‘Alpaca chat’

BAS National judge and breeder Mary-Jo Smith, Bozedown Alpacas, tells us about her alpaca highlights and offers some helpful advice to help you improve your herd and prepare for the biggest event in the BAS showing calendar.

What has been your highlight, or have there been several, as an alpaca breeder?

There have been several highlights in my career as an alpaca breeder! Number one has to be my good fortune to experience three trips to Peru to select alpacas. Each trip brought new challenges in finding the right alpacas for our herd but also in meeting and spending time with the indigenous Quechua people. Judging the National show in 2016 also makes the top of my highlight list along with being invited to Canada to judge a show. I am from Canada but all my alpaca experience is from my time in the UK and I was excited and honoured to travel home to judge.

What made you decide to become a judge?

After being involved with breeding alpacas for around eight years it was time for a new challenge and another way to learn and improve on my alpaca skills, so I thought I would give it a go.

When I first started on the courses I didn’t think judging was something I wanted to do but felt it was a challenge to see if I could attain my judge’s ticket. Placing the alpacas in order of quality was not an issue, I had plenty of experience with this on our farm, however public speaking was not a favourite of mine and I found oral reasoning a class challenging, to begin with, to make it sound fluid and educational. However, after some experience I found that I enjoyed my time in the ring and love the opportunity and privilege of being able to look through everyone’s alpacas and hopefully give positive but informative feedback.

What makes a top quality alpaca and what qualities do you want to see in the BAS National 2022 Supreme Champions?

I certainly have a picture of my ideal alpaca in my head and I am looking forward to seeing how much closer we are to achieving this when I judge the National this year.

I will be looking for an alpaca that is true to type, well balanced and has near perfect conformation. The alpaca will hopefully grab my attention as it walks into the ring and then upon opening the fleece, I will be looking for an alpaca that is carrying a fine fleece for age, with excellent density, brightness/ lustre and handle and will be uniform in colour and fineness. I will be looking for uniformity, not only within the staple/lock but also across the animal along with producing a fantastic fleece length. Not much: just an alpaca carrying a balance of all the traits we want for a beautifully finished garment!

What makes judging the BAS National special?

Being able to judge at the National is a special experience all round! Not only do we get the opportunity to judge the best alpacas from across the UK but we get to judge a show that is set up to be the best!

The venue is excellent, the show committee works hard to make sure the alpacas are being judged in ideal conditions, with a dry, fantastic sized ring and brilliant lighting. As judges we don’t have to worry about show conditions and making sure the alpacas have equal opportunity for judging conformation or lighting, all we have to worry about is judging the alpacas and placing them in the correct order!

Judging the BAS National show is certainly a highlight in our judging career and it is an honour to be asked to judge. I am especially looking forward to judging the males this year and seeing what everyone has been producing over the last couple of years.

Have you bred your ideal alpaca or is this still something you want to achieve?

No, I have not bred my ideal alpaca yet! Over the last 21 years of breeding I have seen the quality of alpacas change drastically and every few years I see a massive jump in our herd along with the industry as a whole. However, I have set my sights high and I’m not sure I will see my ideal alpaca in my lifetime but that won’t stop me trying. I think I have bred a few alpacas that meet my ideal frame but feel I am a long way off producing the ideal fleece. I have set my goals based on a thousand – year-old mummified alpaca that had a near on perfectly uniform fleece –17.9 microns with a standard deviation of only 1.1 across the entire alpaca – legs and all!

Although, we have made great strides in our industry on all aspects of breeding alpacas, in the health, frame and fibre these magical creatures still have the potential to make even more impressive genetic advancements. However, this is one of the many things I enjoy about alpaca breeding; we can all make a difference!

What advice would you give to breeders looking to improve their herds?

The best advice I can give to any breeder is to learn to evaluate your alpacas and understand the positive and negative characteristics you have in each alpaca and across your herd.

