Elouisa.
Elouisa.Rushmere Elouisa was added to the herd in 2019 with Felicia, Hera and Claudia. They brought the grey gene to the genetic mix. up to this point we had white, (lots of white) fawn and brown.
This big, bold, upstanding girl is mother to Solomons Aurora Dew and Solomons Buckshot Bolt who both live in our herd, and you will meet another day.
She is officially a dark rose grey colour due to there being a mix of white hairs in her mostly brown coat, most obviously round her face! You can see the white hairs on her chest too. She also has white socks. I always think she looks like she has put her head into a big bucket of cream. It wouldn’t surprise me either.
Now, I get it, she doesn’t look grey. Well it’s a special sort of grey, in horses it might be called roan. It’s a mix of a base colour; in this case brown, and white. If the base colour was black, she would make a more usual grey, but, you get the idea. If she did not have the white markings on her face and feet she would be called a modern grey – as it is she is a dark rose grey.
Does your head hurt yet? That’s nothing. Grey is a sought after colour and you can earn a premium price by breeding and selling them, however breeding for grey is not straight forward! There are times when breeding a grey male to a grey female will always result in a lost pregnancy or still birth; that is if the grey gene is dominant on both sides. This is called the fatal grey gene. Shame, as that would make it easy. But no, in alpacas you need to breed either recessive greys together, or a dominant grey to another (preferably recessive) solid colour; black or fawn for preference.
Ok, now admit it, your head hurts now! Mine does.
I would like to have all natural colours in the herd so we do not need to dye the fiber when we get to milling it. Therefore I need as many of the different colours as possible, hence the grey.
But as it’s recessive usually you must breed for it, or lose it. So these girls we bought together from the lovely Jo at Rushmere carry grey, or are grey. I have one other grey girl too, and I am hoping that mated to Tibbs, we should get some grey cria in the next couple of years…… that’s the theory anyway.
Then from next year we will see if Alpha has a dominant grey gene, as he will hopefully begin breeding this year, he seems keen anyway.
Elouisa is very confident, vocal and friendly. She gives the sweetest kisses! I always think she looks as though she has just been caught with her head in a bucket of milk.
She is fond of her food, happy to eat whatever is available which is not unusual but most alpacas are a bit careful when tasting new foods; not Elouisa! If it is offered she will eat it. She once had a packet of beef flavour crisps that wasn’t guarded carefully enough. Luckily she didn’t eat the packet.
Elouisa is a very good and protective mum who prefers to keep her offspring close to her, even when they are quite well grown. Her last years cria still has a firm hold of the apron strings, which is just how she prefers it. I have seen her go and round up a straying daughter and tell her off in no uncertain terms.
Her only negative point really is that she is a drama queen. When I was giving them their annual vaccinations just before Christmas, there was little fuss from anyone except for Elouisa who screamed the place down; that was before I even approached her with the needle. Silly girl. It impressed my assistant though, she had never heard an alpaca scream. Impressively loud is our Elouisa.
Don’t tell the others, but she’s my favourite!
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