I am not sure what this says about me as a parent, but I have never been away from my children for more than a few days at a time. Sure -- they have gone to camp one at a time for various periods -- but that was them going away, not me!

My flight to the show left O’Hare early Saturday to Seattle. No problems. Got my car and hit the road to the ferry and farm. Everything looked different than it did last time I was here. This time I was going home and not just visiting. I stopped to visit another farm to investigate breeding possibilities on the way up. It was an eye opening experience and the owner was generous with her time.

I caught the ferry and called Janet to let her know I was on my way. The ferry ride seemed to take forever and fly by all at the same time. I drove to our home with a keen eye toward trying to become familiar with every twist and turn of the road. It was dark.

Spring Days, Teaching Ways

I woke up to a cloudy, cold day. There was much to be learned by me and the alpacas, Manhattan and Brooklyn, before our weekend excursion to Puyallup and Alpacapalooza 2008! We got everyone fed, Janet and I, the chickens and the alpacas, and then set to work.

Janet was my patient guide about how much to feed, when and how. She shared her unique insights into the personalities of each animal, and they all have personalities. We worked with the show girls -- me included -- on haltering, walking, showing teeth etc…

The weather was relentless the first couple of days -- snow one moment, rain and sun the next. Welcome to spring in the islands; I have never drunk so much hot tea! In between all of this I visited schools, hardware stores and banks getting ready for the big move.

Plan to Succeed

For three days Janet and I puzzled about how to load the girls into the van for transport to San Juan Island and Krystal Acres, the farm of Kris and Albert Olson. The van has no ramp and the girls were not going to just jump in of their own free will.

Up until a couple of days prior they weren’t going to go in and out of the barn without a fight. Alpacas, being prey animals, don’t take well to change or the unusual.

We devised a plan where we would back the van up to the wall behind the house to create a ramp of sorts, cover the rough areas, and lead the girls in, forcefully if necessary. We needed to catch the ferry early Wednesday morning. Thursday night we got everything all set with the van and double checked the ferry schedule. Fail to plan, plan to fail. We had a plan.

And They're Off!

For all my worries, the girls went in fairly easily and it was my turn to drive with them to the ferry with Ms. Janet driving the rental car.

All alone in the van, my feelings reminded me a little of taking my children home from the hospital for the first time: it’s a strange feeling and you just can’t believe they just let you take them! The whole way to the ferry I drove like a little old lady and spoke to the girls in the back -- who were honestly a little upset about the whole thing.

We landed on San Juan without a hitch and Janet prepared to hand me off to the Olson’s, who were to kindly shepherd me though my first Alpacapalooza.

* * * *
“Peace, Love and Livestock”… “Snow, Rain and Sun”
Alpacapalooza 2008!

You can now have updates to my blog automatically emailed to you! Just click HERE and enter your forwarding information. Easy as pie.

Congratulations to our beautiful crimpy girl Brooklyn, our fourth place ribbon winner at this year's Alpacapalooza. Three days of "peace, love and livestock" -- indeed!

Thank you so much to Albert & Kris for making me feel welcome while showing me the ropes, and to Janet for all her prep work and this terrific picture of little Brooky too! A full show report in four parts to come next!

The last couple of weeks have been filled with cleaning house and packing to move. Through it all, in the back of my mind has been a constant concern about and delight for the prospect of selecting potential breedings for the upcoming season.

I have been reading and asking questions from experienced breeders, soaking in everything I can find about genetic selection methods. Keep your eyes peeled - over the next couple of posts I will fill you in on what I have learned. Today, however, I will discuss what is known as “line breeding/in-breeding” versus “out-breeding”.

Line-Breeding vs. In-breeding

“It’s line-breeding if it works… it’s in-breeding if it doesn’t.”

Strictly speaking, line-breeding is any mating in which the mated animals have a common ancestor. When first-degree (mother/son, sister/brother, etc...) pairings occur, it is often called in-breeding. Line-breeding implies more distant relationships between the pair.

