Love is in the Air ! .. .. ..

This is Zelqui....he is Zeto's Dad !

Zakhura...has had a first date with Zanubis..

Zanubis, has had his first date with Zakhura !

Trienza, has had her first date with Zaninni..

Zakhura, Dusty and Zeto.

It has been a little while since I last blogged, it has been all quiet up here at Zanzibah !

However...there has been some alpaca loving going on !...just a spur of the moment thing, the best way..nothing planned, apart from the match making. I have been waiting for this for sometime, as we are hoping to reset the birthing clock...hopefully we shall have babies arriving in early summer, not winter as on previous years.

So today has been quite busy, I have managed to mate four of my girls, I have decided to share the love this year, I hope to use each boy to cover a female, that way, I will be able to compare the results....I have a nice selection of younger boys, who will be working for the first time, all going to plan.

I have re mated Zorba/White with Aymara/Light Brown, unfortunately two years ago, Aymara lost her baby, I have tried since to succeed with this match. I hope this year, things go well. If not I think that Aymara has retired from breeding, time will tell.

I have also decided to use Zaninni, some will remember he had a nasty accident a while ago. I will be interested to see if he can work at all after his injury ! He had a liaison with Trienza. Zaninni is Light Brown, Trienza is dark Fawn, so it will be interesting to see what colour this match produces, if I had to guess, it would be a similar colour to both as there is a dominant Light brown gene pool here.

I have, after careful...consideration...decided to repeat the pairing of Zelqui/Plum Brown with Dusty/Grey...this union produced...Zeto last year, I have been thrilled with the result, I wanted to see if this would repeat, or if it was a complete fluke !! Zeto is growing up very nicely, his fleece is a beautiful colour and he carries a very dense amount for a grey.

Last but not least today, I decided to see if Zanubis was ready to work. He is a very unique colour, he is registered as Rose Grey. He is only 2 gone 17/7/10...so I was a little sceptical as to whether he was mature enough. The match I had in mind for him was Zakhura, this is my black girl, both of these animals were placed at the Scottish National Fleece Show last year. Zanubis was beaten by half a point into 3rd !!...in the junior grey class. Both of these animals carry alot of volume.......this is a match I can't wait to see the result....!!

Hopefully I shall be doing a few 'spit-offs' next week when we continue the match-making. I have another 3 girls to arrange dates for....the selections are complete..its just a matter of getting down to business....

I shall let you know how we get on !