Sometimes you look for the right matching male for your alpaca, but you don’t get what you want. The mixture of genes combines randomly and you may not get what you expect. All these unknown genes passed on unnoticed…!
I can think of some national champion alpacas whose full brothers or sisters are not as good, and I know of some national champions whose proliferous progeny is not to be shown in the ring. There are brown alpacas with white crias, and vice versa. Some combinations are known to be risky and linked to health issues. But also, some infallible dams and studs will most definitely give you something similar to what you ordered. When I started breeding I was not aware of the disparate gene pool of alpacas in the country, and how contaminated the breed was.
I took my bunch of females and located a national champion stud to mate them with. After a few failed attempts and repeated loss of crias, a few pregnancies never got to full term, the breeder suggested my dams were not of good standard. Of course I did not appreciate the comment, and accounted for other factors (neighbouring dogs, public footpaths…). I took the advice, though, and obtained a good quality proven dam (obviously from a different breeder. I can’t tell you if better, definitely more expensive with a posh name) and tried mating my other girls with different studs from here and there, and even pet quality males.
The result: my girls are very proliferous and have given me plenty of beautiful and healthy crias. My pet boy gave me a superb young boy that I couldn’t be registered for obvious reasons and is living up north, very well cared for. The quality of the crias from my expensive dam has been variable, but overall superior to the rest. All in all, it took me 4 years to produce the 5 crias I ordered initially from this farm. The champion of the National Show did not produce any alpaca that was outstanding in any way. The conformation taken of the dams, The quality of the dams did have some influence on the quality of the offspring. However, the birth rate from this place’s studs, was notoriously lower than the rest. And still today I feel cheated.
Here is a gallery of some of the animals I produced from my so-called bad females.
Kestle Alpacas 