Things that make you go yum!

Those of us that have done this for a while are well aware that a juvenile’s fleece can change radically over the course of a year. Not always necessarily for the better either. Though having said that it is rare for a cria which impressed us early on, to then flat line completely in their fleece development and characteristics as they hit 12 months of age. They may well go through some awkward growth spurts where their fleeces look funky in between but normally we’re rewarded in the final analysis. The most famous example of that phenomenon here was CCNF Boss-A-Nova who nowadays stands stud at Seven Springs Alpaca Farm in Virginia. We knew when Bossy was born that he was something special but by the time he was weaned from his dam the shear weight of his fleece was messing up the appearance of it, literally pulling the visible crimp out of the staples. However shorn and given another several months to grow into his 2nd fleece, he showed himself for the Champion we had always thought he would be. I digress though…

The other more common phenomenon which we see is juveniles for whom we know there is something brewing in that fleece of theirs but it just hasn’t shown itself yet. Those young ones normally have a moment where we look at them and just say “wow!” They pop, so to speak. Such was the experience yesterday when I was at the Main Barn helping to do meds in one of the weaner girl pens. Young Glacious — who has been on our sales list for a couple of months now already — has officially arrived it seems. A picture, as they say, is worth a thousand words (or in this case 297).