Topic: how do you decide if your animal is roan gray or indefinate dark
(Messages 1 - 7)
ksullivan Member # 20
Posted 03/08/2009 08:20 PM
I have an animal that has white fibers through out his fiber. Some look as if they are guard hairs but most are through out the blanket as secondary fibers. How do you decide if gray or indefinate.
Unfortunately, those definitions overlap in AOBA show rules. It's quite possible that an alpaca such as you have described could be entered into either the modern gray or indefinite class.
Questions like this are one of the reasons that this site was developed. If you haven't done so already why not enter pictures of your alpaca to the database? We could talk more specifically about this alpaca with pictures.
We classify the animals we look at as modern gray only if the fleece show gray when opened. If we have to search for the white fibers it is an indefinite in our opinion. We believe a true modern gray animal should not have white on the face or extremities . If the animal has any white on the face I think that it is a poorly expressed tuxedo gray. What do you think?
We just purchased a maidain female, Moderm DSG from CA. I will be posting her pic very soon.
Unfortunately I've seen examples of tuxedo gray that have no white on their face, and modern gray that do have white on their face. There is no perfect written description that covers every case. Variability in expression is what makes discussing gray so very difficult, and makes having pictures available nearly essential.
I agree that the dark headed roan pattern almost never has white on the face. Having said that, the harlequin pattern gray may have some facial white. Roans may also have a spotting gene. I've heard a report that Neruda (an alpaca often mentioned as the "reference" alpaca for the dark headed roan pattern) has a white spot on the back of his right front foot/pastern. I've not been able to confirm this, but if true that white spot could just as easily have been on the face (or any "extremity").
When AOBA show rules for classic and modern gray were written we looked at about 150 gray alpaca pictures. The only consistent difference between tuxedo gray (aka "classic") and non-tuxedo gray (aka modern.....which includes DHR, harlequin, other roans, and other less well defined patterns) was the presence or absence of a predominantly white face.
As I said in the first paragraph, there clearly are examples of genotypic tuxedo gray that are correctly classified as "modern" by the current AOBA show rules. The reverse is also true. Rules will never be perfect, and this doesn't apply just to grays. For instance, I've just walked in the door from the 2009 North American Alpaca Show. In my opinion, both the color and reserve color champion black males were BROWN. To make this more........."interesting" is as good a word as any, these browns were correctly classified by the AOBA show rules. They were simply a shade darker than Dark Brown, and were entered in the next darker class, Bay Black. Having won their Bay Black classes they went into the championship and won again.
I understand that this color class is going to be very tough. The market demands grays. They do not like indefinates. In most cases they can be the same animal. My other concern is that judges will have there idea of which is which and it may be different than the color checkers.
I entered my male in the indefinate dark class. He does not have a white face although his white fibers are not as prominate as I think they should be in a gray. My first show is in two weeks.
Just reading this post reminds me of one of my Males. My Chewpaca has shown as a DRG and beat out Tux greys. To look at him from a distance you see brown, but part his fleece and it is loaded with a beautiful rose grey.
This male has no white on him any where. What would he be considered?
Koehler's 4 Star Alpacas koehlers@ameritech.net Michigan
The animal you describe would be considered Modern Grey according to the current show rules. If you part the fleece and can easily see grey throughout.
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Posted 03/08/2009 08:20 PM
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