It looks like most of my alpaca boys are now sold. I am expecting a contract today for my guy, Valentino. Nickleby and Gryffindor are sold and that leaves only my guy Campion and my boarder, Pendragon who is owned by a friend but boarded here and produced here on our farm.
I am frankly amazed that Campion has not been snapped up sooner! He has proven himself to be so useful here that I feel our business could not have been successful without him. The very first spring that we used Campion as a herdsire, he bred 5 females and all 5 had beautiful female cria! Happy doesn't begin to describe how we felt about our decision to purchase this guy.
Here is one of those 1st female cria, Belladonna Took:
The buyer of Belladonna and her dam, got a female cria almost identical to Belladonna the very next year out of Campion again and we had a lot more pretty girls out of him as well.
Why go on about this guy? Because this boy is a super good deal for some small alpaca farm that wants a lot of very fine, crimpy female cria out of a well-known bloodline. Campy's father was Peruvian Felix, a full Accoyo from Northwest Alpacas. Campy won a 1st in halter at a large show in Estes Park, Colorado and later won a Get of Sire class for us here at Frederick. In case you don't know what that is, it means that he was judged on 3 of his offspring. Here is one of those three who also won a 1st place AND a grandchampion ribbon at that show:
I had no trouble selling these pretty girls for quite a bit more than I am now asking for their sire.
All my alpacas are special to me but this guy is super-special! He was the first breeding male we ever owned. He came here, un-proven and looking a little worse for wear but he jumped right in - LITERALLY - and got the job done spectacularly. Why literally?, because, when we had some of our open females milling around inside our barn one day, Campy shocked us by taking a running leap and jumping right through the top of the dutch door of our barn. We have never seen another one of our alpacas figure out THAT trick! That's motivation!
This guy had a lot of missing nose hair when we bought him and he has never grown that back despite my treating his poor nose with Zinc both topically and as a food additive for many months. He is now 8 years old so he doesn't look as perfect and fresh as some of the young dudes but he still has many years of breeding ahead of him and his fleece is still fine enough that I made a sweater out of it last year and wear it often. His behavior is sweet but he DOES check out all new visitors to our farm because he thinks he's in charge of protecting the herd. He still feels that he is the top man around here.
Now my guy Campion is on a farm without females and I honestly worry about him not having any "jobs" this coming Fall. He LOVES the job! He LOVES to moon over the females even when they want nothing to do with him because he's already bred them. I fear that my boy will be depressed and feel rejected if he doesn't have some nice girls to live with. So I'm putting it out there in the Universe for someone to give this slightly older but still heartbreakingly romantic soul a new lease on life, a new chance to be the respected, macho man he deserves to be.
Don't do it out of pity! Look beyond the fact that he isn't young and perfect anymore and think about what this guy can produce for you. He has had almost all female cria and many of them show winners but here is his only adult male cria, a blue ribbon winner in fleece at MAPACA, a Best Hand Winner at ABC and other ribbons I can't remember. His name is "Rosado" and he is owned by Alpacas of Sunset Fields
Pretty cute huh? Campion (or "Brownie" as my mother insisted on calling him - even though I TOLD her that is not a macho name!) has done a super job for us and we only want him to go to a farm that will love him and care for him as much as we do. Please, no inquiries from distant states. I don't want to put this boy through shipping but we'll deliver him ourselves to farms in states near MD.
PS. That's my good friend Kate McKelvie, "other Kate" we call her, in the show ring with Rosado. I know she isn't wild about this photo so I apologize in advance for using it even though, I think she looks fine. She IS prettier in person though.
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