We think this boy is the darkest 'silky' type we have seen! His fiber is slick and shiny that it looks and almost feels wet! Even judge Tim Lavan commented that his fiber looked almost like it was wet! He has LOTS of fiber on him, and with a really long staple so that it droops somewhat when he is at his peak length. But don't be fooled by this and think that he is not dense... he has a lot of fiber packed on him! He has white fibers in his blanket but not consistently enough to classify him as a grey in the shows. This was his initial 'hiccup' in the show ring, when they placed him in the brown classes so that he had to endure the disapproval of the judges. We attempted to show him in Bred and Owned but did not find the consistent competition at that time that we desired for him. But, we luckily become more observant of Major's several, easily discernible light spots in his blanket that classifies him as an appaloosa pattern. Shown in the right class and Major ROCKS! His fiber was finally evaluated purely on its exceptional qualities rather than on how it did not fit in the class. From the beginning in the show ring, he was hard to categorized but well appreciated. At his first show, while he was criticized for his white fibers in brown class, he also caught the judge's eye as "so shiny he looked wet". At the 2014 Futurity while showing in the combined multi class, he was brought to the Reserve Champion position, behind the Snowmass Color Champion and before the other exemplary alpacas from farms such as Crescent Moon and Marquam Hill. With the caliber of competition of this show we were proudly aware of Major's placing at the head of the pack clearly recognizing his herdsire material! We absolutely love Major for his easy personality, great looks and fantastic fiber. Being a small farm with very limited breedings each year, Major has had to elbow his way into the breeding program and hasn't had the exposure that he should have. He has darkened the color of the offspring over its dam in every case. When bred to fawns he has made a MF to DB crias. Bred to grey dams he produced grey crias 60% of the time and true black in the remaining 40%. Their fiber have all been fine with long staple and good crimp. His last two crias by fawn dams have been grouped into our show / jr. herdsire category. Since we have decided to keep his son, Gentry, in our herdsire row, Major is available at a very 'nice price' to help him move to another breeding program. He has genetics that could be used in any grey or spotted program. As we have sold Imitation, our last appaloosa dam, we no long have need for a male that could straddle the line of grey and spotted colorations and he really deserves more consideration.

Retired proven dam. A Roosevelt daughter possessing Patagonia bloodlines, Berry is a good catch from an well known grey program that has produced pivotal grey herdsires. She has produced well in her years of production service for her previous farm and we are sure she has plenty of years for more great crias. She is traditional in her body type and fiber archetype but does very well bred to our stocky, rooted to the ground herdsires. Berry had another beautiful grey cria in 2014, sired by NS Magic Flight (Snowmass Enlightenment x Almost Paradise Farms Beatriz; LSG #32313277). This boy ended up finding his place in a starting herd in Kansas, so we wish him well. In 2016 Berry made a mini-me from Major General. Striking in appearance with white on his face and a maroon bay black color, he really caught the eye! We lost this boy to a sudden reaction to an illness without seeing him grow to his full maturity. With this sad occurrence, we have definitely thought of rebreeding Berry to Major for a repeat. In 2017 we bred Berry to our multi-champion grey male Dauntless to produce a lovely black male. He was born the year of the bomb cyclone, which hit us hard at our farm and slowed his growth -- so he is a bit smaller than average. He is very fine, with nice crimp and style but he needs more density to push his fleece into show contention; there are articles about fiber producing animals having a perceived less density due to lack of follicle development due to stress in the early formative months (like he did with our harsh weather). His personality is supersweet and he was sold to a gentle farm. After a break, Berry was bred back to Major General, and this pairing produced a very fine fibered male as it did the first time, but this time in a true black color! Berry is a great mom to him. We believe she could produce additional crias despite her age but feel a retirement is warranted.