The results came back from the skin biopsy which are very favourable: Below is a write up from Jim Watts, MV. Sc, Ph.D: He is a rather special male!!! Jim Watts analysis: The 14 month old alpaca, FDA Rembrandt, has high levels of fiber density and fiber length. The density reading of 67.7 follicles per square millimeter will be lower when the animal reaches mature body size, but not sufficient to alter the fact that it is a high density animal. This view is supported by the high level of secondary follicle development that has occurred - a secondary follicle to primary follicle ratio of 13.5 to 1 is exceptional for an alpaca. The primary fibers and secondary fibers are fine in diameter (means of 24.5 microns and 17.6 microns respectively) and very uniform in diameter (standard deviations of fiber diameter of 2.9 microns respectively). Note the low level of medullation (13%) in the secondary fiber population - a feature that is sought and only accompanies alpacas with a very fine and uniform fleeces. The fibers are growing in length at the fast rate of 0.55 millimeters per day.

Val impressed the judges and competition in her first show, placing 2nd out of 7 but being named the finest in the class by the judge! She is an excellent mom, attentive, birthing and breeding easily, and nursing well. Her first pairing was to Rembrandt at the Flying Dutchman Alpacas in Oregon and she produced a bright white and shiny white boy that we cleverly named 'Man in Armour'! This boy had the looks of a Greek god (or a knight in a painting ;) ), and is very fine, dense, and very bright. As she did in her youth, Armour had a lovely fine, crimpy, dense, long fiber that was a pleasure to spin into next-to-skin yarn. He was sold to another farm as a junior herdsire. Her pairing to our Supermassive produced a white boy that was rock solid and energetic. Even at birth, he had tiny little microbundles in his developing fleece! As the summer progressed, we watched this male bloom and his fiber was fantastic! He drew your eyes from the across the paddock. We kept him but then moved away from breeding for white and lights so he never got the work he should have. Then, we couldn't help it, we loved the look of Superluminal so we repeated her breeding to Supermassive for a full sister to Superluminal! Love the look of this beautiful white girl, Vanora, and are seriously considering breeding her to dark coloration when she comes of age. This girl grew fast on her dam's abundant milk! Right now, I cannot bear to let Vanora go, as I MUST try to breed her to color to see what she makes for us! For that matter, I am going to breed Val to color as well! I really considered keeping this girl as her cria have has fantastic fiber, and I found out with colortyping that she would only proce color. But an opportunity arose for to move and we are trying to reduce numbers so she is now sold!