2008 Fiber results.

This year I had all my animals shorn and sent the fiber to be tested at Yocom-McColl Testing Laboratories in Denver, Colorado. The only animal not done at NWA was Brandy who is still in Astoria. I'm very excited to share that her Micron (fiber fineness) was 23.6. Now in the world of Alpacas, that is a darn good number, with the national average around 28 micron. It's also important to note, Brandy is medium brown in color which is typically more course than white animals.

To put it into perspective, Aspire, Cindy and Mocha are 30.2, 31.7 and 35.6 respectively. I would also like to share that these 3 mentioned animals are also 14, 13 and 9 years old compared to Brandy at 3 years old.

Moving on to some other animals of my herd:

Blazer (my 3 week old Providence boy at time of sheering) at 15.9 micron
Pearl (11 years old) and 24.9 micron
Marshmallow Cream (5 years old) and 25.9 micron

In reading this blog, you can see that my fiber results have quite a wide range, but the 3 females at or near the high end of the range are pretty primitive animals. These animals are bred to Studmaster males, which will improve the offspring compared to their mothers. I was suprised to see that two cria (non-Studmaster breedings) from both Aspire and Mocha, born in 2007, had pretty decent results at 21.6 and 21.3. Those two boy's aren't breeders by any means, but did produce about 11 pounds of medium brown fiber.

Some people are very secretive when getting their fleece results. I, however, want my future clients to be aware of the animals that I am producing.

Finally, I have two more births scheduled in Amber Shayda (Gacial Storm) and Mocha (Paul Revere). If Amber's cria is anything like Brandy I'll be happy. But as usual, healthy animals is the most important thing for me.

Next blog will update my National Alpaca Day dates and times. Stay tuned.