Jolene Has A Purpose

"Some people, no matter how old they get, 
never lose their beauty - they merely move it 
from their faces into their hearts."
  - Martin Buxbaum

I've written about Jolene before in the post "Taming of the Shrew."  She came to us as a bit of a wild thing.  I'm not sure what drew me to her, but she stares deeply into you and stirs something inside.  She was an emotional purchase, but has proven to be a great first alpaca. 

Jolene has had three crias for us.  Sabrina, Mataeus, and Miss Allison (Missy).  She is a wonderful mother and an easy birther. Thank goodness our first experiences have been textbook easy.  

Learning how to breed for fleece quality and conformation has been our primary focus with the animals.  Jolene has a luxurious fleece of 20 microns through age 6, but her staple length is short. So our breeding decisions have been to add length and density while maintaining that softness.  We have had wonderful success with Jolene's offspring.  Each one having the best traits of their sire and dam and improving on our foundation.  

 

On our farm every alpaca has a purpose.  We have wonderful breeding genetics, luxurious fiber animals, and companions.  Even though Jolene's fleece is short, we have not let it go to waste.  Her fleece is perfect for our felted soaps. 

I have a free tutorial about felting soap coming up soon!