British Alpaca Futurity Show Team

Hurrah, Chas appears to have finally chosen the show team. We have been severely hampered by the weather as it never seemed to stop raining. But after several dry days we can finally get a proper look at the fleeces and make a judgement. It is no fun looking at sopping wet animals so an absolute pleasure to see them all fluffed up and beautiful. We had to get the dagging shears out as several couldn’t really see out, makes halter training a bit tough if they can’t see where they are going. Anyway they are the best we’ve got for the show ring so we’ll have to see what the judge thinks and how they compare to everybody else’s animals. Showing is fun, well the gossip is really the fun bit, and it is good to have a look at the winning animals and see how ours compare. But the point really is to slowly raise the standard of your herd overall and see more and more lovely fleeces coming off at shearing. Some alpaca fleeces don’t show that well at shows but are fabulous for processing, it is the fabulous for processing that we are really after.

We have had to order a second batch of the new book ‘The Art and Science of Alpaca Judging’ as lots of people have bought it. They are right, it is a great book, I need to memorise it! Not sure I’m capable of this at my great age with my shrinking brain.

Yesterday I took my little boys in the show team for their first walk, just up and down the line of pens in the barn. It means they are always walking towards a pen of alpacas. One of them is very wacky and extremely good at walking on two legs and then making a giant leap. I don’t care as long as they move as he will realise walking rather than leaping is a better option eventually. The worst is a sitter, have to get out the very long lead so I am miles away in the hope that he will stand, he didn’t.