SAD NEWS: Porteus died in Summer 2010. We will miss him greatly. His offspring will have a lasting impact on our herd for years to come. We'll leave his listing up as a lasting tribute to this extraordinary stud. We are pleased to announce our partnership with Dusty Creek and Reiling Ranch in ownership of this extraordinary herdsire. He is one of the most outstanding colored herdsires we have ever seen. If your goal is to breed to the ULTIMATE™, please consider Porteus. We cannot describe him better than Snowmass Alpacas so here are their words: "Named after the best Port we have ever tasted… And a toast to the very best XXXTREME production son ever to be born. The entire Alpaca breeding world knows who Snowmass XXXtreme is after taking herdsire of the year 2 years running 2006 & 2007. This particular son, Snowmass Porteus was the Ultimate reason why. Porteus in our opinion is the ULTIMATE™ in COLORED ALPACA production and why he has been staged in the Snowmass publication of The Making of Champions Part II as having the ultimate colored alpaca fleece.(A LONG, FINE, XXXtremely BRIGHT, staple and incredibly consistent through the entire body, from head to chest to toe) Snowmass Porteus simply stated has the “LOOK”, strong, upstanding, and extremely well balanced in his frame added to his ELITE FIBER he has INCREDIBLE POTENTIAL to raise the bar in ALPACA COLOR FIBER. Snowmass Porteus, as well his sire, has taken our COLOR breeding program to the top level of SUPERIORITY equal to the most ELITE whites. Porteus was shown at the highest level show, The Futurity, and took first place both as a Juvenile and Yearling and moved victoriously into the CHAMPION CIRCLE. Many Juveniles place well the first year but the real test is if they can stand in the same position the next year. His 1st yr AFD of 15.1 and 2nd year of 16.5. HE IS THE ULTIMATE™ of Snowmass XXXtreme’s production and he will take your breeding program to the highest levels of excellence because that’s exactly what these genetics have done for us!"

June's Bug is the most recent addition to our select herd. After seeing that both of our herdsires were capable of throwing black offspring we've been in search of the right true black female to deepen our herd's genetic color pool. The Bug was the answer. We first saw her at Chase Tavern last year but purchased our Evander daughter instead. When we saw the Bug again at AOBA Nationals we knew we had to have her. June's Bug is the epitome of black genetics. Her sire is MFI Peruvian Black Mesquite, a male who is earning his reputation as one of the best black studs in North America. His offspring are commanding top dollar at auction and are dominating the black classes in the showring and in fleece shows. Black Mesquite is a son of the legendary black stud Peruvian Matador and a top producing dam at Magical Farms. Bug's dam is the true black Lady June Woldbrook. Every alpaca in Lady June's pedigree is true black. She is descended from rare New Zealand bloodlines. According to Cindy Lavan, Lady June's New Zealand roots are from a ranch that specialized in breeding black alpacas. Even though her pedigree already shows nothing but black, her black genetics run deeply past ARI records to her New Zealand past. Not surprisingly, pairing a top black stud like Black Mesquite with a dam like Lady June produced a very fine fleeced true black daughter. In addition to her fineness June Bug also demonstrates very nice fleece character and crimp. We are excited about breeding her. June Bug is now breeding to our Ultimate stud Snowmass Porteus. Pairing the Porteus (Snowmass Casanova and Snowmass XXXtreme) with the Black Mesquite line is a no brainer. This will be a great cria. UPDATE: June Bug delivered a handsome black male cria. Time will tell on his color. For now, he is growing like a weed and making a total pest of himself with the other alpacas in his pasture. We just love little Blue Gate Ascot. Ascot has been to two show and has come home with two blue ribbons!