Baarrooka Alpacas, Stud Male, Suri, Alpacas, Alpaca Farm, Baby Alpaca, Alpaca Stud, Strathbogie, Australia

Have just gone through the summer/autumn crias and there are some real beauties in there!.  I think this year’s cria are a real jump up on quality and are consistently good across the board. Finally getting it all together!  The standouts are:

• a number of Desert Prince crias from some of my top white girls – great colour and a real improvement in fleece quality;
• the ET group from Winslow and Queen Wilhelmina (3 M, 1 F) from medium fawn to medium/dark brown;
• a stunning SLF female from Rockefeller (sister to Indie Rock);
• some very nice cria (4 M, 1 F) from ILR Snowmass Illumination, especially a SW female from Kim Wilde, Senior female Champion at 2009 National;
• a little black girl from Canchones Totem and Baarrooka Top Deck;
• Eurovision, a SLF female from Baarrooka Dire Straits and Baarrooka Eurythmics – what a dense, dense fleece; and
• a trio of boys by Kurrawa Tariq – Light brown to Queen Wilhelmina and Jupiter Star and a glow-in-the-dark white to Eliza.

Many of these cria will not be old enough to make it to the 2010 National, but I am already imagining their progeny when mated to the new US boys. WOW.

Will try to put up some more photos of these when the weather improves.

By Julie Filed under: ET Program, Our Animals

We haven’t been to Alpacafest for a few years, because we have been travelling at this time of year.  However, this year we put up a small team of young hopefuls, plus, in recognition of the new Mature Suri classes, some older boys.

Results were great! Second and Reserve Champion Junior Male for light fawn Heza Sensation; 1st, Best Brown Male and Premier Brown Suri for junior brown male Wild Card; 1st and 3rd in the Intermediate black female class; 1st and Champion Senior Male with Intensity, 1st and 2nd and Champion and Reserve Champion Mature Male with Dragon and Duran Duran.  In the fleeces, Quizmaster won Premier Fawn/Brown Suri Fleece and the others were awarded 1st or 2nd in their class.

By Julie Filed under: Events, Fleece, Our Animals, Show Results

It might have seemed that things were quiet at Baarrooka lately, but that’s just because we have been SO busy we haven’t had time to blog.

Our much-awaited shipment of coloured stud males from the USA arrived in Australia on 8 March 2010. After 2 weeks in quarantine, we drove down to pick them up – with just a little apprehension about whether they were as good as I remembered! Well, needn’t have worried.  The sight of the six males, clean shaven, but glowing with depth of colour and lustre strolling up the lane to jump, one by one, into my trailer, without hesitation, was very satisfying. I wanted to keep them all to my self, but was quickly told I was being greedy by my 11 year old!

The 4 black, 1 grey and 1 brown are listed on our Stud Male page.  All shares in these males have been sold. All males retain their ARI registration, so offspring from ARI-registered dams can be registered on the ARI.

By Julie Filed under: Alpaca Travel, Events, Our Animals, US Animals

Baarrooka took a small show team to Canberra and a little larger one to Wodonga this year, with good results.  A gorgeous, but small, medium fawn female from Rockefeller was given 2nd at Canberra and 3rd at Wodonga in the Junior Fawn female class.  Indie Rock has a spectacular fine (16.9) and lustrous fleece and so much of it. Unfortunately she just isn’t growing, so we will shear her and try to pump in the Vitamin D. A very nice junior black female from our male Rainbow Warrior was first at both shows. Uluru, another Rockefeller female was 2nd at both shows and Reserve Intermediate Champion at Wodonga. Other results include 2nd and 3rd Intermediate black female for Brioude’s gorgeous black girls, 2nd junior white male and female and 2nd junior fawn male. Rockefeller was awarded 2nd in the Sires Progeny class at Wodonga.

In the fleeces, Baarrooka Mr Mister was awarded Champion 6-18 months fleece at Canberra and all other fleece were awarded 1st or 2nd and at Wodonga Baarrooka Dire Straits was awarded Champion Fleece and Mr Mister Reserve Champion.

By Julie Filed under: Fleece, Our Animals, Show Results

Oooh, I’m excited!

As other breeders of coloured animals know, it is a constant battle to improve the quality of each generation – it seems to be a two steps forward, one step back scenario.  Using top quality white males over coloured dams works, but loss of colour is always a big risk.

I have a number of high performance coloured females which I have been using, over the past 5 years, to increase the number of quality coloured suri in my herd utilising Embryo Transfer technology.  This has worked very well and I have produced top quality males and females from donors Baarrooka Queen Wilhelmina, Baarrooka Cordela, Pucara Eliza and Baarrooka Elara.  The let down in this has been the lack of coloured males who have the fleece qualities I want in my herd and can provide consistent results.  Interestingly, Cedar House Winslow, a LF Amador son has produced the best results from a number of ET donors.

After thinking long and hard and doing my research, eighteen months ago I began the next stage in my long term program to bump up the quality throughout my herd.  I purchased a half share of Cedar House Desert Prince, an older male who has proven to throw 72% coloured cria from white dams and whose daughters are often very good producers (e.g. Queen Wilhelmina and Elara’s dam!).  And, to other breeder’s alarm, I mated the majority of my top white and light fawn females to Desert Prince.  I then went on a search to find THE male to go over his daughters.

Well, the first Desert Prince cria are now being born – yes, colour to white – and their covering sire, Durango,  is due to arrive in Australia from the US on 14th February.  A couple more years to see if the 10-year plan works, but already I am seeing some real improvements in each generation of coloured animals.  They are not necessarily all show winners- that’s not what I am breeding for – but we are layering on the characteristics we want – lustre, fineness, density – generation by generation. The combination of generations of ET, Desert Princes’ colour and quality influence and the superb fineness, density and coverage contributed by 3/4 Accoyo Durango will, I think,  start to show some real results in the coming years.  I can’t wait!

By Julie Filed under: ET Program, Our Animals, US Animals