Oregon
Flock & Fiber Festival 2007 is "in the books"
The
2007 Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival in Canby
has come and gone! There is a brief summary and a
long list of "Thank Yous" from Hal on the OFFF page
(click on the OFFF link to the left). It was great
to see lots of our llama friends in Canby and meet
some new llama folks! I had a good time and I hope
all the competitors did too!
Third
Baby!
Rosario's third baby is on the ground thanks to Dr.
Kutzler (details below)! As you can tell from
these "less than day old" pics, we have a beautiful
fawn/peach colored girl out of Beautiful Dreamer.
This makes it three in a row for the fawn coloring -
first, it was Duncan's "Romeo," then Tallmon's "Chase,"
and now this one (who needs a name but it will be
something involving "peach"!). Her head and tail
are a little darker and her nose and ears have some gray
coloring, but the body is the same color as her neck.
We have
been very fortunate to have many reasonably "routine"
births, but this was our second really tough
dystocia. Dreamer was in labor for most of the
afternoon and early evening and at about 6:30pm the
cervix was dilating and we had one foot and then the
second - but no nose.
We gave
Dreamer some time to "work on it," and Julie would
periodically check if the head had come up (it was down
to the left side of the baby's front legs), but it
wasn't, and despite her efforts, Julie could not get
it. We put in a call to Dr. Michelle Kutzler who raced
over, within 1 minute of getting out of the truck had
her coveralls on and had received a briefing on the
situation, less than two minutes later had the head up
and out!, and two minutes after that was handing Hal the
baby! You have to appreciate having the "right
person for the job" available when you need them!
Big "Props" to Dr. Michelle; you're our Hero!
The baby
is doing fine (kicking up her heels in the picture to
the right!) but Dreamer had a tough-go with the placenta
and is feeling the effects of labor and a tough
delivery.
Thank
You
Tallmons! Some
time ago, Sherri told Julie that she wanted to buy one
of the Gold Glitter girls; Julie finally let one go
earlier this year. The Tallmons purchased "Too"
who was a Grand Champion at the 2006 Oregon State Fair
and earned a Top Five award at last year's Western
Regional show. Thank You Sherri and Will - we
appreciate your confidence in our animals and we wish
you great success in the show ring with Too and her
future babies!
A couple
of our
Bolivian Asombroso kids
are growing up and you will see them on the show circuit
in the northwest this season. "Lookin Real
Sharpp" is pictured on the left and his mom is
Baby
Magic. As you can
see, he is very wooly and he is also very
responsive. Chris has been training him on the
obstacles and they have been doing well together.
"Silver
Shimmer," pictured on the right, is another Gold
Glitter daughter.
Like her older sisters (Gold
Sparkle -2005 National Grand Champion Heavy Wool
Female, Its
Destini and I
Sparkle Too), Shimmer is friendly, easy to work
with and wants to please.
The 2006
Grand
National Llama Show in Lincoln, Nebraska went well
(and getting there and back was not *too* big a deal
this year - just one 30 minute white-out!).
Highlights included Bright
New Dawn being named the Grand Champion Light
Wool female - not bad for an 11 year old!
Chris and Heather received Top Ten ribbons in
all but one performance class. A couple years ago,
Heather decided that she and Salsalito (A.K.A. Lee)
needed to drive - driving is a nice goal, but Heather
did not want to "just" drive, she wanted to drive at the
Grand National! With her brother's help they did
all the ground training and Lee went into the cart on
July 1, 2006. Lee's ALSA debut was at the Flock
and Fiber Festival - it was a bit painful to watch, but
it qualified them for the Regional show. At the
Western Regional, he was somewhat better - there were
still rough spots, but it was enough to qualified for
the Grand National. With Niki Kuklenski's coaching
and many warm-up laps around the Lancaster Event Center,
Heather and Lee finished below Niki and Isle Eagle as
the Reserve Champion Drivers!
Congratulations Niki and Eagle for being National
Champion Drivers and thanks for helping Heather with her
goal!
MORE Congratulations
to the Benton County Llama 4-H group,
The Lucky Longneck Llama Club,
on their successful show at the Benton County Fair on
August 2nd. Thanks go out to our judge, Niki
Kuklenski for driving down from Washington and creating
a relaxed and fun atmosphere in the show ring. As
a group, the club finished with more blue ribbons than
red ribbons and there were no white ribbons given out -
what a great effort!!
In addition, Christopher
Koenig, Heather Koenig, and Deanna Duncan competed in
the large animal Master Showmanship competition and ALL
were named Champion: Christopher in the junior age
division, Heather for the intermediates and Deanna for
the seniors. Very Impressive! More
information about The
Lucky Longneck Llama Club is
available by clicking the "Benton Co. 4-H" link in the
menu to the left.
Our
congratulations to the Benton
County Llama 4-H group,
The Lucky Longneck Llama Club,
on their success with their
Multiple Sclerosis "Walk for a Cure"
fundraising efforts. The club's goal was $6,300
which is $1 for every person in Oregon with MS and they
came close; raising
nearly $6,000. This puts
the club in 10th place in Oregon in the "Friends and Families"
team division and 11th place overall. Great Job!!!
Julie and I want to send special thanks to both the club
parents and the llama community. To the parents,
we appreciate your help with the fundraising and
provided extra hands during the walk in April! To
the llama community, thank you for your generous
donations to this cause - a large part of the club's
success is due to your contributions. We really
appreciate your participation.
Well, we
had black ice followed by packed snow on the roads on
the first day of our trip to the 2005 National Show, and
coming home they closed I-80 west of Cheyenne and that
night we had temperatures in the teens with blowing snow
driven by 30 mile/hour winds, but WOW, are we GLAD we were there - what a
final day we had at the 2005 Grand National Show!
We ended up
with two of our girls in the front row of the Heavy Wool
Championship class and Gold Sparkle was named the Grand
Champion Heavy Wool Female!
Then
Fino
Chilean
Rosario (in the
picture to the left) was the class champion for the
Heavy Wool Two Year Old Males. And to top it all
off, Gold
Glitter’s Produce ended up with the blue
ribbon (Gold Glitter is Gold Sparkle’s dam) and
Bolivian Asombroso’s Get also earned the top
honor. You can see a summary of the 2005 show
results here.
Please take a look
through our site, and then make an appointment
to come visit us and let our herd show you why llamas
are so special.