The reason for line-breeding is to produce offspring that are more genetically uniform with the goal of accentuating superior traits. With line-breeding, good traits hopefully become more consistent, although it can also magnify less desirable traits by making them more consistently prevalent as well.

In-breeding, on the other hand, tends to bring recessive genes to the surface by forcing them to pair with one another. With either in-breeding or line-breeding, the genetic pool becomes drastically smaller and the general health and fitness level of the off spring may suffer. To sum it up one can use line-breeding to achieve greater predictability in their breeding program but not without risks.

Out-breeding

Out-breeding is breeding of animals that don’t have common ancestors. The predictability of outcome of this method of breeding is decreased. Out-breeding can hide recessive genes in a way that they can’t be expressed. Inferior genes or traits can therefore be more widespread than the outward appearance would have you think in advance.

So What Is One to Do?

I see the merits of both and will seek to appropriately combine both line- and out-breeding. Much of our herd has great genes that I would hate to not ignore. The fear of the consequences of a breeding gone wrong seems to be a gamble. Therefore, in order to make the gamble pay off, I will try to ensure the positive traits that I seek to compliment from our Dams are ones that I can be reasonably assured will be passed down.

To increase the odds of achieving this goal, I will also research the off spring on the ground from the selected sires. Have the traits I want to pass on and see in my cria been passed down previously? Coupling this ‘seeing-is-believing’ approach with a healthy dose of caution about line-breeding should ensure an improvement on our herd over time.

This quotation comes to us from Page 43 of the San Juan Island's 2007 Telephone Directory, of all places.

It's chalk full of such witticisms; talk about a page turner!

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

--Mark Twain (1835-1910)

"We have so much time and so little to do. Strike that, reverse it." -- Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory



Oh my, our little dog "Bing" the Border Terrier has just eaten a pound of Toblorone chocolate while I was out on a run. The children don't seem alarmed; although they did pick up the wrappers... Thanks guys! And now my husband has gone off screaming like a g--l about the dog dying and it being all my fault on account of my weakness for chocolate.

"Jen, Call Animal 9-1-1 and tell them we are on our way!"
screaches my husband.

"Whoah Nelly," I think to myself, "I am going to have to handle animal emergencies much worse than this soon enough, and let's face it, I don't want to have to foot the vet bill every time. I can do this -- at least I can try! Heck, I'd better be able to -- in less than a year I'll be birthing cria with a catcher's mitt. Right?"

"Mam, Was it milk chocolate or dark?" says the bland
voice on the other end of the phone.

Why the type of chocolate should matter, to this moment I haven't a clue. I do know, however, from reading a recent New Scientist article, that cacao beans are deadly to dogs. They apparently don't have the genes to process the stuff -- poor dears!

"Milk with almonds and nougat, you know Swiss-Toblorone,
the good stuff, " I quip with my best "strong" voice.

The receptionist kindly instructs me to "induce vomiting" by making Bing "ingest" 2-3 Tablespoons of Hydrogen Peroxide. Thankfully, we have some on hand but no, funny how she didn't manage to outline how one forces their pup to "ingest" peroxide! Now here is how I envision the proceedure: 1) catch dog, 2) hold dog, 3) make dog drink what dog doesn't want to drink, 4) rock dog midly for good measure, 5) get dog outside, and finally 6) watch dog vomit. Piece of cake, right? Is it ever?

So I ask my dear husband and partner in life to help me catch Bing, "I don't want a kidney, Dear, I just want you to hold the d-mn dog while I force this peroxide down his throat!" Needless to say, I am on my own...

Catch, dose and release -- ahh, here is where I manage to miss a critical step as previously envisioned, and I release Bing not outside -- but into the house -- and now we have chocolate-smelling dog vomit all over the joint. Talk about lessons learned! Well, at least Bing is safe.

Here is to greater, more pleasant (if less sweet smelling) adventures in the New Year!

A Helpful Link ~ What to do if your Dog Eats Chocolate