Alpaca World Magazine Summer 2005 - Classical MileEnd Alpacas

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Advertising FeatureBozedown – a Success StoryBozedown huacayas and suris areprominent in the lists of prizewinners forthe many alpaca shows now held aroundthe UK. This is due to the fact that we seek outand select only the very best Stud males andfemales, and watch what each one producesthrough the generations. Then by careful selectionwe try and fi nd that special genetic mix thatwill produce continued improvement in eachsucceeding generation.At Bozedown we are fortunate to have a broadgenetic pool of outstanding Studs, along witha large number of equivalent females, a herdwhich we believe contains some of the very bestalpacas in the world.Galaxy of Bozedown, the 2004 Royal ShowSupreme Champion, was awarded the ProgenyPrize at both the South of England and the BASNational this year, with his daughter BozedownSaloua reserve Supreme Champion at Southof England, his son Bozedown Pernod winningSupreme Champion at the BAS National, andanother son, Bozedown Thor winning SupremeChampion at the Northumberland Show.© Stefan Haig-McMahonBozedown successes increase all the time – ourclients’ pure Bozedown Genetics winning boththe BAS National and the Penrith Show in 2004,and the Northumberland Show in 2005. We offerour clients our own top genetics, through Studservices, and sales of fabulous quality Stud malesand breeding females, so that they can breedexcellence alongside Bozedown. If you would liketo share in our success, contact us right away tofi nd out how we can help you achieve your goals.Search or AdvertiseAlpacas for SaleAlpaca Stud ServicesAlpaca BreedersAlpaca AuctionsWeb Development Servicesfor Alpaca Breederswww.AlpacaSeller.co.ukUnited States: www.alpacaseller.comCanada: www.alpacaseller.caAustralia: www.alpacaseller.com.auNew Zealand: www.alpacaseller.co.nzSouth Africa: www.alpacaseller.co.zaGermany: www.alpacaseller.deAustria: www.alpacaseller.atSwitzerland: www.alpacaseller.chRepublic of Ireland: www.alpacaseller.comOnline Alpaca Advertising at Affordable Prices22 | Alpaca World Magazine Summer 2005
FirststepsRichard Ryan introduces theAlpaca Association of IrelandWell we made it through our fi rst year,association intact, lots of decisionsmade and loads of work still to do. Not abad report I suppose on what will in time becomea viable, profi table and enjoyable alternative farmenterprise in Ireland.The alpaca owners in Ireland made a decision acouple of years ago to set up our own Associationand Register. I got the job of getting everyonetogether which I thought no problem arrange ameeting and that’s it, back to Connemara and geton with the day to day tasks of a very complicatedlife of farming with a few sheep even less alpacas,working part time in a local hotel, starting a payrollbusiness from home, being a dad and runningthe home whilst my very patient wife goes outto work and gets some real money. Life is neverstraightforward as I end up leaving the meeting asthe Chairman of the Alpaca Association of Ireland.Coming back from that fi rst meeting I waswondering how from just wanting to buy a coupleof geldings to see how they got on I seem to havetaken a leading role in the Alpaca industry inIreland. It started around four years ago when Ikept coming across articles about alpacas and thebrain began to tick away fi guring out that theselovely animals would potentially work well on ourvery small hill farm in Connemara. Due to all kindsof restrictions we had been kept back to just 30ewes and this had been reduced even further so ifthe farm was going to survive without just relyingon the “cheque in the post” I had to do somethingelse. Then we saw them on the television andshortly after a visit to Xandria Williams in CoKildare we were confronted with the real thing.After that and with some detective work I trackeddown what was the fi rst alpaca herd in Irelandowned by Anna-May Driscoll and Damien Dyar whohad a small herd in Co Clare. A couple of visitslater the business plan was into the bank and aloan arranged to buy 3 females and one cria froman Australian partnership who had been agistingsome animals on this farm.I have to say that I’d read so much aboutalpacas and I don’t remember any articles onanimals having problems and they all pointedtowards this easy to care for, potentially veryprofi table animal. Well after nearly three yearsof being an alpaca owner I have at times reallywondered was it all just a clever marketing scam.We’ve lost one animal with pneumonia, onerefused to get pregnant and one of them abortedher cria last year so the