How to improve the quality of your alpaca herd

An old friend told me the secret: "It is just a matter of how many 'dollars away' is the best male!" That was the answer to my question. He was talking about "how many dollars away" is the best male that we can afford for the improvement of our herd.

I will explain this idea deeply in the next lines.  Before that I think that there is different kinds of improvement on a herd, and each one is related to a different approach to the problem.

Improvement of the herd on the short time
This is the first thing that you must do: use the best male that you can afford.  This can be done in short time.

Of course that it does not need to be your own male.  Renting the service of a male, sending your female to be covered for the best male that you can afford is something that will help you very quickly to improve the general quality of your herd.

This is what my old friend mean. You have the reach the best male that there is in the whole world. It is just a matter of  "how many miles away" this special male is located, "how much money" away is this male, or "how much time" do you need to book this male in anticipation.  In the end, the males, the good ones, are to be used by the community because his global capacity to cover many females is enormous. 

They will decide the future of a national herd. And they are not so many... just a few are the top males that you must look for. 

In animal reproduction it is common knowledge that we are not the exclusive owners of the males.  Normally our best males will be available to the ones who want to pay the fee to use his reproductive capabilities.  So, we, the owners of males, are just the temporal owners of their qualities and characteristics because normally we will put their services available on the market.

Good males, or we should call them top males, have a terrific impact over the general population. In this case, top alpaca males will have the greatest importance over the evolution of the quality of the whole alpaca population and the quality of the fiber that they produce.

Using the best males that you can find is the faster way to improve your herd. It should be your first step in developing a herd that deserves consideration on the market. You can have "enough reach" to get the best males. 

There is no doubt about it.  Rent them, hire their genes and put them inside your herd, use them as what they are intended for: top studs for the start of your herd’s improving quality process.

There are other themes related to the males and their use on the improvement of the alpaca herds: inbreeding,line breeding, open breeding.  When you use a female, normally you will talk that she is daughter of "this" or "that" famous male... but, at the same time, the grandmother on the paternal side has a tremendous influence on the "real genetics" that comes inside the whole packet.  We will focus on those subjects on other articles.

Back to the males... the use of the best males will improve your herd in 30%. No, we are not wrong.  The old idea that the male give 50% and the female other 50% is not accepted between the "genetic scientists" that are working at the molecular level. We will come with more about this subject on the next lines... we hope you stay with us until the end!.

Improvement of the herd on the long time
This should be your second step: use the best females that you can reach. Most of the time this take long time to develop.

Why this method is not so fast?Is not supposed that you can buy the best females if you look carefully on the market?  No.  If a female is a really good one there is a plan for her assoon as she has been born.  That plan includes keeping the female for the original herd, selling to some relative or some farmer that has relationship with the original owner, put the females on some sort of co ownership or cooperative effort, put the female on a foster home or other similar methods.  In one way or another a very good top female will be at the reach of the original owner.  Top females are not sold. 

They are kept or very collocated very carefully. If you have reach to those females... good for you!

The thing that you should avoid if you are trying to get a good female is buying with the first salesman (we all are salesmen in our lives!) that present himself with a bunch of money in one hand, a happy face (we, salesmen, have happy faces all the time!) and an alpaca female on the other hand....  only the second options will be available if we talk about females.  The happy face of the salesman is because he has chosen to keep the best female for him and he is ready to sell the "second options"... that's normal! Not a sin, but you must know.  And that happens in all animal breeding.  The reasons will be clearer in a minute and the answers to this dilemma too.

Mastering genetic affairs
As I have said the last molecular genetic studies has shown that females have more importance on what they give to the new baby alpaca that will be born. 

It happens in all mammals.  The reason is that the DNA material that is on the genes is not only present in the head of the spermatozoid and in the nucleus of the egg.  There is other DNA present in this game and it is the mitochondrial DNA.  The spermatozoid has only a head and a tail. No more.  The egg or the ovulus cell has nucleus and it has other components, between them are the mitochondrias that have DNA present.  Nobody knows how this DNA genes mix with the male genes or with the other genes that the female put on the table.  Studies has been done related to humans and hypertension.  But it is accepted in the scientific community that the old scheme of 50% and 50% is out of date.  Further reference about this "highly controversial" issue can be found on an Internet search.

