This male gets better and better looking as he matures. He was born with a solid, well-conformed frame and he is maturing into a proud, statuesque herdsire. He is calm and composed in personality, not one to get easily excited but with the reserve common in the herdsire mindset. He will be a great stud. Good thing his fiber is also coming together very nicely, crimpy and soft with very nice density and bundling in a very long staple. On a note about his showing (just his first halter show in May 2021): We weren't planning to show, and so hadn't cria-shorn our 2020 crop or bothered coating them. Thus, when 2021 shows rolled around, to say we were less than prepared is probably being generous. But we loved the fiber on this guy and were excited about the public gathering restrictions lessening (then lifted!), so we decided to give it a go. In truth, the show results don't really demonstrate how nice this guy is, to our chagrin, and I can only say that we are proud of how he did and where he fails to show off as well, we shoulder the blame. So, be kind to him as you view his first fleece / 2021 results, knowing that he was at the mercy of his owners and weather conditions he could not control. :) Despite that, he had done reasonably well in the shows, just off the mark (1st place, of course) by one -- but always showing against Artorius! His lower placing in the AOA national fleece show was actually scored higher than other scores with high placings, showing the high caliber of competition in the AOA show as to be expected. Though in walking fleece, if there was such a thing as Exceptional Fleece Award such as there is in fleece shows (and extrapolating the 80% to the less available total in WF vs fleece shows), he would have garnered such an award at the GWAS walking fleece show.

Description * PROVEN AND BRED * GREAT MOM, EASY BREEDER, EASY KEEPER! * MOSTLY FEMALE OFFSPRING TO-DATE * ROAN COLORATION * CHAMPION SIRE WHO MAKES SPOTS Bliss has softness of hand, uniformity, well grown frame and conformation of a fantastic foundation dam as she matures. Taking after her own dam, she become a roan grey at 2 years old with consistent white fibers throughout her blanket. As a yearling, she had white fibers (before modern grey, and now roan, classes were common), and so showed as a dark indefinite in Bred & Owned, where darks, greys, and ID are grouped together. At her first show, with only 4 months of fiber growth, Bliss was described by the judge as balanced, with good uniformity in micron and expression of organization throughout the staple and across the blanket, and a lovely handle. In production, Bliss was an excellent mom to her first cria, a dark modern rose grey (roan) male by Red Granite's Mr. Ben Franklin, named Ragnarok, who has gone to another farm. She continued to be an excellent dam to her roan grey girl, Serenity, sired by our multiple champion Smokejumper, who bore lasting fineness. Serenity joined our breeding program to carry on Jumper's fantastic fiber genetics, as he has died early from an accident, passing her fine & uniform genetics on to her two girls, Inara Serra and Perfect Harmony. We bred Serentiy to Truthsayer for a repeat of Harmony, and Harmony bred to our Major to explore her spotted/classic genetics. Bred to our grey champion, Truthsayer, Bliss made us the lovely AutumnSun's Clairvoyance, a LF (roan really, as 'fawn grey') with wonderful fiber style. Genetic typing shows she is a dilute black, 'ee aa'. Clair is one that should be able to breed into a black or grey program, which we have exercised by breeding her to our rose grey champion stud AutumnSun's Artorius. Bliss' next dark roan girl (see a trend in girl offspring?) was sired by our multiple champion classic grey, Dauntless, that we named Serendipity Smiles. Serendipity was bred to our well-pedigreed dark roan, Magistrate, to produce a lovely dark roan, AutumnSun's Joie de Vivre. Greys and roans abound! Not to stop there, we have bred Bliss back to grey, this time a classic grey -- AutumnSun's Reposado, son of champion rose grey and our other matriarchal grey line via our AutumnSun's Loreleigh (which brings in great greys, Enlightenment, Avatar, and Addonis). Bred to LRG Reposado, Bliss surprised us with a LB male -- though he could be a light modern rose grey given time to fully express his coloration. SOLD! Congratulations to Kim and Robert Brandsma of Sugar Pike Alpacas! Awards 1st - 2015 American Alpaca Showcase, dark yearling Bred & Owned females, Peter Kennedy 2nd - 2015 ABR Fall Festival, dark yearling Bred & Owned females, Sharon Loner and Ken Hibbits 5th - 2016 National Western, all brown shades yearling females, Sharon Loner