Yorkshire Alpaca Show at Thirsk

JandJ Hope

We had a fabulous day at Thirsk yesterday. Very early start but it was worth it. We took 6 alpacas & came home with 5 rosettes and a sash. James was one of the penning stewards & we took some of our products to sell as we are members of the Yorkshire Alpaca Group.

It was the first time we had entered any girls this year & we decided to take Hope, Peace & Ruby Tuesday & our boys who we have shown before this year Kitt, Frazer & Diesel.

The stewards decided that Peace should be moved from the brown class to the black class. This meant that in the first class of the day, the intermediate female black huacaya class, Hope was the first alpaca into the ring & Peace was 5 alpacas behind her. Hope was given a 2nd Rosette and Peace a 5th. As the 1st & 2nd of each class go forward to the Championship for Champion Black Female Huacaya Hope was in the ring again & this time came away with a Reserve Champion Black Female Huacaya sash. We are so pleased with this, as it is our first sash & Hope is the daughter of Mississsippi Moonlight one of our original 4 alpacas.

Ruby Tuesday was next in the ring in a large class of fawn girls & unfortunately did not get a rosette. People wandering round the pens though did really like Ruby the best out of all our alpacas.

Next it was the turn of the boys, Diesel was first as he is black & came out with a 5th Rosette.

Kitt was next, he is a gorgeous beige & the son of my alpaca Skylark, & he came out with a 2nd Rosette.

Frazer was last, our lovely white out of yet another of our original 4, Luminaria who always has gorgeous cria, he was in a large class, the top 6 were pulled forward & Frazer was one of them, then the judge placed them in order & he was moved to 3rd place which he kept and came out with a 3rd rosette.

JandJ Henley

JandJ Henley at a couple of days old.

Henley is a very handsome alpaca boy. He was born on Friday 14th June at 10.30am. This time we saw the birth. Last year when Ashley his mum had Diesel we were busy in the field with a mating & she managed to deliver him in a dip under the tree without us seeing at all!! Unlike Diesel Henley is fawn like his sisters Thea & Gem. They all have beautiful fleeces, Thea was the best of her year & I think that Henley will be similar. Looking forward to showing him maybe next year, we will have to wait & see.

JandJ Dappy

JandJ Dappy

JandJ Dappy was born on 16th June at 11.30am, he had an uncomplicated birth & we watched, he was a nice large cria and up and feeding with the hour, ju

st what we like to see. His mum is Poppy a home grown girl, one of Coco Chanel's daughter's. She is very similar to Coco but a little lighter coloured & prettier, at a distance hard to tell apart. Dappy is gorgeous, he is Poppy's second cria, she had Lucia last year. Dappy is fawn but has Poppy's mid brown on the end of his nose which looks like he has had his nose in the marmalade jar.

JandJ Nayte

Ella Fitzgerald had Nayte on the 4th of June at 10.30am & we missed the birth as we were showing alpacas at Kenilworth Show. It was a lovely sunny day & we had left Nanny in charge to watched and make sure everything was ok .

Ella is an import & generally does her own thing, apart from shearing, injecting & tow nail clipping, we leave her alone or maybe that's, she leaves us alone. If we are gathering everyone together she & Nayte are at the other end of the field. She is the joint second eldest alpaca we own, 13 this year. Ella always has beautiful cria all black apart from Merlin who is mid fawn & so handsome, Ned we have sold, Nell always first at the fence to see what is happening & to be talked to & now Nayte. We have not seen too much of him as he is always at Ella's side but as he is getting older he is being allowed to come to us a little more.

I wanted his name to begin with an N & like the name Nathaniel (Nathaniel Parker now in Merlin) but needed the name to be shorter so Nayte it is.

JandJ Ralph Lauren

Our next cria was born 2 days later on 2nd May at 9.10am & like all Paula Rego babies is jet black. With this one I only just missed the birth, I had been watching Paula in the shed & decided to leave her for 10 minutes & when I came back Ralphie was already born. He is gorgeous, very inquisitive, when we take the camera into the field he always comes over & most of the shots are of his head getting closer & closer until there is only his nose in the photo!

JandJ Chastity

JandJ Chastity

 
On Tuesday 31 May, the day after half of our herd of alpacas had been sheared Chastity arrived. Her mother Amazing Grace had not been sheared as we do not like to shear our alpacas in their last month of pregnancy. Amazing Grace is Martin's favourite alpaca, when he feeds them Grace always comes over to be fussed. We missed the birth, after the busy long day before we did not look into the field until 7.30am and Chastity was already up and about. Grace likes to have her babies early 9.15am has been the latest but 7.30am is definitely the earliest. This is Grace's 5th cria with us, she has had 3 boys Max, Lex & Rex & then last year we had a girl Chartity and this year Chastity, so our naming strategy for Grace's cria has moved to Emmerdale's Dingle names.