business plan went outthe window. Hopefully now we have had our run ofbad luck and things will start looking up with ourtwo remaining females both expecting and duearound the end of July. So all going well we shouldbe making progress, but if I ever hear or seeanyone saying alpacas are as easy as sheep they’dbetter duck. Despite having taken a hammeringwe’ve fi gured out solutions to some diffi cultieswith the conditions here and now armed with thisknowledge I’m confi dent that it was and will be agood move to get them.Sounds like a pretty miserable fi rst three yearsbut we’ve also had loads of fun. In particularmeeting people from all over the world who stopat the gate wondering if they are seeing things.They have some strange looking sheep overin Derryrush was the talk of our local bar andnews has travelled throughout Connemara of ourenterprise. Yes they are lovely gentle animals Ikeep telling my wife who somehow seems to havethe unfortunate knack of being spat at and kickedon several occasions much to the amusementof our daughter age seven who keeps saying ‘butMum they don’t do that to me.’We’ve now got around twenty owners in thecountry I’ve been busy tracking each one downand encouraging them without breaking any bonesto join our little band. (I might even start my ownAlpaca owner tracing agency as I’m getting quitegood so if there’s anymore out there I’ll fi nd you).We’ve set up the basics of the Association andwe’re now working on our register and a screeningprocess which we hope to have off the groundsometime next year. I believe our register will beunique in as much it will be a “two tier” system,the idea being that all the alpacas in the countrywill be listed and then it is up to the owners if theywant to have them screened, the screening detailswill be added to the animals registration.I have to admit it is a bit radical as alpacaregisters go but by doing this we will be able tokeep details of all the animals and not just thosethat are deemed to be the best. This I believeshould help us not only to have a top qualitynational herd by having a good screening processbut by keeping data on all the animals it shouldhelp with other issues such as trends in healthproblems, fi bre and to have a viable trackingrecord of animal movements in the event of futuredisease outbreaks.We’ve also decided to approach the Dept ofAgriculture to have alpacas recognised as livestock,the immediate effect of this will be to advertisethem to thousands of farmers in the country as analternative option as they wonder what an alpacais and why does it appear on the livestock sectionof the forms. I’m getting fed up of changing all myforms to include alpacas. I’m sure our local offi cethinks I’m crazy. The other advantages will hopefullydevelop over the coming years but as it is going to bea farming enterprise there is no harm getting in therenow rather than later.With around 200 or so animals in the country wehave a long way to go but there are more on their wayfrom Australia and of course I would guess at leastanother 50 cria due this year, the numbers will startto go up. Like anywhere the quality of the animalsvaries with some excellent and others not so goodbut the good thing is that you can always improveby breeding up to the better males that are nowbecoming available here. We have a long way to gostill but it is certainly going to be an exciting journey.So an exciting year and successful year and guesswhat I’m still the Chairman and despite the hard workit is great fun, just hope I’m not saying this in 2025as I think I deserve to retire by then.Alpaca World Magazine Summer 2005 | 23
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Page 8 and 9: News South of England Show / French
Page 10: News East of England Show / Kenilwo
Page 14 and 15: Where inthe world …Seemingly, the
Page 16 and 17: Health and Welfare Where in the Wor
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Page 20 and 21: Blue-EyedWhitesAustralian biologist
Page 24 and 25: ALPACA SHEARINGTelephone Colin for
Page 26 and 27: Doing our best for newborncria is a
Page 28: Protecting and handling your invest
Page 31 and 32: of the forming yarn. If the tension
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Page 37 and 38: a quantum leap forward in the genet
Page 39 and 40: Special Feature Genetic Improvement
Page 41 and 42: Breeding ëBozedownístock of the h
Page 43 and 44: population is 22,823 alpacas with f
Page 47 and 48: CARRS BILLINGTONAGRICULTURE LTDCAME
Page 49 and 50: will compensate for a lack of help.
Page 51: SalesStud ServicesConsultancySuppor

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