I needed one) to nip out with the camera and post some pictures...

Arequipa Colin (I will get around to doing a post about his name) making the most of the irrigation

Prados Lysander trying to ruin his fleece before show season starts

You'd think that we put the irrigation system in for their benefit! It never ceases to amaze me how much animals, whose natural home is in the high country of South America, where water is not in really that much in abundance, love the stuff.

But for some, it's all too much like hard work and the only thing to do in the heat is flop down and catch some rays...

Ambersun Iquique working on his tan

January 13th and we’re hitting 40 degrees already! I know most of the people reading this are in the UK or in the north east of the USA so would probably welcome a couple of hot days – but, believe me, I’d give a lot for a week of rain...

Looks like we’ll be supplementary feeding before long, luckily we were able to cut a lot of hay back in the spring.

Choco, one of our boys cooling down in an irrigation spray