But we do notneed to travel the seven seas of the Internet to find the importance of the females on the building of a herd.  Just ask the keeper of any Zoo worldwide.  When a mix between a male lion with a female tiger has been made the new borns look like the tiger mother and they are call LIGERS. The female Ligers tend to behave like the solitaire pure tiger. 

When the mix happens between a male tiger with a female lion the new borns look more like the lion mother.  And this mix is call a TIGON.  And it looks totally different and it behaves totally different.  Female Tigons tend to behave in a very social way, building communities with their sisters and relatives.  Closer behavior to the one that the 100% pure lion mother has in nature.

The same happens in the well know mix between a male donkey with a female horse.  We all know that this product is a MULE.  But not so many of us are aware that when we mix a male horse with a female donkey the new born will not look like a mule.  It will look more similar to its donkey mother and it will have a look closer to the donkey than closer to a horse, in all aspects: size, look, strength, and attitude.  And it is call a "HINNY".  Scientists think that differences in hinnies and mules may be from the result of maternal influences on the fetus.  All old farmers, worldwide, know that a male donkey (Jack) bred to a female horse produces a MULE. Mules look closer to their horse mother and can be either male or female.  A male horse (stallion) bred to a female donkey (jennet) produces a HINNY. Hinnies look closer to their donkey mother and can be either male or female.  The theme is treated by Charles Darwin on "The Origin of the Species" (Chapter VIII Hybridism.  A free online version of the book available on http://darwin.thefreelibrary.com/The-Origin-of-Species/8-1-2)

This theme is so old that about 1000 BCE, mule breeders noticed that "a mare crossed with a donkey yields a mule, whereas a stallion crossed with a donkey produces a hinny, which has shorter ears, a thicker mane and tail, and stronger legs than the mule. This made [modern] researchers aware that there could be parent-specific effects in off-spring"(cited from http://www.sciencetimeline.net/prehistory.htm).  The controversy about mitochondrial DNA can stay alive for years... but the practical farmer knows about facts of everyday: mothers put "more things" on the offspring than what males put.  Further info about mules and hinnies on  http://www.lovelongears.com/longearlingo.html

So, no doubt at the practical level or at the scientific level that a top female will have more influence over the general improvement of your herd.  Then, why not start improving with the females? I mean... why not going to buy the top females? Why don't pay a super price for the top female that is with a "sell" sign hanging on the neck? Why don't follow those beautiful eyes that say "take me home!"? The answer is because normally top females are not available.  The ones that are for sale are second option or are sold by some reason. Second option does not mean that they are not good ones. It means that there are others that are best and those are kept in the original herd or "sold" in different ways that the original breeder feels will give you more control over the future of them.

There is no money big enough to pay for top females
Pay big money for reaching the top males, buy them, rent them, and use them in one way or another.  Don't pay too much money for the top females... because... there are others that are better!  Good females are not sold.  Good females are breed.  Take your best females and get coverings with the best males that you can afford as rent studs. 

The resulting babies will be of better quality than their mothers and youmust choose your future female reproductors from this group of new borns. Then  you will be buildingyour own herd.  Only then you willimprove the long term time quality of the animals and the fiber that theyproduce.

If good top males are just "some dollars" away, we must say that really good top females are not available at any amount of money.  The only way to get them is to build your own line of females.

The females on each herd bring some characteristics that develop the personality of theherd.  Name it: color, structure, health, fiber production, fineness, luster or any other. The females on the herd are responsible of 70% of what the herd is showing and they will lead the development of your herd. 

Remember, males influence the national herds, females influence your herd.

The females that you will keep will be mated with other top studs that you can reach and then you will be in the right road.  No matter how beautiful or how good you think that are your own males. Only if they are top recognized males they will have a future as reproductors for your own herd or for becoming recognized studs. How to become a recognized stud male will be treated on another article, but in general terms we are talking about microns, general condition and "genetic strongness" that is the capacity of transfer its excellent phenotypic and genotypic characteristics and its own "genetic strongness"included.

It is not common sense to keep males that are born from your normal females breed with top stud males.  Keep the females and sell the males.  This leads us to other theme: How to get more females than males in our breeding and What to do with the extra males that we got in our breeding. 

Both will be treated soon.

Other themes related to this issue would be How to use the F1 factor to improve your herdand How to use the separate lines of known producers to improve your herd. But this approach takes longer time and is complementary to this initial effort: use the best males that you can reach and keep the best females that you produce.

We hope that this article helps you on your daily breeding and in your long term plans! We are on info@alpacaperu.com for any comment.