The New Mexico State Fair is over and Ric and the alpacas arrived back home yesterday evening.
This year’s State Fair Alpaca Show was a little smaller than those of previous years with approximately 224 entries. The economy and high fuel prices are making people think hard about which shows they travel to. According to the State Fair staff, livestock entries were down across the board and a local news channel reported that attendance at the State Fair was also down.
Still the alpaca entries came from several states, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona and California to name a few.
According to Ric our four alpacas all behaved well and were very relaxed for the whole trip. Only one of them Windrush White Blast had been to a show before, for the other three this was a new experience.
Unfortunately young Zeus did not place in his class, one of the hazards of being in a competitive class of juvenile white male alpacas, usually the largest class at a show. Zeus is a little small for his age and that probably went against him, but he is still young, has a beautiful bright white fleece and has lots of time to grow.
Blast did also not fair as well as we had hoped, but he did come away with a 6th place ribbon, the judge liked his fine, soft handing fleece and crimp style but felt he was not as dense as some of the other alpacas in the class.
Windrush Zindel’s Carissima took a third in her class, and she was the youngest in her class as well. The judge really liked her fleece (it is really nice if I say so myself!) and commented that that she realized Carissima still has some growing to do. Carissima is starting to enter that gangly adolescent stage that young alpacas go through, so hopefully in a few months she will be looking more adult, and I bet her spring show season will be a successful one.
Finally our true black juvenile Windrush Zindel’s Kaneka did us proud by taking not only second in her class but also going on to win the Reserve Color Champion – well done Kaneka! And well done Ric for traveling to the show on your own, setting up and manning the booth and showing the alpacas, even with just four alpacas shows are hard work on your own, but they also are fun too,
Now the show alpacas will be placed into quarantine for the next three weeks, just in case they picked up any parasites or other ills during their trip. The biosecurity and vet checks at the show were very thorough, but there is still always a risk of bringing back something unwanted and if that does happen we don’t want it spreading through the herd, especially as we have young crias due to be born any day.
Back at the ranch, we continue with cria watch, no sign of any imminent births yet, just some heavily pregnant dams waddling around the pasture, enjoying the cool breeze of the fan, having a roll in the dust from time to time, dipping their feet in the water bucket (I’ve lost track of how many times I have had to rinse and refill the bucket!) and eating hay to keep those crias growing!
A Taste of Life at Windrush Alpacas 