Spring is around the corner and its time to start thinking about those breedings...



When it comes to choosing males for our alpaca females we nearly always use Studmaster Males. Studmaster males have been very carefully selected to take into account all the characteristics of their fleece, their pedigrees and conformation traits such as bite, bone density, size and movement. Most emphasis however is placed on their siblings and their cria. This is called progeny testing and it is the only way to identify an alpaca's genotype.

members of the Ideal Alpaca Community believe that progeny testing is the most effective way to select herdsire males with high breeding value. This involves using the selection index (see "Alpacas: Synthesis of a Miracle") to evaluate a stud's offspring for important traits, such as fleece weight, fineness, and density. This means not just evaluating the stud's outstanding cria; either all of the offspring, or a random sample large enough to ensure accuracy, must be measured.

By way of example, alpaca shows have a class called Get-of-Sire where three offspring are shown together, hopefully representing the male's production capacity. As a breeder looking to purchase a replacement male or stud services, would you rather base your decision on the three offspring that the exhibitor brought to the show or a complete survey of the cria from the stud's production?

This year we will be getting the first set of estimated progeny differences (EPDs) for the Studmaster males and I expect to be able to improve my breeding choices considerably as a result. We live in exciting times.

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