Check me out!

Here she is! The little girl who brought up so many good genetic questions the other day on Twitter. The Murphy’s Law baby. The one I just knew was going to turn out this way.

You see, in the alpaca business, a blue-eyed white is not really the desired outcome. This white with blue eyes is linked with deafness. (We don’t know yet if little Roulette is deaf.) It occurs about 25% of the time when you breed two animals who both have the white spotting gene. It is complicated and you can read more about it here.

Normally I would NOT breed a black female with a white face like Blakeny, Roulette’s mom, to a male with the white spotting gene like the tuxedo grey male who is her dad. But in this case, I had one breeding to this spectacular male and I needed to use it right then and she was the only female who was open and who even remotely would work. The odds were in my favor for a beautiful black or grey cria – a 75% chance. So I played the Roulette wheel.

The general consensus (or common myths) amongst alpaca breeders is that the female blue-eyed whites are very friendly and that they have amazing fiber. We can usually breed them to black males with no spots and get awesome colored cria who are not deaf.  So welcome to the fold my little Roulette, and thanks so much to Roni and Brad at Providence Alpaca Farm for taking such good care of my little sweetie.

What can I say? I like to gamble?

This precious little cria is the first one born to my friend, Dawn. (Dawn and I met through the blogosphere. You can check out her blogs at Kaiser Mommy and Room 704). Dawn is currently boarding her alpaca herd with us, and we are so excited for her and her family that their first cria is here. The fact that it’s a girl and that she’s got some of the coolest color markings we’ve seen is a nice holiday bonus.

Here she’s just lounging, but it gives you another view of this interesting color pattern that she is carrying. I’ve never seen one where it looked like there was a straight line of color change in the middle of their back (top). Plus she has the whitest legs with dark spots on them and some white spots in the blanket. Outstanding. I could watch her for hours!

Here she is with her sweet momma, Montreal and her little coat to keep the chill away. Baby’s back half of her blanket is the color of her dam’s. Her sire is SCA Peruvian Shawnee. For those of us breeders who are into color genetics, I’m thinking that her sire contributed both a white spotting AND a dark spotting gene to this little princess. (and he will probably do it again which will bring us more wild color possibilities in the future.)

Congratulations again Dawn! Can’t wait to watch her grow.

UPDATE: Dawn’s naming her Josie!

Did you know that alpacas come in more colors than any other mammal? It’s true. They are amazing.