Showing in Paddock Condition?
March 2009
WELL it has been another long hard winter for us here in the Northern Territory of Idaho. It’s the first day of spring and we still have a great deal of snow on the ground and the areas that we have cleared paths in the fields are flooded with mud and water. Our alpacas have never looked messier. We put up around 200 tons of hay each year however with the number of livestock we own, which includes our cattle and horses we need another 200 to get us through the winter especially when you have a resident group of Elk (60 head this year) that invade your barn nightly eating a ton of hay a night.
Hay is harder to find as many growers have moved to producing corn for ethanol which has made good grass hay scarce and expensive. The hay we used for bedding in previous years had tripled in price so we used regular hay and chaff this year, and sadly I think we have as much hay on the alpacas as we do on the ground. The health of the alpacas is our number one priority, so we suffer a bit more contamination in this years fleece production but we have healthy happy alpacas.
Many breeders ask us can we show our alpacas if they dirty, and how and should you try and clean them up?
Yes, show them, in fact the shows and judges are encouraging breeder to show in paddock condition (little grooming and preparation as possible). It’s best to show them in their natural condition. We will try to remove as much outer loose hay as possible and all dung and urine stained fiber. However if the balance of debris is embedded on the outside of the fleece do not try and pull this out as it will change the structure of the fleece. The judges will open the fleece and judge what’s on the inside which usually is clean.
Well ready or not we are coming to the shows in North Idaho long winter paddock condition. There is not much we can do about the embedded hay which blankets our alpaca’s fleeces this year it pains us but that’s how they are. The good news is that many processing plants now have roller crushers that remove vegetable matter without damaging the fiber. The bad news is that we may not be showing many of our 2009 fleeces as this will be counted against the fleece in a fleece show. We just have to hope the judges understand the environmental elements we all have to endure and look into the fleece past the outside weathering.
We are very much looking forward to spring and dryer warmer weather with green grass and pastures.
Stay tuned for next entry!!!