Northern California Angora Guild: 8/18/13

Color Color on the Gridwall, Which One is the Prettiest of All

To organize the colored wool and cotton cone yarns, Chris O in MA installed a gridwall for the cones that are used for her weaving.

Night Blooming Cereus is Blooming Again

Betty says,

Our Night Blooming Cereus plant has been growing a lot of leaves but no flower for two years. It's such a pleasant surprise to see a blooming flower tonight. Wish to share photos of the beautiful flower.

Pretty White Lady Celina

Chu's Celina is a young English Angora white doe that has been doing quite well in shows. She was winning in the white senior doe class and even the Best of Breed before reaching 6 months old.

Celina is developing very well.

Betty is happy with Celina's sweet personality as well as her performance in shows.

Randy and Allen's Mohair Fleece Wins Best In Show

Most Angora Goat shows have a raw fleece competition as well. Allen spend hours skirting and preparing each fleece for these shows. The best fleeces from this year had been sent to the Monterey Wool Show, a decision and entry made before Randy and Allen decided to go to ACAGR National in Michigan. Nevertheless, Allen chose 5 fleeces for ACAGR last week and prepared them as perfectly as possible. They won 1st and 2nd kid fleece, 1st yearling, and Eric took 1st in the adult class. Champion went to Randy and Allen's red kid fleece and reserve to their yearling. The red kid fleeces went head to head with the white mohair and came out with an unbelievable Best In Show!

Rebecca Plevin took this photo and did a lengthy interview with Allen for Valley Public Radio. Allen explains everything about Angora goats and mohair. You will find the interview enlightening:

http://kvpr.org/post/young-goat-farmer-mohair-all-rage-1

Randy and Allen Clean Up at the The American Colored Angora Goat Registry's National Show

Randy and Allen's red Angora goat buck kid #609 won the overall Best In Show.

A close up of the big winner #609.

Randy and Allen took a long trip from California to Michigan to attend the American Colored Angora Goat Registry's National Show held at the Michigan Fiber Festival. The good news came that their goats won everything there was to be won. Allen says,

"The American Colored Angora Goat Registry's National was well worth the long drive to MI. We showed 25 goats, won every class entered, including 2nd place in 5 of the same classes. We brought 4 yearling does and took 1-4, for example. It was an awesome show for us. After winning all Colored Champions and Reserves, we competed against the Registered White Angora Goats for Best In Show. White goats are many years ahead of the fairly new Colored Angora Goat. Thus, BIS is usually unrealistic for a Colored Angora breeder. Nonetheless, we pulled off the nearly unattainable win with our Red Buck Kid #609. We were excited about the buck going into the national and believed he was the best Colored Goat we've bred to date. This win is testament to all the years of trying to make our breed as equivalent to the whites. As the judge picked #609, he said, "This buck is what you might expect to find in a picture in a magazine." "

Keeping Watch

Most of us day dream about being a full time animal caretaker, the author of "Keeping Watch" actually tried it.   On the book cover, she said she had 30 sheep, 24 rabbits, 2 llamas, 1 alpaca.   They live in MN and the book was published in 2010 partially supported by a grant.

After trying to be a full timer shepherdess for a few years, Kathryn found that it's not possible to live off the farm so both she and her husband Terry had to work full time and part time to make ends meet.   At the end of one tough year, they sat down and do the math:

'Terry looked up from his spreadsheets and said, "well, there's good news and bad news. The good news is we made a profit of $24.16.   But the bad news is that's before counting depreciation on the machinery, which will put us back in the hole"   The angora rabbits were the only part of the entire farm operation that showed a net profit that year. It was quite a nice profit, too, totaling thousands of dollars. The rabbits were relative inexpensive to feed, house and care for, and their wool brought in the highest price per ounce. All other aspects of the farm showed a financial loss. the sheep, llamas, alpaca and Terry's small grain harvest - all appeared under the net loss column. Even the profit realized from the angora wool barely offset it.'

It's interesting to read the part about the Angora rabbits. From what was learned that they have French Angora that are for wooler only.