CCNF at the 2024 AOA National Fleece Show: Elixir’s Posthumous Roadshow

Jennifer, the sole driver behind our fleece show entries, decided, on a relative whim, that she would, on second thought, enter 39 fleeces into the primary fleece show at Nationals, after all. After the events of the prior 18 months (you can read about those just by scrolling down elsewhere here at CCNF Chronicles), and with little left to prove — the farm had won 11 consecutive AOA Heirloom Fleece Cups as of 2023 — we had discussed the very real possibility of just sitting out this year’s National Fleece Show altogether. The major weakness in that plan, though, is that, as always happens during our shearing days, my resident fleece nerd tends to get psyched up all over again. If we’ve done our jobs right, our annual shearing days always serve as kind of the ‘big reveal’ of the previous years’ breeding strategies. It’s frankly an occupational hazard. On the face of it, 39 is a large number of fleeces that needed to be skirted and properly presented, though it pales to the 60+ that my better half has sometimes entered in years past. It might not look like it, but this was actually my wife showing self-restraint.

An underappreciated variable — by the outside world at least — leading into all of this is that the straw we had been predominantly bedding on over the past year had been of very high quality: long, clean, and without too many seed heads. The indoor pens of our three barns are bedded down thickly with that straw for easily 10.5 months of the year, with the pens getting stripped out — and later power-washed and disinfected — and left to their bare stall mats only in the month or so leading into shearing. Great straw = cleaner animals and fleeces, which translates in very real terms to it being much less labor-intensive to skirt and prepare any of those fleeces for show. The quick and easy litmus test for this reality was that when we would all (Ian, Jen, and, for a short while longer, Max) gather again down at our house at the end of the day, my beloved almost always seemed to be in significantly better cheer than I’ve often found her while in the depths of her fleece show preparation in years past. There were definitely years where it was a real slog. As the member of our team whose only real direct contribution to this process was dropping the Mongo-sized boxes off at FedEx for shipping out to the show, I can attest that they also anecdotally filled and shipped much quicker than in some other recent times when our straw was, well, just simply rather awful. The point is that while Jen brings real knowledge and expertise to the understanding of alpaca fiber, both generally as a commercial product of our breeding program, as well as the actual show fleece-prep game, the time she spent per fleece was decidedly less (and less taxing) because of the condition those fleeces were in to begin with and the resulting general ease of the prep itself. Good alpaca husbandry can have multiple downstream effects that extend well past just the appearance and health of your animals and your farm/ranch in general. I will grant that we have purchased our straw from the same farm for 10+ years, and the simple reality is that because of the variances in drought and growth seasons, some years are better than others — welcome to agriculture! — but how one beds and keeps your alpacas is definitely something to keep front of mind.

So, what were some quick takeaways from our results at Nationals this time around? While he may no longer be with us, the genetics of CCNF Elixir and his descendants are undeniable. We miss him terribly, but his kids and grandkids just flat-out make us happy. It’s dopey, I know, but it also happens to be true. All 12 banners won by animals at Nationals that were born here and from our breeding program (more on the nuance of that wording four paragraphs down) share Elixir as a sire, grandsire, or great grandsire.

Among those results were three animals that could easily get lost in the bright lights of their more heralded peers but are worthy of their accolades. First, there is CCNF Bellieveitornot (CCNF Bellinda x CCNF Reign Dancer), the young Champion Brown Huacaya Male, who made his halter show debut this past spring as the fine, bright, dense, and uniform harbinger of good things to come from his previously unheralded sire.

Secondly is CCNF Prince of Wales (CCNF Elizabeth x CCNF Bataclan), who had suffered some in his public profile by coming of age last year next to his cousin, all-worlder CCNF Camden (whose midwinter fiber break kept him and his fleece out of show action this year). Prince of Wales came good at Nationals, though, by winning the Reserve Champion White Huacaya Male! PoW also happens to be the younger maternal brother of previous AOA National Fleece Show Judge’s Choice Huacaya Male, CCNF Snow King. As the slightly snarky refrain from the oft-repeated English football song goes, “…I just don’t think you understand…”

Lastly, I need to highlight another of our young future Herdsires, CCNF Mjolnir (CCNF Electra x CCNF Idris). There is a running, off-color joke around these parts about the strong possibilities of putting Championship pedigrees together — the more banners between the two animals, the better — and having the resulting offspring just be an absolute, total, complete, and undeniable flop. The harder they come, the harder they fall? It happens. In fact, if you are a breeder and it hasn’t happened to you yet, it will. Try harder! But I digress. Happily, Idris (one of the few animals here with multiple Championship banners from the Futurity) and Electra (more on her and her family below) hit just fine, thank you very much. Had yours truly begun inappropriately picking out prospective future breeding matches for Mjolnir while he was still nursing off of his mom in the fall of 2023? I might have. He is all kinds of special, though. That the young guy slummed at Fleece Nationals this year by merely winning his juvenile class with a score of 89.0, gives one some idea of why we might be anticipating a big future for the little man!

Our clients had a stellar show, too, with a trio of young females from our program. CCNF Alarra, a brown Bataclan daughter who was shorn here in April and then went on to be the high-selling female at the Parade of Champions auction the following month for us, had her fleece entered at Nationals by her new owner, Nancy Chapel of Alpaca Country Estates in Oregon, and won Champion Brown Huacaya Female (note: as much as we adore Alarra, as we did not enter her fleece, she will not appear in the listings below)! At the lighter end of the color spectrum, two other Bataclan daughters, CCNF Abigail and CCNF Eliora, though they were entirely ours at the time of our entries (and the fleeces were prepared here by you-know-who), by the time the show concluded and the judges were offering their awards presentations at Nationals in Kentucky, they belonged to Phillip and Lena Galing of Leppencott Alpacas in Pennsylvania! Abby (who is named in honor of Archangel’s dam, her 2x great-grandam) and Eliora (who is the full baby sister of previous AOA National JC winner, the aforementioned CCNF Electra) combined for nothing less than the Light Female Huacaya Championship and Reserve Championship, as well as the Judge’s Choice Huacaya Female for Abigail!

