Ramblings
from a veteran
alpaca breeder
by Sheryl Johnson
Some thoughts and experiences of
over a decade in the alpaca business.
W
e had purchased Porsha from an Australian
breeder in 2001 and she proved to be an
excellent young female. We took her to a couple
of local shows and she exceeded our expectations at the
2003 Ellesmere A&P show in particular by winning senior
champion and beating some of that years best talent.
The following year, Kit was in Australia and was shown
Porsha’s mother, Bronwyn. Kit thought, Porsha is a great
animal: I’ll buy Bronwyn. So he did and she joined the next
export to New Zealand. Bronwyn was unloaded from the
export crate in our paddock next to the shed and then
the animals were moved along the laneway that divides
our farm, towards their new paddock. As the animals
progressed along the laneway, they passed the paddock
Porsha was in. Porsha was sitting under a tree across
the far side of the paddock. She looked up and saw her
mother, who she hadn’t seen for over 2 years. She got up
and walked quickly across the paddock. The two animals
then stood on either side of the fence with their necks
touching and their heads across each other’s shoulder.
They stood there together, without moving for about a
minute. It was a very touching sight.
Canterbury summers are notoriously changeable
weatherwise and we had a paddock full of young cria
when the weather forecast predicted a turn for the
worse. We put jackets on the youngest of the cria and
moved back inside to the comfort of a warm fire. On
checking the babies a bit later, we found one more
new mother. She had birthed in cold conditions and
was in the process of delivering the afterbirth. The cria
was staying as warm and dry as possible sheltering
completely underneath mum. As I moved towards them,
mum & the new cria moved in unison. The cria staying
dry underneath mum until the bag of waters caught on
something and was punctured. The wet contents were
completely dumped all over the new cria. So much for
staying warm and dry after that. I wish I had stayed
away and let mother nature do what she does best.
The reluctant showman
Elliott, our youngest son has never had any interest in
alpacas. He used to keep hens and appreciated their
attributes and he still cannot understand our fascination
with alpacas. Elliott was only nine years old when Kit took
him up to the Manawatu show. Elliott was press-ganged
into this role because Kit needed some assistance with
the animals for the show. To try to inject some interest into
the event, Kit offered Elliott the choice of which animal
he would like to take into the show ring. Not knowing one
animal from another, Elliott reluctantly chose Silverstream
Boadicea. Boadicea duly won her class. Kit was much
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more excited than Elliott. The win meant Elliott had to hang
around for the championship. He was hankering to visit
the sideshows. Boadicea won the championship which
impressed Elliott even less. He was thinking the sideshows
might run out of prizes before he got there. Finally came
the Supreme Championship presentation. Elliott was
decidedly against going back into the show ring yet again.
“Why do I have too? You go Dad” he argued in an attempt to
get to the more interesting part of the show.
“Never break a winning combination.” Kit told Elliott, advice
that had come from Kit’s father who used to train racehorses.
The judge awarded Supreme Champion to Boadicea and
an unimpressed Elliott finally managed to escape to the
seedier side of the show. This was our first ever Supreme
Championship win and Kit was left wondering exactly what
it would take to instill some enthusiasm for alpacas into
Elliott. Kit phoned me at home to tell me the good news and
I had news of my own. Boadicea’s mother had just produced
another cria and I thought she looked very special. We named
her Déjà Vu and in 2009; she became the only female to date
to win Supreme Champion at the National Alpaca Expo.
Femme Fatale was from very good breeding lines, but I
went out into the paddock one day and she was completely
paralyzed in the back legs. The vet took blood tests and
finally suggested nerve damage due to some trauma. A
paddock accident probably but not witnessed so we will
never know the cause. Despite being unable to move, Femme
Fatale remained in good spirits. We sat her under overhanging
branches for shelter and placed buckets of chaff, hand picked
grass and water within easy reach for her. She continued to
eat well and we changed her spot in the paddock several
times a day by lifting her, balancing her, with support, in a
standing position, then re-arranging her in a sitting position
again. This was time consuming and we could only manage
it because we were full time farming. After about 3 weeks,
Femme Fatale could balance in a standing position for
about one second before toppling over. We persevered. One
second became three then five then twenty five seconds.
What progress!! Still she maintained her positive demeanour
and kept eating well. Finally after about 6 weeks, she took
a step. I would spend half an hour at a time, several times
a day assisting her to stand and take the occasional step.
She kept eating well. At one point we set up a primitive
sling in an open shed in the paddock so that she could be
tall and independent again. A couple of times we came out
to untangle an inelegant mess in the corner of the shed but
she forgave us and kept eating. Assisting her to walk was
like being in a wheelbarrow race. She the front wheel and
me following behind carrying quite a heavy weight. Standing
her up was a one person job by then. I would count to three
aloud, and on three, we would both heave and she would be
upstanding. One day when she was sitting in the paddock
near the rest of the herd I picked her up and she took off like
a bullet. She tried to join the small group of females a short
distance away. As soon as they saw me following, the group
moved a short distance away from us. She followed, they
moved, she followed, they moved, I became exhausted. She
kept following the group. She was determined to catch up
with them. Eventually (me beyond the point of exhaustion) the
group gave up and slowed down and she came up and stood
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right next to her mother. She had been desperate to stand
beside her mother again. She just stood there as if to say
“I’m back and I’m ok again.”
And her mother stood there too as if to say
“That’s my girl.”
