CCNF Elixir, 08/09/11 – 10/29/23

We said goodbye on Sunday to arguably the single most prolific Herdsire in our breeding program’s 26-year history. That Elixir took his final breaths while in the arms of his primary life-long handler, was both a great privilege and incredibly hard for me in equal measure. That was more or less verbatim what I also wrote to our friend, Bari Padgett, of Paragon Alpacas, with whose family we had shared Elix since he was just a 7-month old at the 2012 North American Alpaca Show.

Leading up to that year, we’d had a very informal tradition that every spring at the NAAS when we would meet up with Bari and her father, Neil (then operating under the banner of A Paca Fun Farm), we would play show and tell with the newest members of our respective show teams. Kind of a, “let’s see what new genetic cocktails you’ve all been shaking up the past year” thing. As it turned out, the Padgetts ended up offering to buy half of Elixir on the spot and I got to call them that Sunday as they were driving home to Maryland to let them know that they had chosen wisely: the cheeky little bastard had the impunity to have won not just his color championship but also the JC. As it turned out, that show and tell session in 2012 would prove to be a potent inflection point for both breeding programs and families, though, for us personally, Elixir’s story really started a couple of years beforehand.

Along with our good friends at Tripping Gnome Farm, we had each acquired a 25% stake in Snowmass Elite Legend from his birth farm in 2010. Though the historical record correctly shows that it perhaps took us a bit to learn how to really use EL properly — plenty of fits and starts as there often are when introducing new genetics into an established breeding program – some things mixed well, others not so much — when Elite Legend bred with a then young Archangel daughter named Ascension (a maternal daughter of the 5P female, Cangalli) that first summer, the die was cast. That was arguably the moment in time that in some ways locked both Archangel’s and Elite Legend’s genetics into the very fabric of our breeding program more than any other. Fast forward some 15 or 16 months later, and Jennifer and I were out for dinner on a date night, talking about what we could possibly name Ascension’s promising little dorsal beige fart? Remember that yours truly is a big believer in the power of an animal’s true name: it just rings a certain way, you know? I will grant that it is entirely possible that the vodka martinis played a part that evening but that (then) new and lovely restaurant is still operational today, and the power of suggestion when you are having a great time with the person you love and are devoted to is almost irresistible. That restaurant’s name? Elixir.

While we are all deeply saddened to have lost our boy, his mark is everywhere as we walk through any of our barns and pastures. Elixir was that rare and inarguable triple threat: he was not only a genuine specimen of elite-level alpaca fleece genetics — and still would be, was he to be born today — but also had a very high propensity for passing those fleece traits on to the vast majority of his offspring. His sons and daughters here at CCNF have run the gamut of the color spectrum from white (Bataclan, Declan, Spittfire, Valyria, Oriflamme, Gimlet), to light (Amalthea, Rosalva, Delilah, Tristan), to fawn (Dreadnought, Rise Up, Juneaux, Nymeria, Lunar, Quartet, Lunar Quinton, Sentinel, Nakia, Okoye), to brown (Sovereign-Legacy, Leviathan, Nikita). There are of course many others born to the Padgett’s breeding program (including a bay black daughter, Mixology), some of whose pictures you can see in the collage below. There have also been several deeply impactful offspring born to customer-owned animals of both programs. Though even just the names listed above, would be capable of creating an elite base for an alpaca herd anywhere in the world. Argue with the record, if you must. The boy just got it done. The final offspring ever sired by Elixir, by the way, is little CCNF Neytiri, who was born this past June. She is Sovereign-Legacy/Nymeria/Triumvirate’s full baby sister, so there’s an above-average chance you will get to see her in a show ring come 2024, which will of course be somewhat bitter-sweet for us if it happens.

Yes, Ian but you only mentioned two things about him (his individual quality and his propensity for replicating it in his offspring), when implying that there were three? Well, CCNF Elixir, arguably the Herdsire of Record here for the past 10 years or so was also, to quote our dear friend and Elixir’s co-owner, who of course discovered this trait almost instantly the very first time she met him in April of 2012, “a mush.” So, was it really the bright, soft, dense, insanely uniform fleece that sold Elixir that morning when the Padgetts met him for the first time, or the fact that he almost seemed to enjoy Bari kissing him repeatedly on the nose? Did Bari fall in love with Elixir or was it the other way around? It was likely mutual and good stuff, regardless. Conversely, here at home, as he grew to maturity and started to work, Elixir brooked no bullsh*t whatsoever from his fellow working Herdsires, with whom he cohabitated his entire life. Yet he was always a complete and total sweetheart to work with from the perspective of his human handlers: easy to catch and halter, totally chill on the lead and loading in and out trailers, did his business up at the Arena where our female herd resided, then happily back onto the trailer and back down to whichever of the lower barns he was living in at the time. Like I said: triple-threat.

Below this text, you’ll find two galleries: the first is of Elixir’s most important sons and daughters he sired, both here at CCNF as well as A Paca Fun Farm/Paragon Alpacas, and the second is of his grandkids and great-grandkids, likewise from both programs. We were sorry not to be able to include pictures of significant customer-owned/bred animals but we would love to hear from any of you in the coming days in the comments section either here at CCNF Chronicles, or on either of our farms’ FB pages or IG accounts with pictures of your own Elix kids and grandkids. Putting this whole post together has thankfully been somewhat cathartic and I’m left feeling primarily with just a sense of deep gratitude. While it may not feel the same going into the Main Barn in the coming days without Elixir’s gentle presence, we likewise know that he is no longer suffering or in pain and that of course covers a lot. We all miss you, buddy, thank you for everything you have given us all, and rest in peace you amazing, sweet boy.

Some of the Elixir kids over the years…

…And some of the grandkids