Huge congratulations to all of those new owners! As I’ve stated elsewhere before, while show results are not everything (you can click here for a bit of my tiresome soapboxing on that very subject using dear Reign Dancer as an example), it is nonetheless always exceedingly gratifying to see our customers have success in that realm with our genetics. Regardless, the historical record and show results of the past 20+ years for both us and our extended client family stand on their own. Consistent quality and advancement in production year after year tell their own story if you are open to it. We press on. See you all out there!

2024 AOA National Fleece Show, Burlington, KY – CCNF Championships, 1st Place Winners, & Specialty Awards

Cas-Cad-Nac Farm LLC – 2024 AOA Heirloom Breeder Cup, Huacaya Fleece

CCNF Abigail (CCNF Lyrica x CCNF Bataclan) – Judges’ Choice Huacaya Female

CCNF Dreadnought’s Andromeda (CCNF Aurora x CCNF Dreadnought) – Spirit of the Fiber Industry Award, Huacaya Female

CCNF Abigail (CCNF Lyrica x CCNF Bataclan) – Best Crimp, Huacaya Female

CCNF Saturn (CCNF Sapphire x CCNF Bataclan) – Best Brightness, Huacaya Male

CCNF Bataclan (CCNF Daliance x CCNF Elixir) – 1st Place, Huacaya Get of Sire (CCNF Abigail, CCNF Groove Is In The Heart, CCNF Saturn)

CCNF Amalthea (CCNF Capella x CCNF Elixir) – 1st Place, Huacaya Produce of Dam (CCNF Amadea, CCNF Amador)

CCNF Bellieveitornot (CCNF Bellinda x CCNF Reign Dancer) – Champion Brown Huacaya Male

CCNF Antigone (CCNF Dreadnought’s Andromeda x Irish Meadow’s Elite Max) – Champion Fawn Huacaya Female

CCNF Abigail (CCNF Lyrica x CCNF Bataclan) – Champion Light Huacaya Female

CCNF Val-Alpine (CCNF Nymeria x Red Granite’s Val D Lsere) – Champion Indefinite Huacaya

CCNF Cosette (CCNF Nikita x CCNF Reign Maker) – Reserve Champion Brown Huacaya Female

CCNF Neytiri (CCNF Luna Majesty x CCNF Elixir) – Reserve Champion Fawn Huacaya Female

CCNF Amador (CCNF Amalthea x Irish Meadow’s Elite Max) – Reserve Champion Light Huacaya Male

CCNF Eliora (CCNF Elicia x CCNF Bataclan) – Reserve Champion Light Huacaya Female

CCNF Groove Is In The Heart (CCNF Gimlet x CCNF Bataclan) – Reserve Champion White Huacaya Female

CCNF Prince of Wales (CCNF Elizabeth x CCNF Bataclan) – Reserve Champion White Huacaya Male

CCNF Bellieveitornot (CCNF Bellinda x CCNF Reign Dancer) – 1st Place, Huacaya Brown Male Juveniles

CCNF Reign Dancer (TGF Let Freedom Reign x CCNF Sovereign-Legacy) – 1st Place, Huacaya Brown Male Adults

CCNF Cosette (CCNF Nikita x CCNF Reign Maker) – 1st Place, Huacaya Light Brown Female Adults

CCNF Marais (CCNF Margaux x CCNF Bataclan) – 1st Place, Huacaya Dark Fawn Female Yearlings

CCNF Rhaeynera (CCNF Lyanna x CCNF Bataclan) – 1st Place, Huacaya Dark Fawn Female Yearlings

CCNF Amaury (CCNF Amelie x CCNF Irish Meadow’s Elite Max) – 1st Place, Huacaya Fawn Male Juveniles

CCNF Neytiri (CCNF Luna Majesty x CCNF Elixir) – 1st Place, Huacaya Fawn Female Juveniles

CCNF Antigone (CCNF Dreadnought’s Andromeda x Irish Meadow’s Elite Max) – 1st Place, Huacaya Fawn Female Two-Year-Olds

CCNF Dreadnaught’s Andromeda (CCNF Aurora x CCNF Dreadnought) – 1st Place, Huacaya Fawn Female Mature

CCNF Abigail (CCNF Lyrica x CCNF Bataclan) – 1st Place, Huacaya Light Female Juveniles

CCNF Amador (CCNF Amalthea x Irish Meadow’s Elite Max) – 1st Place, Huacaya Light Male Yearlings

CCNF Amadea (CCNF Amalthea x Irish Meadow’s Elite Max) – 1st Place, Huacaya Light Female Adults

CCNF Mjolnir (CCNF Electra x CCNF Idris) – 1st Place, Huacaya White Male Juveniles

CCNF Oriflamme’s Polly (CCNF Oriflamme x CCNF Snow King) – 1st Place, Huacaya White Female Juveniles

CCNF Groove Is In The Heart (CCNF Gimlet x CCNF Bataclan) – 1st Place, Huacaya White Female Juveniles

CCNF Prince of Wales (CCNF Elizabeth x CCNF Bataclan) – 1st Place, Huacaya White Male Yealings

CCNF Snow King (CCNF Elizabeth x MFI & KVR’s Mint Mo Money) – 1st Place, Huacaya White Male Mature

CCNF Val-Alpine (CCNF Nymeria x Red Granite’s Val D Lsere) – 1st Place, Huacaya Indefinite Two-Year-Olds

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