Valorie gave birth to her cria from Golden Pines Antonio, a true black on June 8, 2026. We were hoping for dark from this breeding and we sure got it! A dark brown male with black points! Only 6.23% of the US registered herd is this color.
Valorie was bred to Flying Dutchman Alpacas Deacon Grey Silver BLADE (MSG) for a September 2023 cria. That breeding produced a handsome bay black male cria with true black points (Silver Blade's Blacksmythe).
Valorie has our best alpaca, Vanora, as her mama and the beautiful bay black Grazing Hills Ephraim as her sire. She was bred to gorgeous Grazing Hills Hezekiah and had her first cria June 2020. Now we've got those Running Late genetics on the farm, producing a gorgeous light fawn female, Joeleigh. Valorie is a very good mama, super laid back and calm. In 2022, she gave us JAXXON, one good-lookin' white male with gorgeous fleece.
Valorie is just a doll: a calm, sweet little beauty with absolutely crimpy, GORGEOUS apricot fleece and LOTS of it. Her mom, Vanora, has sheared 9 LBS. of 19 micron fleece for us in the past and Ephraim sheared a 4 LB. blanket at 10 months, so we expected that Valorie would have a very fine, but heavy-weight fleece. And she hasn't proved us wrong!
She shears one of the heaviest fleeces on the farm, while being a very fine fleece.
In fact,
she has ONE OF THE HEAVIEST FLEECES IN THE NATION! 16 micron at 3 years! 17 micron at 4 years! Amazing! At 9 years old, you don't usually see the combination of a fine micron (top 8% in the nation) with a heavy fleece weight (top 1% in the nation)! INCREDIBLE GIRL! And she produces incredibly fleeced progeny.
2025 EPD results: TOP 8% AFD , value - 1.639, her cria will likely have a finer fleece
Ranked 42% for SDAFD, value - 0.14, her cria will likely have a more uniform fiber diameter
TOP 10% SF, value - 1.546, her cria will likely have a lower spin fineness
Ranked 26% for %F>30, value - 4.199, her cria will likely have a lower % of fibers greater than 30 micron
Ranked 58% for MC, value - 0.204, her cria will likely have a lesser frequency crimp than average
SDMC, value 0.479, assesses the uniformity of curvature
Ranked 55% for %M, value -0.31, her cria will likely have less % fiber medullation
However, "the full impact of medullation remains a question at this point in time" (quote from Yocom-McColl Fiber Labs).
TOP 3.66% MSL, value 3.341, her cria will likely have a longer staple length
TOP 0.21% FW, value 1.254, her cria will likely have a more heavy fleece weight.
In this characteristic she ranked 120 out of 57,855 animals in the EPD results! BW, value 0.171 her cria will likely be a bit heavier in birth weigh
