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Baarrooka Lethal Weapon has taken out Supreme Brown Suri at the Colourbation Spring Carnival 2008. This young male has spectacular greasy, lustrous and locky fleece. He has taken more than one judge by surprise on opening up his fleece. This is one that you have to put your hands on to appreciate such a magnificent fleece - and in a rich dark colour. Sired by Surilana Omar (SW), his dam is Baarrooka Queen Juliana, an Arequipa King daughter of Baarrooka Queen Wilhelmina, so there are some special genetics there, with lots of colour.

I have been looking for a quality coloured male for the past 3 years, both in Australia and the US. I have also been purchasing matings to various coloured males at other studs. However, I was not able to find a male that had very strong colour genetics as well as being proven homozygous that I was happy to put over a large proportion of my herd.

While talking to various coloured suri breeders and looking at the best producers in my own herd, the name of a well known suri kept popping up - Cedar House Desert Prince. Older genetics, but proven genetics. He also has the ability to throw coloured cria from white dams (72% c.f. 11% white from coloured dams). Knowing that he was for sale, I approached Ian and Angela Preuss from Surilana and purchased their share. I propose to use him over my top white females with the hope of producing some quality coloured females (and males) to breed on with. Drive-by and on-farm matings will be available to other coloured suri breeders.

The past few months have been very busy in the sales department, particularly sales of coloured junior herdsires. The following junior herdsires have been sold and will be starting their herdsire duties in the near future:

The last of the 2008 ET cria are here and there's some stunners in there! We had a total of 24 ET cria for the year, of which 8 were female and 16 male (not as good as our past 50:50 ratio).

We are particularly excited about 4 cria (2 males and 2 females) from Baarrooka Queen Wilhelmina and Pinjarra Machu Mayu. They are only 4 weeks old, but are tall and athletic and have great greasy and lustrous fleeces. Also 2 little males from Baarrooka Cordela (the dam of Skyhooks and Dire Straits) and Surilana Omar are looking pretty impressive as well. They will be too young for this year's show season, but watch out for them in 2009!

Our first cria from our US boys has arrived! Baarrooka Mondo Rock (the last of the '80s Countdown band names!) is a light fawn male from Young Accoyo Rockefeller and is a stunner. More cria from him are due by the end of the year. It seems we are right that he is passing on his extreme density, but we are also seeing fantastic lustre and an amazingly soft and silky handle. And look at that strong bone. WOW!

Many of you would have seen Brioude at various shows and events. Many may also have noticed how competent she is as an animal handler. However, at the age of 10, she is also a studmaster. With the purchase of two pregnant females, she now has a herd of 3 females and 3 males. Brioude is focusing on breeding blacks and greys (no competition for Mum!) and her foundation animals include Baarrooka Cherry Ripe, a rose grey, Aviana Farms Secret Image, a medium grey and Aviana Farms Kelene, a tuxedo black.

Rather than registering a new name for her small herd, Brioude has decided to use the prefix Baarrooka Breeze for her cria (as in Brie's alpacas). With all the terminology down pat and a clear idea of what she wants to breed, keep an eye out in coming years for the Baarrooka Breeze animals in the black and grey classes.

The first World Alpaca Conference was held in Sydney, Australia in March of this year. As part of the conference, international delegates were able to attand the judging at the Royal Sydney Easter Show, as well as visit a range of alpaca studs and enjoy the beauty of Sydney and Sydney Harbour. In addition, the first Interntation Competition was held in joncuntion with the conference. Fleeces from around the world were entered and, in addition to the usual champion fleece places by age groups, colour champions were awarded and International Fleece Challenge points for best white and coloured hucaya (best 5 fleeces) and suri (best 2 fleeces) culminated in the awarding of trophies to the best performing countries. Australia won all of the trophies as a result of having the most fleeces entered. However, the challenge is on for future years when the International Fleece Show will be held in the US (2009), Peru (2010) the UK (2011) and New Zealand (2012).

Baarrooka was pleased to receive 4th place for a little 6 month old fleece in the very strong white 6-18 month class and first in the brown 6-18 month class with a very dense and greasy fleece from an ET boy, Baarrooka Simply Red ET. This fleece went on to be awarded the Brown Champion award.

