Cherwell Leys Tangaroa the Supreme Champion

Following on from our success at the Romsey Halter Show, we dipped our toes in the water of Fleece Showing at The Heart of England Autumn National Fleece Show. This was to be our first attempt at a Fleece Show, hoping that we got the skirting correct we chose only four fleeces, two white, one grey and one brown. It was a brilliant day out for us after finishing the paddock cleaning we raced off to Oxfordshire. Imagine our delight when we found again all our entries had been rewarded with rosettes, four first places. Then the grey colour champion and white colour champion, were awarded to Cherwell Leys Smokey Joe and Cherwell Leys Tangaroa. The best was yet to come, Cherwell Leys Spirit of Islay had taken the prestigeous Judges Choice Fleece, and at our first attempt we scooped the Supreme Champion Huacaya Fleece with Cherwell Leys Tangaroa. We are still buzzing now. Tango will take up stud duties next season with the inevitable wait to see the resultant cria. Islay is still proving herself a winner even though she is a senior now she still has it, and her offspring are following in her footsteps, little Bella taking her own reserve championship at Romsey. Alameda, Tango's dam is scanned pregnant to Woody who did well at the Romsey Show, a cria to look forward to next year.

Rosettes at Romsey Show

We have not been to halter shows for quite a while but decided to support our local show, The Southern Alpaca Group inaugural show at Romsey. After much discussion and fleece assessing we decided to take 6 alpacas, then increased it to 7 and finally booked for 8 alpacas (hoping they would all fit into our stock trailer, alpacas travel very well sitting in the kush position for the journey and Romsey is not a long distance away.) Three fawn and five white. It was a fun day out, starting out packing alpacas into the trailer in the dark was a new experience for us all, such a long day after clearing up we got home in the dark as well !! Anyway, the day itself was very successful for our alpacas, all of them came home with rosettes and our white intermediate female gained Reserve Champion White Female  our two white adult boys got a 2nd and 4th place. It is great to go to a show and be rewarded for your work in breeding select elite alpacas. Indeed our Reserve Champion female white, Cherwell Leys Isabella was show entry number 8 and was determined to sit through all our halter training lessons, you just never know how things will turn out, so lucky we persevered with her.

All tagged up

Been so busy have not had time to update the blog. Today we got all the 2011 cria microchipped and tagged. Lovely day, sunshine and blue skies, spent the rest of the day tidying up the paddocks and keeping a check on the young ones.