The day went very well, Colin zipped through 51 and I soldiered through 11 and as I said all survived. I did knick one ear though fortunately the senior partner was warming up the pasties at the time so was and still is unaware. Some of my haircuts resemble a new fashion in alpaca goatees and not all tails are quite even all around and there’s a few tufts here and there. In other words it wouldn’t take much guess work to tell which one’s I sheared if you looked in the field.

Saturday is shearing day, I went on a refresher course at Langaton last week so plan to do a few myself just to get back into the swing of things but I will let Colin Ottery do the majority. Me shearing again will make things a whole lot easier doing the show team etc later in the year.

Popham Sunshine 1st Junior Fawn Female Huacaya         Sire Popham Ambersun Flame

Popham Suri Sunbeam 1st Junior Fawn Female Suri Champion Fawn Suri     Sire Moonsbrook Cosmo

Popham Suri Twilight 2nd Junior Fawn Female Suri      Sire Moonsbrook Cosmo

Popham Commander 4th Intermediate Male Huacaya Brown

Popham Suri Radiant 1st Intermediate Suri Female Beige

Popham Cornish Mutiny 5th Intermediate Male Huacaya White

Popham Compass 6th Intermediate Male Huacay White

Cambridge Joshua 1st Adult Male Huacaya White

Popham Suri Dream Catcher 1st Adult Male Suri White

Alpaca Stud Masquerade 1st Multi Huacaya    Appaloosa

Popham Amboseli 2nd Multi Huacaya    Appaloosa

Popham Raindrop 3rd Multi Huacaya    Appaloosa

Popham Ferren 2nd Dams Progeny Huacaya

WAC Fleece Oxford 2012

Popham Cinderella 1st Suri Fawn Fleece 12-24 months     Sire Inca Matador

Popham Suri Isabella 3rd Suri Fawn Fleece 12-24 months     Sire Inca Matador

Popham Suri Sparkle 1st Suri White Fleece 6-12 months

Popham Suri doom Bar 2nd Suri White Fleece 6-12 months

Popham Evita 1st Suri White Fleece 24-48 months

Felicia attended the WAC on the Thursday especially to listen to Dr Andrew Merriwether’s talk on colour genetics hoping to pick up some info on appaloosas which he covered quite extensively to her delight but also to her annoyance he confirmed my theory about what an appaloosa alpaca really is. Well sort of anyway. I’ve always maintained that Camouflage is an spotty patterned Rose Grey and that it is the Lp (leopard) gene that cauases this different pigmentation. Well I was along the right lines almost. according to this fellow appaloosas are Harlequin greys……….

Sven came on down to us after the conference. He is breeding coloured suris so Friday morning we had a look through our girls and the show team before he and Felicia went off to see 3 other breeders. This left me at home on the Friday to pack up for the show, prepare the 19 show animals, deal with the vet and some clients and all of this when I wasn’t well. How inconsiderate.

I don’t think Felicia will leave me with that much to do again, healthy or not, especially on Friday the 13th as my preparations were a bit of a disaster. I forgot all the banners, promotional material and only packed enough feed for one day. Fortunately Lawrence from EP came to my rescue on the feed side.

Felicia really couldn’t get too cross with me as I really was ill by now. Not your normal man flu which is bad enough but some super bug that I think my daughter brought down from the hospital she is working in at the moment.

The show was great, the committee put on a tremendous event, well organised and the centre looked great. There were many foreign visitors and we spoke to people from Italy, Switzerland, Canada and France. There was also a lot of interest from locals.

On the Saturday Sven had to the showing for me as I didn’t trust myself for too long in the ring, on the Sunday i was improving and managed a few classes but thanks to Jenny and peter who had to step in at the last moment as I dashed for the loo !!!!

Popham are very happy with their results from both the WAC fleece show and the Alpaca 2012 which can be seen on the results page but as with all shows there are highlights…..

Evita winning Adult suri white fleece beating three  Australian entries.

Sunshine, one of Flames first cria, winning junior fawn female huacaya. She looked really cute and is only 6 months old. ( Great news as another one of Flame’s progeny has just won the junior white huacay female at the french show).

Sunbeam and Twilight, Cosmo’s first progeny getting 1st and 2nd in the junior fawn female suri class. Sunbeam went onto be Fawn Champion. Not a bad start for the little fellows breeding career.

One of the classes I did manage to show in was with Josh in the adult white male huacaya. Not a very big class but there was a was a new import from Australia in the field but my boy did it. He is a star.

Finally we come to the Multi class. Not every one’s cup of tea but a class that is becoming more and more popular. There were 9 entries, three from Popham. Masquerade, Amboseli and Raindrop and that’s the order they finished in. 1st, 2nd and 3rd. Both liz Barlow and  Nick Harrington Smith judged the class and it was their commentary that really pleased me. It went along the lines of ” the first three are what we are beginning to call appaloosas and I have no doubt there will soon be pressure on the judging committee to have appaloosa classes at the shows”….music to my ears.

Amboseli and Remarque’s Boy were looking on from an adjacent field, can anyone spot why two seconds later all hell broke loose !!

Yes that’s right, Remarques Boy suddenly realised he had a hosepipe around his neck.

We also had the frustration of not being able to go to the french show over the Easter weekend. First time we’ve missed it since it’s inception. However some of Popham’s alpacas were able to attend and did very well . Steve and Jayne from Quelvehin took them for us, our best result was Popham Ambersun Solomon winning the Fawn Male huacaya championship. Quelvehin did very well winning with a junior white huacaya female out of Popham Ambersun Flame called Snowdrift.

Well we’ve been on the end on many phone calls in the past when clients and friends have issues in labour with their alpacas. yesterday the roles were reversed and Felicia was straight on the phone to Jacqui at Cherokee alpacas. Fortunately Jacqui had andy with her who is a sheep farmer and they charged round and helped out in what was a normal delivery in the end. Of couse I was oblivious to all this as I was at the day job.

A pigeion pair, ram lamb weighing in at 4.3kg and a ewe lamb on the smaller size at 2.9kg. Not as pretty as cria I must say but still full of fun and very cute. The ram lamb has very small horns……can you imagine that!!!

Hogan is beginning to tower over Ribo but Ribo is still king!! We also been having a visit from another fox, caught him coming in around the chickens. You can always smell when they’ve been around. So I’ve started the job of fencing the chicken field and we’ll probably put a couple of boys in there to keep them safe.

Steve has nearly finished the cottage which is just as well as we received our first booking last night for June. Very exciting and I do wonder if it has anything to do with the fact I have just changed the wording on the cottage blurb to include “alpaca farm”.

Anyone reading this who fancies a week in sunny Cornwall on a working alpaca farm have a look at www.sykescottages.co.uk property reference: 11437. What with the coastline so closeby, golf courses, Eden project and places like Padstow and the Fowey River to visit. Why go elsewhere !!!

We have Steve from Quelvehin alpagas in Brittany staying with us at the moment. He’s a bit of a handyman so whenever there’s some work to be done at Popham, in this case it’s finishing the holiday cottage, he’s the man. I think he quite enjoys it, a few days off from his own poo-picking and a few nights in the Riser with a packet of pork scratchings and a couple of ales. Right up his street !!!