What can we say about the apple of our eye? We love the Arch so much that his likeness is mounted atop our house in the form of a weathervane! Breeders always talk of finding the alpaca that is the complete package and Archangel is the closest thing to that that we have ever had the privilege of laying our eyes on. His fiber is the equal of any white alpaca we have come across in 15 years of breeding alpacas, yet it grows on a frame that is nearly perfect in form and function. The comments from the judges throughout the spring 2004 show seasons when comparing Archangel to his competition were always to the effect of "this animal was not tip shorn as a cria, and is therefore starting to mat at the tips, yet the fleece is gorgeous once you open it." In fact Archangel was shorn to the skin at 30 days of age (removing 1.5" to 2" at the time), yet is so fine and grows such a staple length that even with that shearing he still had on average anywhere from 2" to 3" inches more staple length than the vast majority of the animals he was in the ring with. Show record aside we feel he is the next generational prototype. We take great pride in the fact that our breeding program produced such an amazing Herdsire and the offspring that have resulted in the ensuing years have proven without any doubt that Archangel was and is no genetic fluke. His sons King of the Ladies (the 2010 White Futurity Champion) and Avenger along with a myriad of elite daughters here in the CCNF foundation herd are a continuing testimonial to the potency of his genetics. It is not by chance that some of the most important crias born here the past couple of years were his grandchildren, several of which will be making their show debuts this spring at the North American Alpaca Show. Archangel is proudly co-owned with Stillmeadow Farm of Stonington, CT.

A daughter of 6P Accoyo Elite and granddaughter of legendary imported female PPPeruvian Siloutte.

We had some suspicions about this young fellow when he first hit the ground. Admittedly, when we bred Invictus’ dam Opal with his sire, Precocious, we were hoping for something a little darker than beige. Though Precocious is a white Futurity Champion he comes from a paternal line (Jeremiah/Jericho) just as renowned for it’s colored genetics as its light, so crossing him with Opal — who is black and likewise has not one but two of those nifty Futurity trophies of her own — wasn’t really over-reaching that much. So while we were perhaps put off a bit by the lack of darker fleece color in their resulting young boy, he also showed that he had IT almost immediately. So what do we see in Invictus that makes him stand out? Simply put, he hits that nexus of fleece density and fineness, carrying his fleece uniformity way down into his lower belly and legs. On top of displaying the fleece characteristics of an elite light colored animal, let’s also not forget that he comes from dark colored genetics and that may, in the end, really be the clincher. Then combine that with his undeniable presence when you walk into the barn or out into his feed group’s paddock on the farm. He is simply one of those alpacas that makes people stand up and notice him. We often ask ourselves a very simple question when rating potential Herdsires: do we look at a given male and say “we’d like to have 10 more of those standing in our pasture?” The answer in this case is an unequivocal, yes. We are looking forward to seeing his first crias on the ground this coming summer...