TOFT Princes in waiting ...on the new grass

Can you hear them munching? All the TOFT stock moved paddocks last week to enjoy the new grass growth. Centre here, surrounded by his gang of brothers is TOFT Timogen National Brown Champion in 2014 and 2015. 

These Intermediate brown males, sons of Lavender Park Tulley and half brothers to TOFT Timogen are loving the new chomp, look great against the green and are hopefully working up an appetite for the girlies! 

Timogen will be staying here but TOFT Titus, Tai Pan and Leander son of Jaina are all looking for new homes. We shear on the 20th so anyone interested in seeking out top colour genetics for their breeding programme needs to look soon as these wonderful fleeces will soon  be in the bag.

Jobs on... A new quarantine paddock begins at. TOFT

Well we've started so we'll finish. The youngest is getting to grips with a machine we hired as he breaks ground on our new project at TOFT. Only 35 gate posts, 20 strainers, 17 gates, 150 stakes and 70 struts to go and we'll have ourselves a second quarantine/ isolation facility at TOFT. 17 paddocks in total. He'll have tamed the beast by the end of that lot, I'm sure.

We have been running the existing quarantine of 15 paddocks successfully for 8 or so years and now we are doubling the size of the facility in the coming weeks.

This enables visitors who come for mating to the TOFT stud males can bask in their own family sized paddock with an empty one either side and the only contact the alpacas will have with any other whilst staying at TOFT will be during the mating itself which is also strictly controlled for biosecurity. This new facility will give us 32 isolation paddocks to accommodate more visiting females. You lucky lucky boys!

TOFT Light Brigade on Parade...

Never to be outdone by the darks of TOFT TT the boys from the TOFT Light Brigade are also strutting their stuff looking for alpaca breeders who will appreciate their elite genetics.

Introducing two two year old Light Fawn TOFT stud males with phenomenal fleece stats who will be ready to sort out the girls in 2015

TOFT Deimos, Light Fawn, AFD 18.1, SD 3.8, CV 20.9, %>30  0.7. 2014

&

TOFT Nautilus, Light Fawn, AFD 16.0, SD 2.8, CV 17.4, %>30 0.4.  2014

Fleece Statistics for 2013 are making us smile

We received the 2013 fleece stats back from Yocom McColl testing laboratories in the USA last week and having now studied the results we are grinning from paddock to paddock.

Of the 26 cria born in 2012 only 2 of them are over 21 microns. The lowest is 14.6 which is incredible and the highest was 23.1. The average of the 26 cria from 2012 is 18.4 microns. 

Although we are very aware that these statistics are only an indicator of positive fleece traits and no replacement for a full hands on assessment they still indicate that at Toft we are heading toward the superfine alpaca in depth across all the young pedigree stock. 

That's as it should be after 16 years of selection but it is encouraging to have the science confirm the progress of our breeding program. So forgive us for crowing a little but if we don't share our achievements with you how will you ever find out about the quality of alpacas we are breeding at Toft?

Each year we only release a very select amount of these fourth generation elite alpaca genetics into the marketplace. So if you are seeking the very best get in touch direct to avoid disappointment.