Sire and Dam (Ollie Series #4)

At the end of March, Ollie will begin the weaning process, so I thought this would be a good time to talk about his sire (father) and dam (mother), giving tribute to the two alpacas who gave Ollie his unique personality and characteristics! Though I have gathered bits and pieces here and there about Ollie’s parents during my visits to Foggy Bottom Alpacas, I checked in with Sara for some extra information about them for this post.

Hmmm… Who is this mysterious fellow?

Kingscliff is aptly named, coming off as regal and kingly. Photo © Foggy Bottom Alpacas

Well, he is…

Ollie’s Sire, Kingscliff

Macho man! Photo © Foggy Bottom Alpacas

Kingscliff hails from a farm in New York called A. L. Paca’s Farms. Somewhat aptly named, when you see Kingscliff for the first time, he certainly comes off as kingly, strutting about like he owns and manages the whole of Foggy Bottom Alpacas. Ollie gets his playful nature, curiosity, and distinctive head shape from Kingscliff, as well as some of his color (more on that later).

Kingscliff was very curious about me… as you can see.

And, you guys know who this is from her previous appearances on the blog…

Ollie follows Duchess around the farm.

That’s right!

Ollie’s Dam, Duchess

I think this is my favorite picture of Duchess. A bit of a glamour shot, with her “hair” blowing in the breeze and a coy little smile! Photo © Foggy Bottom Alpacas

Duchess is seven years old and came from a farm in Oregon called Northwest Alpacas. As understated as Kingscliff is regal, she is kind of the quintessential alpaca. Calm and neutral, easy to handle, and just a really good girl. (As you can tell, I kind of adore her. ^_^) Having had four other crias before Ollie, she is an experienced, reliable dam who brings up personable, well-balanced little ones without fail. She tempers personalities from sires (like Kingscliff!) that may be a little overwhelming, which helps to make crias like Ollie even-keeled with just a touch of spunk. She is so matter-of-fact about the whole business of birthing and raising crias that she had Ollie all on her own while the humans were inside for their lunch break, then went about the rest of her day as if that were no big deal, little Ollie trailing behind like he’d always been there.

What a great mom!

Breeding Kingscliff to Duchess was no accident. Indeed, Sara had a plan:

“I bred Duchess to Kingscliff because I knew that Duchess had color in her backgroud and was trying to get something other than white. Her past crias have all been white… so I wanted to see what she was capable of throwing [a word breeders use that is another way of saying “to give birth to”]. With her dad being a multi, I knew that the chances of her throwing a multi were pretty high.”

I won’t get too much into color here because it is a varied and multi-faceted topic that I am just starting to learn about myself, but it is interesting to note that Sara did get a (mostly) non-white cria out of pairing Duchess with Kingscliff, as was hoped! Ollie is registered as a medium fawn (primary) and white (secondary) alpaca.

Before I sign off for today, I have a special treat: Ollie’s Alpaca Registry, Inc. (ARI) certificate! (See it bigger here.)

Ollie’s family tree.

While the certificate can look a little confusing at first, let’s take a step back, reading it as if we are Ollie and this is his family tree.

At the top, we have Ollie’s official name of “FBF Oliver,” which is a combination of 1) the breeder who owned the dam at the time the cria was born and 2) the name of the cria itself. Directly underneath that, it states the farm where he was born. Along the left, a quick glance shows us his birth country, his primary and secondary color classifications, his gender, and other information.

Then we get to the interesting bits along the right, which is Ollie’s lineage back to his great great grandparents! If you go back far enough, there is no breeder identifier in the name, but what looks to be a misspelled “Peruvian” instead (such as in Great Great Grandpa Caligula’s case). This is because the word “Peruvian” on these certificates can mean two different things, the first and most straightforward of which indicates the alpaca’s full heritage from Peru. The second meaning is more complicated, as it indicates the alpaca was from one of six batches that were imported to the U. S. from Peru before importations were closed in the 1990s. To keep track of these alpacas, the word “Peruvian” was added to their name to indicate they were in the first batch from Peru. At the second importation, and for each after that, a prefix was added to help keep things straight: PP, PPP, 4P, 5P, 6P. The “unknowns” in Ollie’s pedigree chart occur mostly because there is no way to track the lineage of these alpacas imported from Peru. During my research for this post, I found out from Sara that Caligula is actually a very well-known sire who appears on many ARI certificates for some of the top alpacas in the country today. Cool!

That’s it for now. Up next time, I’ll have an interview with Sara from Foggy Bottom Alpacas!