Majestic Peruvian Bell Ringer Joins the Fray!
If you spend more than 10 minutes talking shop with us here, sooner or later we will get around to the topic of the domestic US alpaca herd being far too interrelated. It’s been understood for many years now that the vast majority of elite alpaca genetics here in North America, and particularly those of a white/light persuasion, are based upon a distinctly limited number of genetic lines. This is to say that finding outside, unrelated (and realistically, we mean less related) high-quality genetics to fold into a program such as ours has become a constant struggle.
So when our friends Scott and Ann Young offered us the chance to pick up their older Herdsire, Majestic Peruvian Bell Ringer, we jumped at it! Though we do have some other future Herdsire options on the horizon already, in the forms of Colonial Dimitri and Strongshepherd’s Juno (both of whom are co-owned with their respective birth farms), realistically those two males — as well as a certain CCNF Camden — are still unproven abstractions. Throw genetic jello at the wall we will.
Bell Ringer, on the other hand, is a proven commodity with award-winning offspring already on the ground. As the grandson of .38 Special, he also represents something completely new for us on that side of his pedigree. Is this technically the start of the infamously mooted CCNF grey breeding program?! No, no it is not. Though no one is fonder of taking up a trend/coming to a party late, long after its heyday, we will pass. And though Bell Ringer shares much of his paternal genetics — as a son of Jeremiah’s Peruvian Jumanji — here with both Precocious and therefore to a much lesser extent, with Bataclan, he will definitely represent an exciting option for us to breed over the fawn and brown Elixir/Majesty crosses that make up a sizable chunk of our darker-colored female production herd. He will certainly be given every opportunity to succeed and in fact, in several cases, it will be his sole task not to screw them up. No pressure, buddy. Bell Ringer in the meantime will also be offered as a breeding option both for any females that are sold open from here, as well as being offered for outside stud service. You can read some more about our new guy by clicking here!
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Are you perhaps hinting at opening the register Ian?
I hope so as your observations about genetic diversity in the national herd certainly rings a bell for me …
Oh, Ian: well read. I am not so much hinting, as more like down on my knees pleading with the forces of common sense. At the same time, I was trying not to make *this* particular post, about Bell Ringer, segue into a whole tiresome diatribe on that subject but, yes: it is something that needs to happen if we are to proceed with any sort of sustainable future. It is a fight I look forward to picking on another day though.