Oooh, I’m excited!
As other breeders of coloured animals know, it is a constant battle to improve the quality of each generation – it seems to be a two steps forward, one step back scenario. Using top quality white males over coloured dams works, but loss of colour is always a big risk.
I have a number of high performance coloured females which I have been using, over the past 5 years, to increase the number of quality coloured suri in my herd utilising Embryo Transfer technology. This has worked very well and I have produced top quality males and females from donors Baarrooka Queen Wilhelmina, Baarrooka Cordela, Pucara Eliza and Baarrooka Elara. The let down in this has been the lack of coloured males who have the fleece qualities I want in my herd and can provide consistent results. Interestingly, Cedar House Winslow, a LF Amador son has produced the best results from a number of ET donors.
After thinking long and hard and doing my research, eighteen months ago I began the next stage in my long term program to bump up the quality throughout my herd. I purchased a half share of Cedar House Desert Prince, an older male who has proven to throw 72% coloured cria from white dams and whose daughters are often very good producers (e.g. Queen Wilhelmina and Elara’s dam!). And, to other breeder’s alarm, I mated the majority of my top white and light fawn females to Desert Prince. I then went on a search to find THE male to go over his daughters.
Well, the first Desert Prince cria are now being born – yes, colour to white – and their covering sire, Durango, is due to arrive in Australia from the US on 14th February. A couple more years to see if the 10-year plan works, but already I am seeing some real improvements in each generation of coloured animals. They are not necessarily all show winners- that’s not what I am breeding for – but we are layering on the characteristics we want – lustre, fineness, density – generation by generation. The combination of generations of ET, Desert Princes’ colour and quality influence and the superb fineness, density and coverage contributed by 3/4 Accoyo Durango will, I think, start to show some real results in the coming years. I can’t wait!
By Julie Filed under: ET Program, Our Animals, US Animals
