Re: [AlpacaTalk] Re: Help, I need advice on replacing my girls after the dog attack.
Hi Allison;
You beat me to it! You make very good points here and a perfect statement when it came to how the hype came to be. Also, when talking about the Chileans, look at Patagonia. Those animals are absolutely exquisit and not your socks off gorgeous. They were pulling in so many blues, reds, champs and reserves, they were actually very much disliked, especially when people started realizing it was chileans who were beating out some of the top peruvians and even accoyos.
Like you had said, there were several Chileans that were brought in, and while some weren't so fantastic to look at, or much of a producer, you had some chileans that were quite the rival to some peruvians. This also stood for some of the Bolivians as well. Another big chilean name was The Silversmith. Very impressive get out of this male and he is in tons of bloodlines. Acero Marka's Bolivians were down right impressive and produced some stunning crias, and as you mentioned, are a breeding basis for some large farms and their programs much like some of the orgional chileans for the reasons you had stated in your post as far as fineness and color. Couldn't have said it any better!
Maegan Blessing
Cedar Grove Alpacas, LLC.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Allison Moss-Fritch" <aemoss17@comcast.
To: AlpacaTalk@yahoogro
Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2009 10:59:09 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
Subject: RE: [AlpacaTalk] Re: Help, I need advice on replacing my girls after the dog attack.
Yes, modernly there are some lovely Bolivians…look at the Acero Marka animals for instance. Acero Marka is a Bolivian estancia.
Look at some of the Rolling Thunder animals. They are lovely and they tend to be based on Bolivian lines.
Chilean animals were mostly earlier importations and some were great and some not so great…but almost every suri that is in color other than white has some Chilean or Bolivian in their lines as the Peruvian imports were mostly white or fawn at worst…not any real colors.
So when you see a suri in Color, you know that it is almost certainly not "purely"" Peruvian.
The Chileans in early importations were smaller animals and many are very fine, but tend to be in color and gray rather than white. So SA Karrington, (a famous gray) is Bolivian and Chilean mostly….not Peruvian.
Off the top of my head that is what comes to mind this late, but certainly the Bolivian and Chilean animals are not less quality overall than the Peruvians. Safely and some of the others got in on the Peruvian imports so hyped them like they were truffles rather than mushrooms.
It still all comes down to the animal in front of you and their ability to pass on their best traits to their progeny. If they are top notch and they are also prepotent…then I don't care if they were bred from Martian lines.
Allison E. Moss-Fritch
New Moon Alpacas
Santa Clara, CA
http://www.newmoona
408/248-3581
From: AlpacaTalk@yahoogro
Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2009 3:56 PM
To: AlpacaTalk@yahoogro
Subject: [AlpacaTalk] Re: Help, I need advice on replacing my girls after the dog attack.
So I have a question, I find that doing research on Peruvians is much easier than Chileans or Bolivians, I guess because of the hype. Who are some of the outstanding Chileans and Bolivians and what are they known for?
Thanks,
Morgen
Dreamwood Farm
Claverack, NY
--- In AlpacaTalk@yahoogro
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> Hi Michael;
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> Glad to see your post. :-) Â I would like to now make some points and comments based on your responses.
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> In response to breeding all females to one male:
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>  1) While it might have been an inexpensive way to cover their females, it is also a very good way to not only bottle neck the genetics on your own farm, but to bottle neck genetics in general. What happens when, like many farms have experienced but rarely speak of, a male consistently throws a congenital defect such as Choanal Atresia? What do you do with all of those babies that are progeny of a trouble male, especially when due to one's decision to mass breed their girls across the board, the babies are rendered useless and of no value?  2) Very high end male in terms of looks and what he throws? Or very high end male genetically according to people who may not know certain bloodlines and what these bloodlines are known for throwing? I will say this much about certain bloodlines, especially when farms have lost tons of money on them due to the genetic flaws they carry. The animal may be the nicest thing anyone has ever seen, but if your male or female comes from a line which has produced congenitally defected babies, especially on a regular basis, they aren't worth a penny and neither are the lines which stem from them. These lines pose such a threat in fact, that many smaller farms have been threatened by the larger ones if they were to ever open their mouth about names or who owns them. If the lines aren't such an issue, why such a hostile reaction towards those who know? I don't know how many times we have heard this, and how many times there have been x-rays present to prove the issue valid, but it is enough to scare the larger farms into making people keep their mouth shut. Moreover, according to a well known animal law attorney, it is actually animal abuse and negligence to breed an animal that has knowingly and/or consistently produced a deadly defect such as Choanal Atresia, wrye face, and the like. 3) If this male's genetics are so superior and highly sought after, why would they have sold all the females they has bred him to? Would they not want to have the "prized cria" on their ground and at their disposal when it comes to sales and breeding? Wouldn't the fact that they have done this do the buying farm a disservice, especially if the buying farm in small and doesn't have much in the line of other bloodlines to breed them to? Wouldn't 4 related crias, plus whatever other animals may also be related in the package actually hurt a small farm due to such a limited breeding ability? One would think that if you don't have a large palette to work with, you certainly would not put yourself into a position of a fully related herd in "x" amount of years.
