[AlpacaTalk] Re: Micron Testing clarified and EPD
Lasting fineness and low CV are among the fleece characteristics that I value highly. For that reason, I have histograms done on most of my herd every year or every other year (until at least age 5 years unless the fleece is clearly “blowing out”). As juveniles, most alpacas are fine (which is why density, more often than not, ends up trumping fineness in the halter ring—but that’s a subject for another, though not entirely unrelated, discussion).
When I have a 5-year-old breeding female with a 20-micron fleece and a CV of 16 (and histograms from every year to show the record over time), I know I am getting a big part of what I’m looking for. Meanwhile, other of my females (same age, same pasture, same sampling protocol) will display very different results. I am rarely taken completely by surprise by the histogram results—they tend to confirm what I can feel. However, the results provide me with additional factual support for my decisions, allow me to maintain data I can look back at, and sometimes yield valuable information I may have overlooked (such as a very low % of fibers over 30 microns in an older alpaca). Histogram results sometimes send me back to re-examine a particular fleece with a somewhat different eye.
I use the same lab I have used for years and I take the fleece samples at the same time of year each year in order to get results that can be compared over time. No lab can produce “perfectly accurate” results, and a theoretically “perfectly accurate” lab result from a sample would still not be “perfectly accurate” because we have no way of knowing how perfectly representative the sample is of the entire blanket. However, I’m not looking for perfection in measurement—I am looking for a reasonably accurate tool, in addition to my hands and my knowledge of a particular alpaca’s close relatives, to help me identify the alpacas that best serve my breeding goals.
I’m glad to see EPDs being discussed and used, and I find the various arguments for and against various testing methods very informative. But breeders need to begin with the fairly simple (and, yes, imperfect) tools available to them. I don’t know if it’s splitting hairs to argue the pros and cons of various testing techniques (certainly not if you are a scientist), but meanwhile how many breeders do any testing or hands-on fiber assessment of any kind at all?
Sue Watts
CALIDAD ALPACAS
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posted by Chaddo at 9:47 AM
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