The two day thing in action!

Judi asked an interesting question on yesterday's blog and I am going to answer it but it might make for a boring blog for my non alpaca breeder friends and might sound ridiculous to my alpaca breeder friends!  Sorry in advance!

The question was - Why use a black for Prue?
Well - Prue has a problem!  She is a blue eyed white.  However, all her babies have lovely fleece.  In the past she has been mated to two whites and a fawn.  With one white she produced a multi with a slight blue tinge in mostly brown eyes.  With the other white she produced a solid white - with blue eyes.  Last year she was mated to a fawn - Samurai - and had Barnaby Rudge - a great fleece, strong and healthy, brown eyes and a solid colour apart from white in his topknot.  We purposefully got Harry (Black Arrow) because of all the solid black in his pedigree, with the hope that we might overide the hidden white spots in the white which is what I think causes the problems.  Harry is not ready yet so we are having a go with Jed.  What we hope for is a solid colour with brown eyes.  If it is a boy we will know we are on the right track, if it is a girl we will be able to breed on to Harry when she is ready and see how we progress.  That is the theory to my way of thinking anyway!!

Here is Jed, ready for action!

So - tonight was the second mating for Prue on the Two Day Thing.  At exactly 7pm we got them together and Prue retreated as fast as she could.  Jed chased her round a bit sniffing but he wasn't really interested in her and she certainly was not interested in him.  Looks very much like that could have taken - so spit off in 7 days from yesterday.  Poor Dude is on spit off duty for her - that is not going to please him one little bit!
Once Prue was out we brought int the next candidate - Little Star.  Little Star is registered as white but not solid but it is more of a fawn white now and she has a darker fawn patch on her neck and one on the top of her shoulder.  She also has a nice fleece despite the colour.  Her father was Koricancha Sinbad of Wessex so I am thinking there must be a good bit of black within her genes.  Her Mum is Bert who is solid white and was one of the original imports from Alpacas of Wessex.  Bert had one cria before we had her and that cria is registered as white.  I did see him when we got Bert and don't remember seeing colour on him - his dad was Wirracocha.  So - the thinking according to me is that crossing her to a black could bring out all that hidden black and give a black - or maybe a brown - or, of course, could be a fancy!  I don't know but I find breeding with colour in mind facinating!  Well anyway - after all that waffle - Little Star went in with Jed and was not in the least bit interested.  She had a jump around, Jed sniffed a bit, then Jed turned his back on her and mooned over the fence a t Zara who he is in love with!!  We shall try again tomorrow but this time Zara is not coming anywhere near!