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> While base lining is used to access the ability of one male, you are also doing yourself a great deal of harm. I could see if you were dealing with a brand new line to the industry and have no established data as to what he may throw, what his weak and strong points are, etc. But to breed a male who is a son of a male who is a son of a male who is all over and you know the attributes that are or are not dominant in that line, it is ridiculous to base line a mass amount of girls. To breed a new male to 5-10 different females to confirm, sure. But to mass produce babies out of one male, again, is causing huge issues in your genetic (non) diversity because at the end of the day, all your alpacas are closer to being related when breeding one male to several hundred females over the course of his lifetime especially if it is a line already running rampant. You have perfect examples of this with lines such as Caligula, Hemingway being one of your biggest. Then people turn around and breed those lines to one another again. This not only anchors the genetic issues this line may already carry, but it takes alpacas to a new level of dealing with what you see in cattle, equine, or even your dogs. The more you in and line breed, the more your genetics are turned upside down, inside out and sideways. You end up with useless animals when it comes to genetics and conformation and 9 times out of 10, these animals will carry the worst reproductive and health issues you can think of. Why in the world would you want to turn the alpacas into just another tale of human selection that turned the animals into mush? I understand they are another type of livestock, but don't consciously put them into the same basket when it comes to the outcome due to humans wanting to make a buck.
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> I always liked the phrase "too much of a "good" thing", and I put "good" because with some of those lines out there, that is definitely up for debate. However, if you have exhausted all genetic options, where do you go? What do you do? Do you turn around and breed them to a relative to try to cement a certain trait? Surely you can't just stop breeding them, there is no money in that. Anyone who knows livestock knows that you cannot safely turn around and breed an animal to a relative without there being genetic repercussions. A perfect example: Peruvians, and ACTUAL Peruvians from your Peruvian herds. Choanal Atresia seems to be more consistent in this origin than any other. Why? They were in and line bred excessively to produce your white fiber for mass production. So, in order to support a market, they genetically flaw an origin. They may be impressive looking animals, and I give props to the maker of those animals for the look they carry and the consistency they hold when it comes to offspring. But I will not jeopardize my herd if I know an animal carries a genetically flawed animal in its background or is one themselves, and that I can go to another line to better my herd in a more sound manner. I am not saying all Peruvians are bad. There are some very impressive Peruvians that I wouldn't mind getting my hands and I know I could put into my herd without worrying about a cria dying in a field because it's genetics are useless. So, when your Peruvian breeding programs are exhausted, what do you do?
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> Being that I lived in OH and kept track of many of the alpacas farms while there, not to mention had shown at many shows such as Nationals, Futurity, Buckeye, etc, I know what OH's herds consist of. While talking to a fellow alpaca friend of mine today, it was brought up that if these large farms were to tout your Chileans, or Bolivians, they would take place of your Peruvian counterpart. I am confused as to how people can say "I don't mind the different origins and have nothing against them, but wouldn't take anything other than a Peruvian". Ok. So let me ask this. What is it about the Peruvian that is so appealing? Does the Peruvian look different? Does it hold any superiority over any of the other origins? If not, why lean towards the Peruvians? What makes them so much more marketable? Everyone is right, it is hype. But, hype is a wave of the times. Say 2 years from now, people have exhausted your Peruvian idea and fall towards the Chileans or your Bolivians. Would that not put those who breed strictly Peruvians into a bind since the demand would fall, and there would no longer be a money hunger for your Peruvian lines? What happens if Peruvians become so related to one another that you can't use them and have to out breed to Chileans or Bolivians? People say there isn't a difference. If that is the case, why would you prefer the Peruvians, the marketing hype aside? If it were to be posed to you that the Peruvians weren't going to make you much money at all, would you still buy them?? With this all being said, would it not be a very wise choice for a farm to invest in all three versus just the one so you can be more flexible for changes in demand?
