CHOOSING THE CORRECT HERDSIRE FOR YOUR DAM
Choosing a herdsire for your dam seems to be an incredibly perplexing decision for
most dam owners. There are thousands of males that are available for breeding.
Choosing the right Herdsire requires research and a great deal of attention to detail. There are four points to remember when searching for the correct herdsire for your dam.
a) Conformation
b) Pedigree
c) Prepotency Testing
d) Progeny
CONFORMATION refers to the male that is well balanced. (see breed standards).
Conformation determines how well the male can perform both in the show ring and
as well as the act of breeding.
PEDIGREE refers to the alpaca’s ancestry. Examples are full Peruvian, full Bolivan, Accoyo, etc.
The accurate details of pedigree require searching on the Alpaca Registry Inc. web sight in the data base using the sires ARI number. You can determine if the male is a homozygous male that produced only suris. You can determine the number of female and male offspring as well as the color of these offspring. Do the research and your choice of sires will begin to simplify.
PREPOTENCY is the ability of the sire to produce progeny whose conformation and positive traits are especially like that of the sire. His progeny look and perform with consistant and uniform replication. The more cria the sire has the more additional evidence he has prepotency. One of the best tests to determine the degree of prepoteny in an alpaca is by the herdsires ability to repeatedly win the GET OF SIRE award in alpaca shows. This is the class comprised of three alpacas that are the progeny of the same sire. All three of these progeny are evaluated simultaneously in the ring and must represent their sires ability to transmit his positive traits to each progeny in a uniform and consistant manner. (from AOBA Show hand book). They are judged against other Gets of any color, sex, or age. They must be from at least two different dams so the sires true ability to imprint uniformity on progeny can be seen. There are very few prepotent males in North America. Some truly prepotent suri males have been Accoyo Ramilo, who won 25 Get of Sire First Place awards, Accoyo Baron, Accoyo Torbio and McGuyver. There are other up and coming prepotent males such as Accoyo Lafite, Accoyo Tiburon, Accoyo Producto and Accoyo Phoenix.
PROGENY TESTING means what the alpaca and its family have accomplished. The family includes the herd sire’s parents, grandparents, siblings, and cria. Researching the progeny is a difficult task but a very important one. It can go a long way toward herd improvement. Breeders must select for measurable traits. They must also select against undesirable traits such as blue eyes, straight locks and lack of luster. Progeny show records are extremely important. Watching alpaca shows and asking the breeders of championship and blue ribbon winners for the names of the sires of these winners will help develop a list of potential herd sires that have desirable traits.
