First EPD results released

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Permalink Reply by Tracey Koehler on December 23, 2008 at 9:54am

Hi, it is probably just me as this is all new but I looked at the charts and really do not know what I am looking at. Can anyone explain what all of this means and how to understand it? I see lot's of - this or thats and figures going both ways. Confusing to me.

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Permalink Reply by Dena Kotka-Holtz on December 23, 2008 at 10:59am

It's not to hard. The main line down the middle is the standard alpaca which represents 0. The light color brown is the fiber diameter. The farther down from the center 0 is the smaller diameter of the average alpaca. For example with Hemingway Example: -1.7 smaller diameter than the average alpaca 0. The dark brown represents the fleece weight. Hemingway example: .7 heavier fleece than the average alpaca at 0. Pachacuti on the other hand shows .1 for fiber diameter and -.2 for fleece weight. Hence, he is less in fleece weight than the average alpaca and has a larger fiber diameter than the average alpaca. This is all suppose to help in deciding who you want to breed to for Expected prodogeny.

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Permalink Reply by Heidi Christensen on December 23, 2008 at 11:59am

I am so excited that the results are in. But I'm with Tracey - I understand the basic concepts of EPDs and can read the report without any problem, but I was looking at my girls' EPDs (I have sent samples in and they have numbers in my account), but I'm still confused on how to apply them.

Obviously you want to breed to a male who will give you below the average fiber diameter, and above the average fleece weights, but I think there is more to the art of using the EPDs. Plus I know they have gathered information on all the imports that they could, and I would like to see those EPDs if the owners chose to publish it. And I have sent in fleece samples for the EPD on animals not related to the StudMaster males, and would like that info. I need to gather all my questions and give them a call :) Portland has had some history making weather, so I wonder if the office is even open.

I agree it will be a powerful marketing tool, at least within the IAC. But to me, I plan to use it more for making breeding decisions than anything.

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Permalink Reply by Dena Kotka-Holtz on December 24, 2008 at 12:13am

I think it is really only one more tool that we can use for making breeding decisions but I don't think it will ever be the sole decision maker. I think from what I read they don't have all the information yet. They plan on expanding it in the future. It is just the beginning and allot more information will be needed from all animals of course. Looking at the report gave me a few surprises that I didn't know before. It doesn't give me surety in my breeding direction but it gave me hope that there is a chance towards my goal.
Mr. Safely doesn't seem to be one that hides most things, to me. He puts all the information out there, the good, the bad, and the ugly. I don't know if others will be so willing to put out the truth of their animals. I think that is what is needed most to make it work. I think the EPD will dispense the notion that the imports pedigrees are/were the best and people will seriously start looking towards the results of the American alpaca's fiber more than their pedigrees. (Don't get me wrong, I have favorite imports too, Hemingway and Caligula.) But, I fear there will be many great alpacas that could be easily ignored because they don't have the most marketed pedigree and I am hoping that the EPD will succeed so that we don't miss out on those not so marketed great alpacas.
I don't need EPD to make my breeding decisions at this point. I can get this much information from much searching on the internet, as I do anyway. But it does cut down time for me to have all the information in one place and since I only suspected things about my animals that are related to the studmasters, but I didn't know for certain if this was a trend or not, now with these charts, I can be on the look out and try to breed or avoid certain situations that I had entertained before. Boy, I hope that didn't sound confusing? :)

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Permalink Reply by Heidi Christensen on December 24, 2008 at 11:06am

Hi Dena,

You are so right - most people now can make breeding decisions without any problem. I started out with lower quality girls, so just about any breeding decision I make is going to be a good one :). But imagine if you had a herd like Greg Mecklam. How do you continue to improve a herd that is already so improved? I don't know this for sure, but I would think that is one reason he joined the IAC.

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Permalink Reply by Dena Kotka-Holtz on December 24, 2008 at 10:14pm

Everyone seems to have different breeding plans. Snowmass is dicounting wide framed heavy fleeced animals for softer more elite fibered animals. Suggesting that they are the ones heading for the meat market and we should just accept the fact that heavy fleece does not go hand in hand with softer fleece. Which would discount most Accoyos since they seem to be more heavy fleeced and with larger diameter fibers. Greg Mecklam and his wife seem to collect Accoyos. If that's the case, they are probably following Barreda's dream of 20 lbs. 20 micron; challenging numbers. So they may not be at their full potential yet, or they may just be cornering the market of Accoyos? This of course is just my guess from my exploring. I think that Pacific Crest Alpacas have had a relationship with Mike Safely for sometime and the EPD may interest them in trying to breed for a softer Accoyo.

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Permalink Reply by Theresa Reyes-Stassel on December 25, 2008 at 2:09am

Hemmingway has the most reported progeny on the ground, I wonder if that scews the results.? He certain looks great on paper.....But then again I owned on of his progengy and his fiber was divine!

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Permalink Reply by Terrie Reynolds on February 2, 2009 at 10:25pm

i owned one of his sons & it was a gelding...

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Permalink Reply by Heidi Christensen on February 4, 2009 at 9:57am

Hemingway having hunderds of offspring makes no difference. 24 of his offspring were included in the progeny test. It just lowers the prediction error.

BTW, one of my original girls had a cria from Hemingway many years ago. He was gelded. Good practice in my opinion - she was not the quality female who could produce a stud quality male.

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Permalink Reply by Cynthia Hager (Cindy) on February 4, 2009 at 11:01pm

OMG Hemmingway has 407 offspring registered. WOW what a busy boy!

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Permalink Reply by Dena Kotka-Holtz on December 25, 2008 at 12:16pm

For the test, the people who joined it were suppose to put samples in for their entire herd, not just the best ones for an accurate reading. Hopefully, they did that. There were 24 Hemingways tested. I'm thinking that it may be actually the less tested that might give the better results than the more, at this point in the game anyway. The reason I think this is because Hemingway was probably bred mostly to superior dams. If I had a chance to breed with Hemingway, I wouldn't choose my Gremlin alpaca to breed to him, I'd choose my best female. Canadar is the second highest on the chart, only 3 were tested. Pachacuti had 44 tested prodogeny. I think Pachacuti bred to different dams to probably make them half accoyo more than to produce award winning fleeces.
I am considering trying it next year though because I do have Caligula and Hemingway grandbabies and I am curious about the next generations results.
Although, I think the EPD test helps in breeding decisions. It's far from being perfected for anyone's sole decision on breeding because the dams are not included. :)

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Permalink Reply by Rick Horn - All American Alpacas on December 25, 2008 at 2:56pm

I was curious about the reported EPD's, as some of the males listed do not have any registered progeny.

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