By Bill Robbins
Bill Robbins is a fifth generation Merino breeder, who began raising alpacas several years ago. He is an astute breeder and a senior alpaca judge.
Bill begins his article with a fascinating review of the history of the Merino in Australia and then seeks to draw lessons from the Merino past to the alpaca present. He looks to the future of the alpaca with an interesting discussion of linebreeding. The article concludes with Robbins’ vision of the ideal alpaca.
“My vision for Australia is to produce a huacaya that is square bodied, strong boned, deep framed, medium sized, producing dense, soft-handling, bright, independently stapled, well-defined and tightly-crimped fleece, of twenty-three micron or less. The fleece will have little or no medullation or guard hair and will weigh five kilograms and above.
Suris will have much the same characteristics. The locking will be lustrous and individual, with as many locks as is possible to achieve across the body without losing density. Fleece weights will be similar to huacaya.”
I find his description of the ideal hard to argue with.
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