We successfully bred Cotton, Chloe, Rachel and Jasmine this past year for 2015 births. 2016... 2 crias were taken by coyotes just after birth in the Fall, so we haven't bred again until 2018. In 2015 Cotton & Chloe had beautiful females, and Rachel had an exceptional black bundling male. Jasmine had a HUGE, very curly black male (sired by Bolaro..as was Rachels male) with much quality fiber, but lost Jasmines large male to pneumonia (internally). NO PROBLEM BIRTHING...just one of 4 had pneumonia. Last birth was approx 23 lbs and a very late birth..that explains Jasmine "stillborn" birth of her beautiful, huge black cria. She had no problem... came very quickly...& she grieved over him for hours. Even then, Jasmine even watched the other black male protectively for months (Bolaro was also his sire... he looked like her male but smaller)! Pictures are posted on Openherd (here) for Cotton & Rachels cria. Then my PC crashed before I could take and post a picture of Diamond Mia (Chloe's MIA was our 3rd birth of the year). *** Cotton's female has exceptional fiber which may be bundling. Diamond Aura had so much fiber at birth that I couldn't speak...we just got tears of joy. She started out a light Golden color with very light highlights. Then after she was sheared we lost the lighter color of outer tips (from amniotic fluid lightening her true colors). She turned out to be a little darker golden and some light brown & grey. Now we think she is rose grey, still changing, but we see lots of lt brown (almost a light fawn). Her fiber crimps, shimmers and she is adorable... she even nips sometimes at my slack to get my attention. When playing with her dam this summer, she decided she also wanted me to spray cool water on her neck. When the other two cria saw her, they learned also to get in the spray. Then, I noticed how light her fiber really was...but that she had "much medium grey" fiber mixed into her lighter fibers in a UNIFORM manner..which made the light golden color darker. I could have cried. She seemed to be a rose grey. Then it made sense to me that she was born with that grey nose and some grey in ears, etc. *** Chloe's female is adorable too! She shimmers for a darker brown and still has highlights to her fiber with much crimp & density...she might have slightly finer fiber, but it seems really dense. She takes our hearts since the day we found her sitting amidst a circle of females in the field near the creek...five or 10 minutes after I fed her dam up on hill. Such a calm dam and calm little girl that the name MIA came to mind right away..cause we loved her. I had just fed her pregnant dam (not a clue under tail) and turned around and looked down to the field a few minutes later to discover her sitting very calmly near her dam! At first she had lighter fiber, more med. to light brown due to amniotic color change, but when sheared she was then definitely a beautiful brown with silver highlighting. *** Rachel's little boy has much energy, is so inquisitive with us, and jumps up onto the bale of hay playing when we bring in a bale. He rules the threesome, and has his sire, Bolaro's pronking, rocking carousel personality. He is extremely healthy acting!! His FIBER is "to die for"... already BUNDLING around itself with much crimp as well. It's also very dense & long. We really got lucky this year...did a great job matching up with the right male/females for breeding. FOR 2016 BIRTHS: We bred later than usual..only this FALL. We were waiting for Jr Sire Lazer to age a little more and be ready for breeding. We also had an initially very warm Fall, and still have some 70-80 degree days, so we just didn't take time to do breedings earlier. We are hoping for Rayo's Snow and Lazer to have sired 3-5 cria next Fall in 2016. They only had a short time with some of dams. Lazer was unproven, but we left LAZER with Leah, Crystal & Freedom. Freedom & Crystal were MUCH larger and wouldn't have the younger male (they got their way). However, when we later put Lazy Susan and Nevaeh (HEAVEN) with Lazer they seemed to like him. Then, of course we brought in the bigger Sire: "RAYO's MASTER of SNOW & SMOKESTORM (the SNOWMAN)" for Freedom and Crystal. We also finally let BUTTERCUP come into his stall for her turn with him. He took no time at all to service Freedom, Crystal, then Buttercup. He's previously proven, having sired two cria in the past (with minimal exposure to the dams)... and got right to his business! We already know how beautiful SNOW's cria are, and that he can produce multiple colors easily...the first was a pretty large true black like Rayo's Master of Snow grand-sire (sire of the golden sunshine colored "RAYO") "BLACK MAGIC"; and the 2nd w Peaches was a dark color (dark Brown or black) according to the ultrasound! With Hemingway's daughter, & Pizazz, & World-Class Smoke Storm as Grand-dams of "Rayo's Master of SNOW &...," and grandsires like BLACK MAGIC & SNOWMASS DeBeers (Of-DIAMONDS)... any color is possible with SNOW! **We also exposed Kahlua to Jasmine one day for a very short time (10 minutes)...just to see if he could get down to business quickly. He is proven with both the new 2015 female CRIAs (of Cotton & Chloe)...which he bred within minutes of exposure to both at once (1/2 hour for BOTH). He just surprised us w 10 minutes to service Jasmine...Vet in late Summer says pregnant (2 Vets over 1 month time...2nd checking for pregnancies, doing Rabies & CDT & Ivomec Fach...& checking eye color, general health)! 2016 several females took breeding(coyotes took all cria fall of 2016 while birthing) Gate found open, heard cria scream when taken (3 females got out into field just before birth). Kahlua managed last yr to succeed w 2 females from 1/2 hr of total breeding time! Fall 2016 large pack coyotes got into field during births (heard our cria, coyotes took silently...3rd lost when dam couldn't turn cria (kicked trying to turn, quickly bled out). Really glad though that we had several smaller females with soft, great staple lengths, to breed with Lazer. We're hoping that we broke him into breeding successfully with three females [1st tried Pandora, then Leah, then Nevaeh (nickname Nu Heaven) & Lazy Susan]. Even one of 3 would be great. Pandora seemed a little tall for him (and free-willed).