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BULLETIN BOARD
WIN TV report '08 Conference
SRS® 2008 Conference was a great success.
Click here to watch a video stream of the news report.
New Subscibers Welcome
For more details click on
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FIRST PERUVIAN SUBSCRIBER
We are delighted to welcome our first Peruvian subscriber, Mallkini Alpaca Ranch. Mallkini is located on the Puno river high up in the altiplano at over 4000 meters above sea level. The ranch was established by the Michell Group and has over 2000 alpacas. Mallkini has a mission to breed alpacas for export, improve their herd, Educate smaller breeders and contribute to the regional community.
SRSAI has been invited by Derek Michell to work with Mallkini to improve their breeding program by applying the SRS®: Breeding principles.
This partnership will undoubtedly lead to a successful long term relationship with benefits for both parties.
Welcome to SRS® Alpacas International
SRS® (Soft Rolling Skin) is a breeding system successfully developed and implemented for the Merino wool industry over the past 20 years. More recently, to the angora goat industry and now alpacas.
The breeding system is based on driving fleece weights up and fibre fineness down, through the application of certain visible fleece traits which accurately reflect changes in skin biology. The term "soft rolling skin" refers to skin that is demonstrably thinner and more mobile than in many other animals. The biological changes in skin can be verified by objective testing of skin biopsies, demonstrating increased density of fibre follicles, increased rate of fleece growth and increased fineness of both secondary (fleece) and primary (hair) fibres until they become almost indistinguishable.
The application of SRS® is as a breeding and selection tool to drive these changes. It is generally accepted that there is much potential for genetic improvement in alpacas to deliver these changes.
This website, developed by SRS® Alpacas International, provides information on the SRS® breeding system and extends an invitation to interested parties with similar breeding goals, to subscribe to the SRS® Breeding Service and participate in the benefits SRS® breeding has to offer.
2009 Conference Shaping Up
As a Landmark Event.
The 2009 conference is shaping up to be a milestone for SRSAI. With a number of years of breeding now behind the SRS® Breeding System, developed by Dr Jim Watts there is enough data to present to a broad audience, the advances and benefits of the system.
Jim Watts has years of experience with sheep and goats and, although SRS® breeding in alpacas has occurred for quite a number of years, the broad usage of the system really only started to take off about five years ago. Since then all areas of Australia are represented as well as New Zealand, UK, USA and Europe. With this wide spread use of the SRS® system Jim is going to present the data and back it up with the animals and fibre that the work represents. To this end Breeding Advisers have been working with their clients to identify their lines of animals that exhibit the markers and the genetic advancement in their breeding. The quality of the animals represented will be very exciting to see as well as to hear the breeders and Breeding Advisers tell us how this improvement was achieved.