Registering the crias

I registered the crias online tonight with the alpaca registry. It's really easy to do although the registration isn't complete until all of the labwork is received and the crias parents are confirmed. Basically all of the "paperwork" and payment is done online so it's nice to get that taken care of quickly.

The Alpaca Registry, Inc. (ARI) requires DNA testing for all registrations. This is done by obtaining a blood sample from each alpaca you are registering and putting it on a card. You can see on the top left corner of this photo the big red blood spot in the middle of the circle.

We're getting better at this every year. I don't like having to do this to our poor little crias but it only takes a few minutes. We use a syringe to prick a spot on the ear to get our blood sample, then we suck up a little in the syringe and carefully squirt it onto the dna card. (I face the "open end" of the needle down toward the paper so it doesn't splash outside the circle.)

Although I'm sure it's uncomfortable to the crias, they really don't act like it was a big deal after we've finished. We make sure to put some pressure on the ear where we took the sample if it bleeds a lot. It stops bleeding rather quickly after that. Other farms may use a different technique or draw blood from the tail or different location. We've gotten comfortable with this method.

You'll also notice above the ARI natural fiber color chart. I clipped a small lock of hair off each alpaca and we matched up their fiber color with the color chart. You can order these directly from the ARI website for about $20 - it really is an important item to have because some of the colors are so close you really can't judge it for yourself that easily.

As a matter of fact, Leroy's fiber was a little tricky because we wavered a little between medium fawn and dark fawn. Depending on how the light hit it, the fiber "kind of" matched both colors. In the end, we decided on the dark fawn.

Now I just have to mail in our dna cards to ARI for processing and wait...