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> As for the exportation and whether or not they are the same or different, according to some very recognized and highly regarded vets, the Peruvians and Bolivians are very closely genotypically mapped. It was once said that this was the reason why blue eyes were more prominent in your Bolivians, second in Peruvians and congenital defects such as CA more prominent in your Peruvians, Bolivians being your second due to the close mapping and breeding that has occurred over lines. They had advised that if you wanted to out breed, you do so to your Chileans because they were genotypically mapped far different and posed more of a new blood. I would think this would show there to be a difference, and while you may have had Peruvians slipping in with your Chilean batches and so on, there is still a difference to be had in the lines and programs, and certainly your genetics. Also, there is a large difference between the Port of Export and Country of Origin, especially since the original alpacas were very easy to tell apart based on their country of origin based on their stature, the fleece, and so on. Even the different areas of Peru had animals that looked very different from one another.
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> I could be mistaken, but if you were talk to said Chilean breeder, he is proud of his animals, but will still firmly stand on the fact they are Chilean, not american,  when it comes to his huacayas and the suris he has brought in as well, though now he is doing something a bit different with his suris. In fact, I was the handler of one of his extremely impressive females during a show one year. She was brought up in front of the judge as being Champion white in order that he might explain his reasoning behind placing her. The judge is VERY well known and to some, very highly regarded. This judge went on to talk about how the breeding program of the Accoyo lines were proving to be very beneficial to the American breeding programs of the alpacas, all while talking about a full Chilean female. While it stood as a good joke for quite some time, I think it also bothered him being that he and his family had worked so hard to prove that you didn't have to have a Peruvian to make an alpaca that could beat out the top Peruvians in the show ring that year. I don't think I had ever seen someone so proud of what he has accomplished with his program especially after he was told his Chileans would never see good outcomes in a show ring. And I know how he feels. One of our boys here on our farm is constantly inquired by people who come to the farm and see him in a field as a Rincon Cloud son. While this is nice to hear, it is even nicer to be able to say he is a full Chilean and happens to be out of lines that some people have never seen which just makes it all that much sweeter.
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> I wonder where you got the story that the dark Chileans were used as dinner? I had never heard of this. In fact, as far as I knew, it was the colored Peruvians that were used as dinner because their colored fiber didn't have nearly the demand nor could it be dyed which posed a problem for the Peruvian people when selling fleece. The Chileans alpacas in their country were only slaughtered if rendered no longer breeding or not of breeding quality. There was even a Bolivian farm who would slaughter off the parentage of a cria who came up with blue eyes or any other congenital issues as this was not desired nor something that was to be passed on. Every country used their animal for meat; just each had a different reasoning or criteria when it came to the herds.
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> Also, since I had just read it as I was finishing this email, it is funny you say that Stakowski is adamant about the Peruvians and them being the only Alpaca to possess. I am not sure if you know the story on him but Stakowski was very much known for his Chileans when he had first brought them in and used them in his program. They were all the rave. In fact, it was his Silver Chileans that people would have killed to get there hands on. Everyone wanted the Chileans Stakowski had either brought to his farm, or produced out of his herd. When I had talked to him a few years ago, he had said he was still staying with most of his Chileans he had left, but he had far more Peruvians that he was breeding. Another farm is Snowmass Alpacas. Back in the mid to late 90's, Julie Skinner was actually very well known for her Bolivian breeding herd. She had some of the nicest and most exquisite Bolivians to be seen in the U.S. They later decided to phase off the Bolivians and move towards the Peruvians after buying into several different Peruvian sires.
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> I am seeing though that now a days, many people would rather go with the flow to make the money than to hold some individuality and provide an avenue that I am sure will prove to be just as profitable with the Chileans or Bolivians.
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> I agree though, to each his own. We own bits and fulls of all three. And I would agree that I have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly out of all of the origins many times over. Everyone has their purposes and goals of their programs and everyone will either reach them, or they won't.
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> Good luck to each farm and the goals they have set for their herds.
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> Kindest regards,
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> Maegan
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posted by Chaddo at 12:56 AM
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