Sometimes you just know when a cria is born that he or she is destined for greatness. That is the way we felt about CCNF Defiance (rather ironically nicknamed Big D because he was a bit of a peanut) from the second we first saw him born in the Arena’s warm room on a bitterly cold January day. It of course did not hurt that his parents were Snowmass Elite Legend, the 3 time Futurity Herdsire of the Year and Cadenza, our beloved 7 time fleece champion and 4 time Judges’ Choice winner that we purchased years ago from Pamela Ray at Xanadu Farm Alpacas.
In fact as much as we love Elite Legend and what he meant to this breeding program during the 3 +/- years that we co owned him with both Snowmass Alpacas and Tripping Gnome Farm, there must be full props given to the mama in this case, inarguably one of the top overall females in our foundation herd. In addition to Defiance, Cadenza’s first cria, CCNF Concerto (sired by SuperNova), is a working Herdsire here as well. Also this past birthing season, she and EL (as part of his final crop of crias born here) combined again to give us Big D’s full sibling but in female form, CCNF Minuet.
Now of course credit must also be given to Snowmass Elite Legend for his superlative son too! Sired by the world famous Snowmass Quechua, EL did amazing things for our breeding program during the few years that he was in play here and the only reason we were comfortable letting him go in January of 2013 was because we felt as though we had his genetics fairly well locked in. In fact in looking back at the big picture over the past couple of years, we have thought for some time that it would ultimately fall to Defiance and his older brother, CCNF Elixir, to take on the daunting task of trying to replace their superlative sire in our breeding program. While that is obviously a very tall order, we are certainly looking forward to seeing what each of them can do. While Elixir has already been working and is now expecting 15+ crias here in 2014, as a youngster who just turned 2 in January of 2014, Defiance will just be starting his breeding career this coming spring and summer.
Combining the fineness of fleece that the Elite Legend/Quechua line is famous for world wide, with outrageous fleece density and staple length from his dam, there are very few alpacas out there that this young aspiring Herdsire couldn’t improve upon. As the fleece picture, which was taken just after his 2nd birthday shows, he has already regrown nearly 5” of staple length after just 7 +/- months. We’re excited! His primary role here in-house will be to breed with the core of mature light/white foundation females we have here out of the Archangel, Messiah, and Precocious lines. We're sure he's up to the task...