Femme fatale made a full recovery. It took over three months.
For the last few years, we have enjoyed breeding grey
alpacas. Every year, all the names for our alpacas begin with
a different letter of the alphabet. Last year the letter was “K”.
I had two grey mothers left to deliver cria and I had two (I
thought) great names sorted out: Koko Noir and Koala Gris.
The first mother produced a solid white male – gutted!!! The
second mother produced a male that was such a light grey
that only his ears looked grey. The rest of him looked dirty
white – double gutted!! No Koko Noir or Koala Gris here!!
Never mind, this year I will have a “Lavender Portrait”.
It is always nice to see new faces at shows and there was
just such a gentleman at the Oxford A&P show in 2011. He
chatted away to quite a few of the breeders but needed some
assistance in the ring with holding and parading animals.
Having said that, he had quite some success in the ring
also, winning ribbons in several classes and even lining up
in the championship class with a senior male. The judge
was wondering as to his identity when she put the Supreme
Champion ribbon on the senior male he paraded. She was a
little taken aback when he commented
“This is the one they are all chasing isn’t it?”
“I suppose it is.” She replied still not knowing that she was
talking to my father, who has been living with us since the
earthquake destroyed his home on 22nd February 2011.
After a season, Dad is now a show veteran, with his own set
of spiffy black and whites, leather sun hat and comfy shoes.
As a retired engineer, he is the “go to” man on the farm when
a gate needs mending or a pump needs fixing. He feeds the
hens and takes a turn at feeding cria if necessary. We will
miss him when he re-builds his house and moves on.
We run a self contained B&B unit at home and we had a
Scottish couple staying in the unit. I had been explaining our
“naming policy” to them as I was showing them the new cria
that had just been born that day.
“I think he should have a Scottish name.” I said.
“We could call him Lochinvar.”
Stewart looked pleased and said
“Sir Walter Scott wrote a famous poem
about young Lochinvar.”
I remembered the poem because I had learnt it at
school but I could not remember many of the words.
That night Stewart phoned their daughter in Scotland
to get the words to the poem and he wrote them in our
visitors book. The same couple were lucky enough to
experience one of our numerous Canterbury earthquakes
during their stay with us. When I checked on them after
the shake, all lights were off so I assumed they were
ok and waited until morning to ask how they fared.
“Oh, was that an earthquake?” the wife asked.
“I thought it was Stewart snoring and rocking the bed so I
woke him up and made him roll over.”
Several years ago, we had fewer alpacas than we do today
and less land. We used to utilize a neighbours back paddocks
for grazing during the winter. We had a small herd of about
20 females grazing down there for the winter. Imagine our
surprise one afternoon when we found them all running up
our driveway. A phone call ascertained that our grazing rights
had not ceased but that children had left a couple of farm
gates open. Our girls had moved unnoticed past the house,
turned left out of the gate, bypassed a driveway, turned right
into our road, bypassed two other driveways and turned left
into our property. Whoever was in charge of navigation that
day knew where they were going!!
One of the biggest alpaca thrills we have had was when we
attended the Harpert show in Holland a few years ago. Upon
reading the show catalogue, we realized that 25% of the
animals in the show ring were either Silverstream offspring or
had a Silverstream sire or dam. It was an amazing realization.
While none of our animals won Supreme Champion that day,
they did very well and were ribbon winners in most classes.
Not long after that a European breeder entered one of our
females in the local show and Silverstream Heartstrings won
Supreme champion at the Dutch show. We were thrilled when
he emailed to share the good news. Since then, we have
also had the pleasure of having our animals win Supreme
championships on both sides of the globe the same weekend.
So, after eleven years and counting, the work carries on
but the enthusiasm persists. The industry has rewarded us
with many friends and some new life skills, and we were city
slickers before we entered the alpaca industry so we have
had to learn a lot since moving to the country. One thing
we have sorted out is a simple philosophy that comes with
animal ownership. During a recent conversation, I said to a
fellow breeder
“If you put a fence around it: you must look after it.”
When she said she hadn’t heard that sentiment before, I told
her she wouldn’t have because I made that up myself.
Despite many years of experience, the show ring can still be
thwart with danger for the unsuspecting…
Kit had his usual sizable showteam at the Canterbury royal
A&P show in November 2011. We had a young female in the
junior female class that was jointly owned with Liz & Chris
Strack. Liz had done the paperwork to enter the female in the
show, but the wee girl was domiciled at our place just before
the show so we were to take her along. Kit was standing in
the ring waiting for the class to be judged when Liz caught his
attention and said
“I don’t think that’s the right female Kit.”
It was a large class and Kit was standing in the back
row so he rushed from the ring, dashed back to our
pen and grabbed the only other female he could see.
He got back into the ring before the judge got to the
back line. Liz looked around and tried to attract Kit’s
attention again. Unfortunately Kit was looking elsewhere
so Liz caught the attention of the chief steward.
“Can you please check that Kit has the correct animal in this
class?” She asked the steward.
The steward checked the eartag and advised Kit that he had
the wrong animal in the ring. Kit left the ring but couldn’t find
another female to bring forward.
I doubt there would have been much point in trying to re-enter
the ring a second time anyway. Turned out, the female in
question was quietly grazing in the paddock at home. She
had been overlooked when we loaded the float in the very
early hours of the morning and she had enjoyed a stress-free
day in her own backyard.
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