We didn't take home the big one this year, but the Baarrooka Show team excelled again at this year's Canberra Royal. We took 6 Juniors and our spectacular new US boy - Lafite's Peruvian Encore. All animals ribboned with firsts for UB40, Skyhooks, Wham! and Hot Chocolate in the Juniors and Encore in the senior class. Skyhooks went on to take out the Champion Junior Male, while his full brother Dire Straits was Reserve Champion. Encore was awarded Senior Champion Male.

We also entered 5 fleeces, all of which were awarded first place in their classes.

We have just finished our second birthing season of ET progeny and have been very happy with the results. In 2006, we had 11 ET progeny, 6 females and 5 males, mostly white. In 2007 we have had a total of 20 cria, of which 10 were female and 10 male. This group of progeny, from 5 females are stunning and include a number of fantastic coloured males from our champion brown suri, Baarrooka Queen Wilhelmina. Watch out for these boys in a couple of years - they are definitely destined to be herdsires!

Baarrooka Elara claims Supreme Champion Suri at the 2007 Canberra Royal Show

We were very pleased to be awarded Supreme Suri, especially as there were some stunning animals in the Championship line-up. It was a special thrill to see a colour win over the whites!

Baarrooka Elara is a stunning female, with presence, perfect conformation, a fine (19 micron) and lustrous fleece and amazing independent locks. She is an outstanding example of a coloured animal with all the characteristics we are breeding for in a suri. On top of that she has a superb temperament.

We are hoping to produce some more stunning coloured suris by using white males over our best coloured girls in our ET program. We have had much success from Baarrooka Queen Wilhelmina and have a range of coloured crias, from light fawn to dark brown. Three are the same golden colour as Elara.

Visit to US Alpaca Show and Suri Studs

Wow! We just got home from a trip to the US where we attended their national show, held in Louisville, Kentucky. Think of the biggest show you have ever been to and multiply it by about 6! We actually found another 2 sheds full of alpacas after the first day. After 2 days at looking at animals in their pens, we parked ourselves next to the show rings (males for me, females for Russell) and watched the judging. The depth of quality, particularly in the coloured classes was outstanding. Many of those animals 'shown the gate' (or excused from the ring) were ones that would have been a top herdsire in Australia or New Zealand. To give you an idea of numbers - in the male suris, there were 12 Senior Juvenile True Blacks, 11 Junior Juvenile True Blacks and 10 Juvenile Bay Blacks (all would be in our Junior Black class), there were 18 Dark Brown, 14 Medium Brown and 10 Light Brown Juniors (imagine even having 10 brown suris in a class at our Nationals). And in the whites, there were 64 Junior males.

We followed up the AOBA Show with visits to a number of breeders in Ohio. We looked at many animals, but were particularly looking for animals with Baron, Torbio and Ramilo lines. We were particularly impressed with a Pperuvian import dam who had sired a number of herdsires and wanted some of her genetics in there too. Although we were looking for colour, as well as white, we were not able to purchase the black male we wanted and we did not find a fawn male that met all of our criteria. We are still looking and may take another trip in the future (if our ET program doesn't produce one first!). We did come home with 2 stunning white males who we hope will have a significant impact on our and Australia's suri herd.

We finished off our trip with a visit to the Frank Lloyd Wright homes in Pennsylania - Falling Water and Kentuck Knob and a Bruce Springsteen Concert in Washington - another two of my obsessions, I mean, interests!

16-Oct-2005

We have decided to include Embryo Transfer technology in our breeding program to allow us to increase the number and quality of our elite females. Because of the long gestational period in alpacas and due to the normal allocation of chromosomes from each parent to the offspring, it may take 2 or three matings (up to 4 years) to determine the worth or otherwise of a mating decision. By using ET, we can assess multiple mating choices within a year and by producing more than one offspring from each breeding, we can see the range of quality and consistency in offspring from that match. We hope that our use of ET will fast-track our breeding and, in particular, allow us to improve the quality of the coloured component of our suri herd.