If you understand where you are starting from and what you need to improve upon, you can make better breeding decisions. If you do not understand the individual traits within your herd then you are just guessing with each mating and you won’t make steady improvements.

Remember that 50% of your genetics come from each side: both the dam and the sire. So, choosing the best available herd sire is always a good start but depending on what quality the dam is those genes are always still in the alpaca even if they are recessive and not seen in the progeny phenotype. Having a breeding strategy will certainly help in achieving your goals.

What’s the best way for owners to improve their overall assessment skills? And does showing help breeders to improve their herds?

BAS offers courses which help owners learn to assess their alpacas. The one to start with is the introduction to alpaca evaluation of conformation and fleece, followed by the intermediate course. These courses are not only for those wanting to be a judge but are very useful even if judging is not your intended outcome. I do believe that showing both in halter and fleece shows helps breeders to improve their herds not necessarily in the show results themselves, but by getting out to shows, seeing what others are breeding and taking the opportunity to look at lots of alpacas.

I highly recommend looking at the alpacas as they come out of the ring. This is your opportunity to get out and see everyone else’s alpacas and then compare these with your own herd. Listen to the oral reasoning of the judges and then look at the alpacas and see if you understand what are described as placing differences between the alpacas. Don’t just look at the top placings but use the opportunity to see lots of different qualities. The majority of breeders are always pleased to show you their alpacas.

Fleece shows offer a more personal feedback unless you can get to see the fleeces on display. But when your fleece comes back from a show look through your fleece score card and look at the areas of strength and weakness in your fleeces. Ideally lay your fleece out and go through the fleece card while looking at the fleece. The way to improve your herd is to assess and learn your strengths and weaknesses in your alpaca and your herd and look to reinforce the good points and improve on the weaker ones.

Mary-Jo Smith at the Three Counties Fleece Show 2021

What is the best piece of advice you’ve been given?

The best advice I have been given has not necessarily been given to me through alpaca farming but farming in general – record keeping and knowing your animals. Know everything about them. What is their fertility like, do they get pregnant right away, do they produce thriving crias from the start, do these wean as strong animals, do they mature early, do the males get the females pregnant right away? Are they conformationally sound, are they carrying quality fleeces that maintain over the years, do they reproduce themselves, are we seeing improvements each year? Are the alpacas fit for purpose? If not, why are we breeding from them? Only breed from the alpacas that are adding value to your herd. By following this advice myself I have been able to produce a reliable breeding herd with depth and breadth.

What advice would you give to breeders looking to succeed at the National?

Success comes in many forms at the BAS National Show. Certainly, one of them is in the show ring, but outside the show ring is important as well. Making new contacts, advertising your herd and taking advantage of the opportunities to learn, whether that is about assessing alpacas, marketing, husbandry skills or end products. There are many opportunities to achieve success. However, as I am judging the halter classes, I guess I had better offer some advice for the show ring!

Obviously, everyone will be choosing their best alpacas to show so all I can advise is to give your alpacas the best opportunity to shine and by this I do not mean to tamper with your alpaca as paddock condition is what we want. However, you can maintain the paddocks.

It is always stressful running up to the Nationals as it is the first show of the season and our weather is generally unhelpful! Don’t stress too much about the mud as it tends to all drop off before the show. However, I like to keep a paddock ready for my show team to go into the month running up the show – which has grass in it, if possible! I know this is not always possible, but keep your paddock rotation in mind so that they can go in the least muddy field – or start praying for sunshine and spring grass! Otherwise, the main thing is to spend time training your alpacas. The ones that are comfortable on the lead and parade themselves around will not change their placings at the show but they certainly catch the judge’s eye!

Don’t just teach them to present themselves well but make sure they are used to being touched, showing teeth, touching tails etc. As a judge it is much easier to judge if the alpacas are used to being handled. If we cannot judge them properly this may move you a place down the line. We will certainly do everything we can to judge the alpacas fairly but I think if the alpacas walk well, have presence in the ring and are easy to judge it can help enormously.