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| The History of Alpaca Breed Standards in the U.S.
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Date: 05/12/2006
By: Mike Safley
Author Link: www.alpacas.com
Copyright: Mike Safley
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| Very few alpaca breeders are neutral on the issue of breed standards; most fall into one of four schools of thought: 1. Absolutely in favor, 2. Wanting to learn more, 3. Apathetic or, “I don’t care what they do, I am going to breed to my own standard,” and 4. Absolutely and aggressively against breed standards of any kind. The breeders who favor standards believe the practice of animal breeding is the pursuit of perfection and view standards as useful guides in the quest for the ideal alpaca. The opponents of breed standards predict doom if standards are adopted, often suggesting that pressure from powerful figures involved in the industry is behind the effort to enact standards. Click here to read more.
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 |  Alpaca History
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Opportunities & Challenges in the Genetic Evaluation of Fiber Characteristics In U.S. Alpaca
The advent of Alpaca EPDs in the U.S. provides exciting opportunities to enhance rates of genetic improvement in fleece and fiber characteristics. The release of the first U.S. Huacaya alpaca EPDs for fleece weight and fiber diameter by the Ideal Alpaca Community in 2008 and the subsequent release of additional EPDs for fleece uniformity, staple length, percent medullated fibers, and curvature in 2009 provided an initial genetic characterization of over 5,000 Huacaya alpaca. Results include EPDs for a wide range of animals, including imported foundation animals, heavily used “Studmaster” sires, breeding females, and young stock. Extension of these evaluations to Suri alpaca is planned for late 2009.
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