Making the fleece rounds…
The temperatures in northern New England have been fairly rude for the past month. Amongst other things, it has meant that the sartorial choices of those of us that work the farm have tended to be long on comfort and short on style, though the cold has not been entirely devoid of redeeming qualities. Parasites tend to die quickly in these temps, the roads are no longer mucky, and alpaca manure, though quite benign in scent even in mid-summer, is virtually odorless when frozen solid! We also discovered many years ago that the depths of January and February are in fact an excellent time to take fleece pictures! I’m not sure what it is exactly, though I suspect that some combination of the low temps and the relatively low humidity found during most cold snaps around here allows alpaca fleeces to show their prettiest selves. Yes, there is the rather unfortunate side effect of temporarily losing sensation in one’s hands after a while (it was a balmy 7 degrees the first day that Jen and I were at play in the Main Barn doing this) and not being able to feel the buttons on the actual camera, but the fleeces themselves on the hoof, generally look magnificent! Long story short: over the course of two days this past week we (some variant of Ian/Jen/Kim) went around and shot fleece pictures of virtually every yearling in the herd here, as well as many of the younger Herdsires down at the Stud Barn.
Most of those alpacas were sired by either Precocious, Elite Legend, Matrix Majesty, or King of The Ladies and in the vast majority of cases they were born to females from either the Archangel, Messiah, or Ring of Fire lines. Needless to say, it always feels like a bit of a litmus test to look at an entire swath of production like that — this time around, primarily the 2012 birth class as they approach their 2nd birthdays — and see both the similarities and consistency of fiber traits, as well as the ways the different lines cross with each other. Aside from the short term benefit of producing some great images for marketing current and future sales animals and/or Herdsires, it also creates a really nice photographic archive that we will be able to reference in the years to come, as we compare this group of animals to future generations born here.
Taking regular yearly pictures of your animals’ fleeces is something that I would really recommend that any alpaca breeder, large or small, consider taking the time to do. At minimum, those pictures become just one more evaluation tool (along with fiber tests, skin biopsies, family histories, etc…) to keep in your quiver as you move forward with your breeding decisions. My better half gave me a wonderful little digital camera — a Leica V-Lux 2 — for my birthday several years ago and though we all live in the age of the smartphone camera — which seem satisfactory enough for many day to day pictures and posting images to social media sites — I can’t say enough about what a difference that little machine has made here since I got it! Our ability to grab great fleece shots now, even with a flash in a darkened barn (hey, it’s January), is really quite remarkable. The fact that the same camera has also shot every marketing picture this farm has produced over the past few years, from close-ups to posed shots taken from 50 yards out, speaks volumes of its capabilities, especially in the hands of a rank amateur. I truly wouldn’t know what an aperture setting was if it smacked me on the head. Dear Leica: I will take my compensation for that free plug in cash or check please…I’m easy. In any case, to review – not being able to feel your extremities after just 10 minutes in the freezing cold: kind of a buzz-kill. Being able to create a permanent visual record of the beautiful fleeces your breeding program has produced each year: magnificent!
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