The next big step in our quest to create a profitable alpaca business was to acquire a quality grey male that will consistently add good traits to our foundation females.  There is no way to become profitable if you have to pay a stud fee every time we look to produce a cria.

After taking a look at the market, we quickly found that there was only one way we were going to afford one of those great quality males.  Buying a proven high quality stud costs more than we could come up with, so we decided to buy a young unproven male that had success in the show ring and has the potential to become a great herdsire.

As far as qualities, we were looking for a stud that can produce grey, has great density (capacity), has great staple length, and has the ability to fix the terrible head style on all of our females.  We feel that our females have good fineness for grey and they all have great confirmation.  It was also important that he does not have Incan Legend Genetics, because we have an abundance of that.

Let The Search Begin

We started our search online and were quickly overwhelmed with the amount of male alpacas for sale that claim to be the best in the world!  With a little bit of research, We were able to narrow most of these down and were able to get to a handful of animals that we wanted to get our hands on and see what they had to offer in person.

While doing our research, Morning Beckon mentioned that they were looking to sell half of Elliot but hadn’t listed him online.  We did some research on what he had to offer and decided to see what they would be looking to get for half of this great male.  After two days of bracing for impact, we agreed on a price and looked forward to the future.

What Does Elliot Bring To The Table

As a herdsire, genetics are one of the first things to look for.  Sired by one of the greatest grey herdsires in the country right now, we believe that Elliot has that base covered.  Snowmass Enlightenment has produced a long list of top quality animals and this guy is only bolstering that breeding resume.  His dam’s side in just as impressive, containing Danko, Crescent Moon’s Rayo Del Sol, and Kriwin.

The ability to produce grey was another one of the most important things that we were looking for when picking a male.  Sired by a stud that has produced 47.22% grey across 144 registered (as of the end of 2017), we believe Elliot can continue that trend.

His qualities are just important as the genetics and he has that covered by a landslide.  Elliot has crazy staple length, stupid density (capacity), great crimp structure, is retaining fineness, has great coverage, and has an impeccable head style.  He has the potential to improve every one of our foundation females across the board and is likely to improve at least some of those qualities at the very least.

Now what?

The next step is to see what Elliot can produce when put to the test.  Luckily, we have plenty of open females here on the farm that have been surfing the pages of farmersonly.com for some time now.  We have bred four of our females to Elliot for Summer 2018 cria and are eagerly awaiting the results!