No one wants to fill out forms and provide information about their business without a significant incentive.  As participation in CLAA’s new genetic evaluation program, AHEAD (Alpaca Herd Evaluation for Advancement) is strictly voluntary,  each Canadian breeder has a decision to make regarding their farm’s participation.  This article aims at giving you the basic facts about the program, its costs (in dollars and time) and benefits, and finally some reactions to the program from alpaca breeders across Canada.

JUST THE FACTS

For now, the AHEAD Program is primarily about your alpacas’ fleece.  There are long-term goals of using the information that will be collected and analyzed to support inter-herd comparisons; however, initially the information provided by breeders will be analyzed and each breeder will receive a customized report on their specific herd.

You can view the forms that you will be asked to complete on the CLAA website, http://www.claacanada.com. The following are some basic facts about what AHEAD does and how it operates.

* participation is voluntary
* all CLAA registered alpacas are eligible
* information supplied by breeders is to be kept confidential
* initially, most of the information collected will be about objective measurements pertaining to fleece (micron counts, SD, CV,  
  comfort factor, staple length etc.)  
* there will also be some information collected about birth weights, growth rates and weaning weights
* there are 2 main forms to be completed:  The Birth and Weaning Data Collection Form and The Fibre Data Collection Form
* the fee for participation in the Program is $30
* each program participant is to receive a confidential report about their herd

The report received by each breeder is based on an analysis of the data they submit.  The feedback a breeder can expect will be organized by individual characteristics.  For example, average fibre diameter (AFD) measured in microns is one characteristic.  The breeder will receive a calculation of the average or the AFDs of his or her herd and this score will be set at 100.  The individual alpacas in the herd will be scored in relation to the average, so that an alpaca with a micron count that is 20% finer than the average would receive a score of 80 and an alpaca who is 10% coarser would be scored at 110.  These scores can then be used to compare animals within the herd.

COSTS OF PARTICIPATION

In addition to the $30 program fee, participants will also have to pay for laboratory  fibre analysis for their entire herd.  While some breeders may do this annually as part of their on-going management activity, others only have the fibre of their most promising alpacas analyzed and some breeders may only have a few of their alpacas done each year.  Consequently, there could be additional financial costs to breeders of approximately $7.50 per alpaca per annum (Olds College rate for 1 - 25 samples) plus postage.  There is also the time required to complete the forms to accompany the fibre samples, not to mention the need to carefully package up and label each sample.

Another significant cost of participation in the Program is the breeder’s time to collect and record the data required for the entire herd. In estimating the time commitment needed for a breeder’s participation in the AHEAD Program, there is much more involved than a simple calculation of the time needed to actually complete the forms.  In addition to arranging for the laboratory analysis of the fibre of all the alpacas in the herd in advance of completing the forms, you must have at hand each alpaca’s CLAA number, plus his or her sire and dam’s number.  

At shearing time, you must first weigh each alpaca (a step that not everyone does).  You must also record the gross weight of the fleece shorn and the skirted weight.  Presumably the gross weight must be noted at shearing and the skirted weight could be recorded later on.  Again, this must be done for the entire CLAA-registered herd and it is probably safe to say that some breeders do not collect and record this information for all of their alpacas.

While it seems more efficient to submit the data to CLAA electronically, a breeder should consider that a paper form filled out in the barn is probably the most practical way to record information about various weights; but this information must then be combined with other information, such as CLAA numbers which are frequently kept in a home office.  This data must then be re-entered and submitted via the electronic forms.  In this way, you do not have to bother with mailing in the forms; but you do have to re-enter information, with the attendant possibilities of introducing mistakes.

In assessing the true costs of participating in the AHEAD Program, these are some of the obvious and less-obvious costs entailed.


WHAT BREEDERS ARE SAYING ABOUT AHEAD

Hypothetical questions are always difficult to answer:  until one has been through a process, it is hard to imagine it accurately.  When breeders were asked whether or not they planned to participate in AHEAD, they were being asked a difficult question; but it was one that they were going to have to come to grips with in the near future.  One medium-sized Ontario breeder commented:  “I can’t see what it would do for me:  right now it seems to be more trouble than it’s worth”.  A small breeder said “I know each of my animals far better than could ever be conveyed by filling out some forms.”

Another eastern breeder pointed out that the important characteristic of fleece fineness can be influenced significantly by environmental factors, including possibly the protein content of feed.  This breeder understood that the AHEAD Program was specifically for factors that were genetic; but wondered how the relationship between genetic and environmental factors could be understood within one indicator of fineness such as AFD (average fibre diameter).

A larger breeder was much more enthusiastic:
 “As a breeder, good herd record keeping—in particular, fibre stats, histograms, staple length and shear weight—is an absolute necessity. Keeping proper records gives a much more scientific approach to your breeding program and the only way to adequately track qualities thrown by both the dam and stud. To have a measure of what the national herd is compared to my herd would be absolutely priceless personally and extremely valuable for the overall improvement of individual herds and consequently our national herd.”

Another large western breeder with significant international experience said of AHEAD,  “I think it will be a useful tool for each breeder, if they provide accurate information in a consistent manner year after year and then use this data faithfully as a reference tool and guide for future breeding decisions.”  This breeder expressed concern that some breeders would not collect and report their data in the same way, making future comparisons less accurate.  Using the example of the current reporting of “shear weights” by breeders as part of their marketing efforts, this breeder argued for more education of breeders about proper measurement and record keeping.

CONCLUSION

The AHEAD Program has been designed and launched by CLAA with considerable effort and cost.  The Association points out in a recent mail-out to its membership that genetic evaluation programs “are leading to substantial progress in the wool and meat sheep industries…and in particular with great success in Canada in the dairy, swine, and beef cattle industries.”

In future issues of Hummer, we will look at genetic evaluation programs for alpacas that have been implemented in other countries.  In the meantime, discussions among breeders and questions posed to CLAA and other alpaca associations should help each breeder come to a decision about whether or not AHEAD will, indeed, help them get ahead.