Show string selection time

Here we are just a little over a month away from the first show of the fall season (“season” is perhaps a little generous, it’s only two shows for us) and we now have to make our selections for the upcoming show rosters. While there are of course the top 7 or 8 alpacas from last spring’s show string that pretty much choose themselves (Elixir, Prestige, Confectious, Silken Fire, etc…) there is another whole crop of yearlings — and in our case even a couple of juveniles who weren’t in consideration back in April — from whom the majority of the 20 +/- animals will be drawn.

While 4 months from now it would be theoretically quite easy to discern the nice fleeces from the really nice fleeces with relatively long staple lengths and after they have been on a snow pack for several weeks, right now that is unfortunately not the case though. After a relatively hot and dry summer, some of the finest fleeces at the Main Barn (where those two age groups have been housed since early spring) are just now starting to show what they are about again. To be quite frank some of them look like total crap. Dusty, chalky…oh, sign me up for sure! Thankfully we have a a solution. There is very little that copious amounts of moisture, in the form of a garden hose run several times up down the animal’s top lines, followed by being locked inside on thick bedding and with lots of fans for 36 hours or so can’t solve. They of course can go back to being adorable four-legged dust bowls once we know what they’re really about but it’d be nice to get a handle on those fleeces just long enough so that we hopefully bring the right critters out to the shows!