Camelid Genetics

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Comment by Melissa Preston & Jeff & Mac Litishin on July 15, 2010 at 1:35pm

Hey Lucas,Any luck getting NE folks interested in the suri group ? Hope you are doing well and all your critters are staying cool. Melissa

Comment by Kyle Mumford on February 3, 2010 at 1:56pm

I think you can have great results (large athletic suris) if you have a very strong stud. My brother has had pretty decent success with it with his stud Slickmeister, Justin Timm has crossed Patterson animals with Inca Legend, and I can think of a few other examples off the top of my head.

Comment by Marilyn Nenni on February 3, 2010 at 10:37am

I have a young suri female not yet a year old out of a very tall classic female. Sire is a tall suri. The young female is very tall and appears to have nice suri fiber although it is still too early to evaluate the quality of the fiber completely. She definitely has suri fiber and is not one that is borderline between suri and silky.

Comment by Melissa Preston & Jeff & Mac Litishin on February 3, 2010 at 8:25am

My matriarch could have been considered a classic.Although suri's were not in my beginning program I have since bred her daughters and grand daughters to suri and got possitive results.I think that it would depend on the lines you are interested in also.I would be worried that you would find the quality of fiber become even more dense and hair like-that's just a personal concern.Although many classics have very fine down.

Comment by Lucas Fletcher on February 2, 2010 at 6:32pm

Has anyone here ever bred classic light wool females to suri males? I have considered purchasing some big classic packing females and breeding them to my herdsire in the hopes of breeding a true working suri with lots of size and bone!

Comment by Kyle Mumford on January 29, 2010 at 8:48pm

I unfortunately haven't kept any of their offspring til full maturity (they end up being so nice that people snatch them up : ) I know the mothers of two of the females pretty well and they both were 8-10 babies, maybe 2 males between the two of them.

Comment by Melissa Preston & Jeff & Mac Litishin on January 29, 2010 at 7:48pm

Kyle ,Just wondering if the offspring of the females you mentioned are also producing? I've had girls that majorically throw female offspring only to find these female offspring throwing mostly male offspring. I've also found my studs throwing the same sex offspring in a season as well as simular color patterns(which vary greatly season to season).

Comment by Kyle Mumford on January 29, 2010 at 7:02pm

I agree with what you guys are saying about it being a craps shoot as far as the whole herd is concerned... Some years you're going to get a high consentration of males and some years you'll get more females...
But what I'm talking about is on an animal by animal basis. I currently have 2 females that have given me 7 babies between the two of them, 100% females. I also have a 15 year old who's had 8-10 babies, all but two were female. I can think of two more girls I've lost that have had 100% females as well... Between these 25-30 crias from the five females I listed there was probably atleast 20 different sires and 2 males.
And then on the flipside I just bought a female thinking she had had 2 babies, 50/50, only to find out that she is 5-1 m-f. I am probably going to sell her as a bargain.
Its also worth noting that the extreme females I'm talking about here are maybe 15% of the female llama population, I've seen far more females around 50/50. But those few seem to produce the same sex without fail....
I also spend a little too much time on the ILR database, and I've seen more cases like that : )

Comment by Lucas Fletcher on January 29, 2010 at 6:40pm

I have not bred llamas long enough to notice a trend either way...but when I started raising sheep (at twelve) I picked Icelandic's and thought they were going to be my ticket to fame and fortune. At that time ewes were priced around $1000 each. A wonderful breeder helped me out and I was able to get started with two ewes that no longer fit in her program. My first lambing season rolled around and I was presented with three ram lambs. I chocked it up to fate and bred the ewes again. The next lambing season rolled around and three more ram lambs were born. This time I attributed it to the ram (which I was leasing). I got a different ram and two more ewes and tried again...but when they finally lambed in April my heart sank as ram after ram was born. I was super frustrated. I called everyone who would talk to me and they each had a different opinion.

One was that my grass was too "sweet'' and that if my soil were more acidic the PH of the ewes reproductive system would be more suited to female lambs. Another opinion was that I had been using ram lambs and that ram lambs produce a higher percentage of male offspring verses female offspring as a genetic defense in case they die. A third opinion was that my sheep were stressed because of something or were being physically taxed in some unknown way and that stressed ewes produced a higher percentage of males to females, again as a genetic defense to keep the genes alive.

These were all old wives tales and they all contradicted each other but each on of them sort of made sense. I decided to stick with it, added some more girls and after a while I started getting ewe lambs. The only thing that I did differently was change my mineral program and I started drenching with apple cider vinegar. I have no idea if either thing helped influence anything or if my first few years were just bad luck. This last year I had two thirds girls....so who knows!

Comment by Cheryl Frey on January 29, 2010 at 5:12pm

I would think it might be more meaningful to start collecting data by following an individual female: follow all of her offspring's subsequent male/female %ratio and so on over the course of time. You can do the same with a male.

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