No sooner are the holidays over and, instead of enjoying the relative quiet of winter on the farm, we are already faced with making decisions about and getting registered for spring alpaca shows. We have to decide which alpacas we will be taking to which shows so we reserve the appropriate number of pens. We’ll consider last fall’s show string and how well they did in the ring. And we’ll look at our new crop of crias – those born in 2012 that will be over 6 months old at show time. Actually, we rarely show anyone as young as 6 months. We don’t usually even wean alpacas that young unless they’re really big and a drain on the dam.
So we’ll be looking at Snowshoe Cari, a white yearling female who won two 3rd place ribbons last fall. And I believe we’ll be taking a juvie female, Snowshoe Ginger, into the ring this spring. Ginger’s a big girl and will be almost 10 months old for the first show. She’s a beautiful fawn daughter of our champion herdsire, Snowshoe Aristides. Speaking of Aristides, we will have to consider whether or not to show him again. After all, he is still sporting the same fleece that won him two banners last fall. Decisions, decisions….
I think it’s time for us to check fleeces and make our final decisions about the upcoming shows. And work on training any juvies that we plan to show! In any case, we are planning to attend the North American Alpaca Show in W Springfield, MA and the Northeast Alpaca Expo in Syracuse, NY. That’s likely to be all we can fit into our schedule. Shearing season starts in early April and Ron is booked solid for a couple months.
As much as we enjoy our winter “downtime”, we do look forward to the spring shows. To seeing old friends and meeting new ones. And to seeing how the results of our breeding program stack up against others in the show ring.