Te Anau, New Zealand

Hot on the heels of successes at the Royal Show in November we began out first round of birthings and we are delighted with the quality of some of Fernando's progeny this season. We are sure some of them will be in our 2010/11 Show team. Fernando and Ethan have both been busy at work with matings and our own Honeyfields Sutherland, now certified has several pregnant females to his credit. He is working well and we will be looking forward to seeing his progeny.

We also now have a fourth young male working at Honeyfields. Owned by us in shares with Andrew and Donna Cudby of Stoney Flats Alpacas, Honeyfields McKerrow is a fine young Brutus son (click on his name for more information). He is 4 years old now and his 4th fleece statistics are pretty impressive with a micron of only 20.8 and a comfort factor of 95.8. We intend to use him across some of our girls this season and again will be looking forward to seeing some progeny next season.
Earlier this month Honeyfields McKerrow won Supreme Alpaca
at the Gore A & P Show (see photo) which was very exciting to see. We also had a number of other show successes at Gore show - Sentinel won Reserve Composite Champion, Sutherland won Champion Fleece with Ethan right behind him with Reserve Champion Fleece.

Watch for our trade stand at the Southern Field Days at Waimumu near Gore in the second week of February - we will be there with lots of information and some of our alpacas.

News from 2010

Another summer season is drawing to a close, the days are getting shorter and so is the grass supply!! We have had a very busy summer at Honeyfields with birthings and a lot of matings both on and off the farm. We are delighted with the quality of our cria drop this year which resulted in an equal number of males and females, several are already stand-outs for the show team. As well as managing the alpacas we have also been busy, both at the farm gate and on our stall at the Te Anau market held on the last Sunday of every month, selling our 100% pure alpaca knitting yarn processed from our own alpacas. It is very satisfying to sell to an 'end user' a product we have grown ourselves.

In February we were at the Southern Field days at Waimumu on a tradestand we shared with some fellow alpaca breeders and thoroughly enjoyed talking to a large number of people interested in alpaca. It was surprising how many people already knew about alpacas and it was very satisfying to be able to extend their knowledge. Feedback following the field days has been good and there are now a number of new alpaca owners in Southland. As is our usual practice at Honeyfields, we are holding a 'hands on' workshop for those new owners in early May to give them an overview on alpaca handling and basic care.

We are very sorry to have to report that we have some sad news about Ethan. Despite being a very enthusiastic worker in the mating pen he failed to produce any pregnancies and has been diagnosed to have been rendered infertile due to a relatively rare disease affecting his testes. He is a great loss to our breeding program and we will have a big job this winter finding a suitable male to replace him.

On a more exciting front we have shown fleeces at a number of shows over the last few months and have achieved some very satisfying show successes including Champion and Reserve Champion Fleece at Upper Clutha Show and Champion Fawn Fleece at Auckland Show. We have also been successful in winning the AANZ Super6 fleece competition in the Coloured Huacaya fleeces section.
May 2 is National Alpaca Day and we are having an open farm as part of an alpaca trail in our area with 3 other local alpaca breeders. The same 4 breeders held a very successful Alpaca Trail on National Alpaca day last year and it is hoped it will be just as good this year.

We have been very lucky here in the south to have had a very mild autumn and in fact it has been only the last couple of weeks that the temperatures have dropped to single figures.   Even the grass is still growing.    We did have some serious rain here in late April with significant flooding on the farm but the herd coped well.   We are now in winter mode, feeding out daily and monitoring herd condition closely.   This is important at this time of the year when feed is shorter and the potential for a worm infestation is much higher.  

Our fleece products have been selling well at the local Te Anau monthly market and in general farm sales.   Events-wise we had a most successful Open Farm on National Alpaca day in early May with a lot of family groups through the farm. On 23rd May the Southern Region of the AANZ had its AGM in Christchurch and I am again President of the Southern Region for another year.   Being involved in the industry in this way is an excellent way of keeping in touch with other breeders and giving back something to an association that gives so much to its members.

Upcoming events are the National Alpaca Conference in Napier on 26/27 June and the inaugural South Island Colourbration Show to be held in Christchurch on 14th August.

We are very excited to announce that, hot on the heels of achieving Champion Fawn Fleece at Auckland Show 2010, our stunning young female Honeyfields Bonnie Lass has been selected to be offered for sale at the National Elite Alpaca sale at the AANZ National Alpaca Expo in October 2010.   Bonnie Lass has dense a soft handling lustrous fast growing fleece which is consistent throughout the blanket.   Her dam , sired by ILR Alpine Fibers Brutus, is only 23 micron in her sixth fleece with a CF of 89.5 whilst her sire at 7 years old was still only 25 micron.   Bonnie Lass is pregnant to Honeyfields Sutherland (click on his name for more information about this stunning young male).
We are excited about the quality cria expected from this joining and would happily keep Bonnie Lass in our elite breeding herd.  Read More...

Honeyfields Bonnie Lass selected for National Auction