DAFI Toe Dancer was also one of our original purchases to start our alpaca herd in 1999. Dancer came with her female cria, Arabesque (a.k.a. “Pinka“) at her side. These two had some super dense fleece on them and, even though Dancer appeared white, she had a strong patterning gene that would appear in many of her later cria. There was a telltale brown spot on Dancer’s tail and some brown pigment on her face. Dancer’s daughter “Belladonna Took” (pictured with her below) was one of 4 patterned daughters that she produced.
Where did she get the pattern from? Here is Dancer, pictured below, with her dam Delana:
Any time you breed a patterned alpaca with a gray (all grays are patterned,) you have to worry about producing a blue-eyed white. Dancer produced a blue eyed white male out of a gorgeous gray male who I will not name. I don’t want to hurt his reputation. But, I can tell you, he was never one of our males. It was after we made that mistake that geneticists started saying not to breed white to gray or pattern in alpacas. All of Dancer’s other cria have been female, which is good news for her current owner, Anne Bullock of Winchat Alpacas. I would LOVE to link to Anne’s web site if she ever gets one. She is a wonderful person and I’m thrilled that she owns Dancer and Belladonna Took.
Not every male can be herdsire quality anyway so we were not unhappy with our blue-eyed white, “Snowman.” He was adorable and had a really nice fleece. He made a great, sweet-tempered gelding. He was often shown in children’s obstacle and costume class. Here is our boy Snowman playing, appropriately enough, in the snow:
Below is a photo of Dancer’s Daughter Belladonna Took at about 5 months of age. Belladonna is out of our own, Campion.
Here is the round two (and another female!) result of breeding Dancer back to Campion
Below is Dancer and her another of her daughters, this one from a breeding male in Pennsylvania whose name was something “Night”:
Here is the latest daughter of Dancer, Demitasse (2007), out of San Pedro:
