December 2017

Surico Burton has to be sire of the month for Surico, with 3 wonderful daughters born lately. We are very pleased with his offspring from matings before he went to Australia. Two males were born earlier in the year Surico Ashby, a lovely dark fawn, out of our black female Surico Tinka and Surico Dalton out of one our best fleeced females Trinkett. The first female cria, Surico Fairlight is out of Surico Killarney, her first cria. The second is out of Surico Jade [dam of Onedin] and we have named her Palmyra. The third is Surico Cala and is Surico Ibiza’s 9^th cria. They are all looking stunning.

The Onedin Line

With two progeny winning Supreme Suri at AANZ National Shows in consecutive years, Surico Onedin can now claim captain of the fleet. Son of our flag ship male Parsifal who died in 2015, Onedin has gone on to produce supreme progeny, displaying super density, uniformity of micron from stem to stern and superb lustre.

Surico Bolero navigated his way to the top in 2016 winning the coveted title after several Supreme Champion awards at regional shows.

It was not such plain sailing for Surico Chaos who entered his first show at the 2017 Alpaca Expo, NZ’s National Show. Previously he had only entered and won Supreme with his junior fleece at Rotorua in 2015.

All of the Onedin progeny at Surico have impressed, a trio of sisters out of Surico Courcheval, Fernie, Kazama and Niseko are truly beautiful females with dense, uniformly fine fleeces. All have won broad ribbons at shows around NZ.  Kazama was Intermediate Female Champion Suri at the 2017 National Show and was pulled forward along with Chaos to select the final winner.

The other 3 female Onedin progeny at Surico all have superior fleece qualities, with Peone [dark fawn]and Tempest [light fawn] exhibiting colour. We are eager to see Viola’s first cria due in early 2018.

Waiting in the wings are 2 weanling boys, Burling [dark fawn] and Dublin [light fawn], we are keenly watching their development.

Here at Surico  we are excited at the development of this lineage …… The Onedin Line

August 2016

Looking forward to the next show season we will be heading out with 2 or 3 boys from last year and a bunch of rising juniors. Every year we have some standout cria that often stamp their mark as they are born and every year we increase the quality of our herd overall. We usually have some clues from their pedigree, but it is always exciting to watch their development. We have some exciting young ones coming through our breeding programme and hopefully they will also be as competitive in the showring as last year.

Look back last show season gave us a wide variety successful suri in the show scene. We attended 7 shows with 7 supremes in the breed section and 1 fleece show with one supreme fleece. The supremes were awarded to 7 different suri, 5 were males as was the fleece.  We are pleased with the depth and continual development our genetics of our herd as reflected in our results.

SURICO BURTON 

 Our first Supreme of the season was to Surico Burton, a truly worthy male with huge density coupled with a consistent low micron. His sire was the one and only Parsifal who is probably the most influential suri male in the industry. His dam is Surico Courcheval, selectively bred at Surico from our very best. Burton won several Supreme Champion awards, culminating in the 2015 National Show. Others were Franklin 2014 & 2015, Royal Easter Auckland 2014 & 2015, Rotorua 2015 and Manawatu 2014. He has now commenced his duties as a stud.

SURICO VIVO

The 2015 NZ Royal at Hawkes Bay awarded Surico Vivo Supreme Champion, a well-deserved prize. He has won several championships over the season. His excellent pedigree with Surico Alinghi as his sire and Surico Diva, his dam along with his excellent fleece traits place him among our top quality males, ready for the next phase of his life as a working male.

SURICO GISELLE

 Waikato A&P Show, the second largest show in NZ saw our only female supreme awarded. Surico Giselle is simply gorgeous and she truly earnt this title. A product of the NZ and Australian 2007 National Champions, Surico Ballerina and Surilana Mister B ET, Giselle comes from highly acclaimed stock. Now mated to Surico Walkington we look forward to first cria this coming season.

SURICO RENARD

Our little junior Surico Renard was awarded supreme suri at Rotorua, with his super dense fleece he took the prize from his other paddock mates. Renard also won junior male suri at the National Show last year. We feel very proud of this young guy who is sired by Surico Tangier [supreme at 2011 National] and Surico Meribel, one of our most reliable females.

SURICO CHAOS

And Surico Chaos took the honour of supreme fleece at Rotorua with his superb handle and lustre. His sire Surico Onedin, also a national supreme in 2010 and his dam Surico Magritte are producing some very special progeny.

SURICO WALKINGTON

At Franklin earlier in the year, Surico Walkington earned the top prize of supreme as a senior, also sired by Surico Alinghi, his dam is Surico Chamonix a winning combination. With his extreme fineness and other suri traits he was chosen along with Surico Renard to become foundation stud males for an emerging suri stud in Sweden.

SURICO BOLERO

Surico Bolero a young light fawn male won the next 2 shows attended at Kumeu and Royal Easter in Auckland. Bolero is sired by Surico Onedin and his dam is Surico Ballerina. His fleece is rich and creamy with a beautiful handle.

SURICO BOLERO

These 7 suri represent our breeding well with all the desired hallmarks of suri fleece. We were pretty proud to have produced this range from our herd.

September 2015

We had a fabulous time at the Alpaca Expo and 2015 National Show.  It was great to catch up with friends and other breeders as well as hear the great comments from the judges on the fantastic lustre and handle of our suri.  Of course the highlight of the weekend was winning Supreme Champion Suri with Surico Burton.  All of the team went home with a ribbon and it was great to see the names of Surico sires and dams spread through many other show teams.  Full results of the Surico Team can be seen on the Show Results page.

There were many bittersweet moments for us at this years National Show as Parsifal died on the Friday evening. His progeny were a testament to his great legacy, the very first ribbon of the show went to his daughter TeKowhai High Calibre, who went on to win Reserve Champion Junior Female Another daughter, Surico Venus was awarded Champion Adult Female Suri. The awarding of Supreme to his son Surico Burton brought many tears. All but 2 of our show team had Parsifal in their ancestory. 

August 2015

It is full on halter training as we get ready for Alpaca Expo 2015.  We have a show team of 20 and most are juniors that all need training.  To start with we spend a lot of time just getting the newly weaned cria used to having us around.  We get them into a small pen and just stand amoungst them, they then get let out for some "special treat" food.  Slowly we start introducing the halter and the final step is getting them to lead.  Some just take to it naturally and some need a little bit more work.  Hopefully we have them all ready by show time!

The Expo starts Friday 18th Sep and runs through until Sunday.  If you want to see the suri being judged make sure you get there early as suri are on in the mornings each day.  When we are not in the show ring we'll be found near the pens so come along and say "hi".  We'll be happy to talk about our breeding program and the exciting developments with suri fibre.

Rumpelstiltskin

We are really excited about the success of our last suri fibre collection and how this is leading to another collection thois year.  Coming up in late August we have North Island collections and hope to be able to fit in a South Island collection in Dec.  Get in touch if you want to know more.  

May 2015

Alpaca Expo 2015

Surico are very proud to be the Supreme Suri Sponsor for Alpaca 2015.  The event will be held at Mystery Creek from Friday 18h September to Sunday 20th September.  We would like to invite you all to visit us there. Read more...

National Alpaca Day

We had a very enjoyable day at Surico on National Alpaca Day, 3rd May 2015.  The weather was great and over 100 people turned up to get to know a little bit more about alpacas.

DNA Testing

At Surico we make sure we are taking advantage of every opportunity to improve our breeding techniques.  The International Alpaca Registry (IAR) provides a facility to DNA test and parent verify registered alpacas.  We have taken full advantage of this and all of our top breeding stock have been parent verified (we are just waiting results on the last lot).

With many breeding and purchasing decision made on genetics parent verification gives you the security that you are getting what are paying for.  Look out for this symbol on the registry database as a guide to what has been parent verified.   

April 2015

Farm Tours

Farm Tours at Surico are proving very popular with visitors who are enjoying interacting with our alpaca on the farm. Some are keen to feed treats to the alpaca that eat out of your hand, others delight in holding the new cria, just a few days old. But mostly our visitors just appreciate the calm ambience of just being around them. For us we love to see the pure joy in our visitors faces at their encounter with our suri alpaca.

Taking the alpacas on farm walks are fun for the alpacas and visitors alike, we meet the older alpacas spending their retirement years in their own special paddock and the alpacas meet up with a grandmother or an aunty touching noses across the fence.

The ultimate pleasure seems to be holding a newborn or young cria for a photo opportunity, this certainly lights up faces and brings out the smiles and grins.

Alpaca Displays

Surico, represented by Hermione attended the Tauranga A&P Show where the alpaca display was mobbed by show goers wanting to lead, touch and talk alpaca. She reported "Alpaca Madness" such was the response to the alpaca zone. This year it was repeated at Rotorua A&P on the Sunday with great success. Next year, the group of breeders hope to include Whakatane A&P Show as well to spread the alpaca word.

Shows

The alpaca section of the Rotorua A&P Show was held at the end of January and Surico featured well in the awards. Surico Charleston won Supreme Suri Fleece and Surico Burton won Supreme Suri in the breed section, both were sired by Parsifal, his progeny continue to maintain that top ranking. Burton also won Supreme at the Franklin A&P Show and the Auckland Easter Show.   Read full Show Results

New Cria

Birthing is in full swing, we have new cria most days at the moment, some real cuties and some extra special genetics. Mostly males so far, balancing out the last 2 years which were mostly females. We will have some extra cute pets for sale later in the year.

Coming up ........

May 3rd – National Alpaca Day – come and visit – we will be open all day – no charge.

October 2014

This month brings the start of the show season and we are off to our first show - the National Show, held in Christchurch.

We only have a small team this year of four alpaca as the best of this years cria aren't quite old enough for the show.  Luckily they have their 6 month birthdays before the Waikato show on 1st and 2nd Nov.

At the end of September Surico was invited to talk on the Rumpelstiltskin Project at the AANZ Northern Region seminar "Alpaca Fleece for Profit".  This was a great day where several people presented on their alpaca fibre stories.  The afternoon was made up of workshops and we presented a practical session on pricing your alpaca products.

Spring seems to have returned to winter this week with a cold snap - but the grass is still growing making the alpaca happy.  The female mob (53 alpacas) has 4 paddocks to wander through and they seem to enjoy roaming over the hills.  The males are back home after enjoying a winter holiday up the road at Brenor.  They are all in good condition and no doubt looking forward to breeding season!

July 2014

ALPACA FARM TOUR – ROTORUA - NZ

 This month Surico Alpaca is launching  a new tourist attraction for visitors to Rotorua, New Zealand.

 You will see alpacas in a farming situation, see how friendly they are to handle and gentle they are around children.

You can walk an alpaca on a lead. The Alpaca Farm Tour offers a display of products made from the alpacas fleece and a short talk introducing you to alpacas and explaining their environmental sustainability.

The short farm walk reveals  amazing views from the northern aspect of Lake Rotorua.

An Alpaca Farm Tour at Surico Alpaca offers you an experience to touch alpacas and interact in a natural setting.  

 You can choose to drive through the picturesque village of Ngongataha only 20minutes drive from Rotorua city or take the scenic drive around Lake Rotorua only 20 minutes from the airport.

 Catering for small groups of 1 to 12 people per tour.  

Bookings are essential |alpacas@surico.co.nz | phone +64 [7] 3322362 | book online below.

 Tours times;       10.00 am. - 12.30 pm. - 3.30 pm

 Special opening prices for July, August and September $35  Adult / $15 Child [5-15]

June 2014

Another great National Alpaca Day on the 4th of May at Surico.  We enjoyed visits from alpaca lovers, curious neighbours and even some new alpaca owners.  It is a great day to share information about these wonderful animals and their fibre. 

A dry summer and autumn leads us into winter with less grass than we would like, but we have a plentiful supply of hay and the alpaca all have good condition on.  The forecast is for a warm winter, good for farming if not for the ski fields!

The last of our cria of the season has been born and he is beauty.  Surico Triumph (pictured) is tiny but perfect, and we hope he will turn out just as great as his impressive lineup of siblings; Trinkett, Triton, Trilogy, and Trinsic.

March 2014

So far this year our cria drop has been 80% females with only a few more to birth. Last year was also skewed with 66% females, I guess our turn will come. We had some lovely little cria born with advanced fleeces ready for our high end quality suri textiles. 

Surico Panache, Surico Giselle and Surico Sochi are all little females who have impressed at this stage and along with Walkington, Charleston and Lautrec [from 2013] and have been identified to join Venus and Burton for our show team next season.

The breeding season is now in full swing at Surico, having decided to concentrate our births in late summer early autumn to avoid those extra long gestations that we experienced last spring.  We now have a wide range of choice of stud males with diverse combinations of Accoyo and Allianza genetics.   The successful breeding results using these males last season make us keen to build on those gains.

The Rumplestiltskin project is heading into the final stages with the scoured fleece now at Design Spun being carded and spun. This is an exciting phase, we are working with AUT and their textile development team so should soon have our final products ready.

Surico had a presence at the Franklin Show in February with Surico Venus, [Junior Female Champion], Surico Burton [Junior Male Champion] and Surico Gloriana [Intermediate Female Champion] in the Suri Section. It was Burton’s first outing and he won Supreme Suri. Full Show Results>>

Our next major event will be our Open Farm for National Alpaca Day on Sunday May 4^th where we will be showing why “Alpacas make you feel good” Coming Events>>

Feb 2014

Trans Tasman Valentine – Surico Giselle

It is significant that Giselle was born on Valentines Day, we have been awaiting the outcome of this romantic union with great excitement. In 2007 Giselle's parents were both Supreme Champions at the New Zealand and Australia National shows. Surico Ballerina was crowned Supreme Champion Suri as a senior in New Zealand by Jude Anderson and Surilana Mr B ET was judged Australian Supreme Champion Suri as a junior also by Jude Anderson.

After their celebrated awards both Ballerina and Mr B went on to become valuable breeders in the Surico herd. Both have produced excellent progeny with brilliant fleeces and have won multiple show awards.

2013 Cria High-lights

Surico Charleston was the high light of 2013 in cria, with his intensely dense fleece, he was born on Dec 12th to Surico Maya and is by our perennial outstanding male, Parsifal. Charleston's full sister, Surico Demoiselle won the coveted award of Supreme Champion Suri at the AANZ National Show in September in front of an international audience. Earlier in the year we had born a female, Surico Venus and a male, Surico Burton, both exceeded our expectations, they were also by Parsifal. He is truly one of the greats. Venus was too young for the National show but won Junior Female Champion Suri at the Waikato Show and Supreme Suri at Rotorua and Burton will debut at Franklin.

Fleece awards

Surico Nova is emerging as our fleece pin up boy for the season. His 12 month fleece won Supreme at the International Fleece show in September and went on to win Supreme at Waikato and Rotorua Shows. His sire is Alinghi , who is enhancing the quality of fleeces in his progeny.  See Show Results

Fun Day at Tauranga

Surico in association with Brenor Alpaca and Wainui Heights Alpacas enjoyed a successful day promoting alpaca at the Tauranga A&P show. We trialed a new approach which worked really well. We set up the area a bit like a show and brought the alpaca out asking the public to come and lead them, we were swamped with people looking, patting, touching and leading them. When we put them back in their pens we were able to have a rest too, every time we brought them out, along came the public.

24 November 2013

Summer has come early this year along with some early cria.  The spring shows are over and we have a break until Rotorua at the end of January.

The only spring shows we exhibited at where the AANZ National and the Waikato A&P Show.  Very pleased to have won supreme at both with Surico Demoiselle and Surico Amarda respectively.  These two girls have both been shorn now and are looking forward to starting their breedig lives this summer- can't wait to see what they produce.  The full show results can be found on our Show Results page.

Surico Nova also won the supreme fleece award at both these shows. His exquisit fleece is just one example of the superb fleeces being produced in progeny from Surico Alinghi.

The other exciting news from Surico is the beautiful cria we have had born this season so far, pictured right is Surico Gauguin.  He is already showing great promise with a super soft lusturous fleece.  We can not say enough good things about his sire Surico Alinghi who consistently puts excellent fineness, uniformity of micron and lustre into his offspring.

If you would like to visit Surico to talk about breeding suri alpaca we would love to have you. Or visit us at one of the upcoming shows this summer... Coming Events

29 September 2013

We had a great weekend at Alpaca 2013 taking the both the supreme suri fleece and breed.

Supreme Suri was Surico Demoiselle, a stunning intermediate female who has an extremely dense fleece, with outstanding lustre and a uniform mircon that carries right across her body.  She is sired by our top Accoyo male Surilana Parsifal and her dam is Surico Maya who is also well decorated in the show ring.

The fleece Supreme went to Surico Nova, a young male.  He scored excellent points for fineness (grid tested an average of 18u) and handle while maintaining a good weight.  His lustre is also fabulous.  His sire Surico Alinghi is passing on all the attributes we need for a commercial suri fibre industry.

Also congratulations to Fairhaven Alpacas who won Champion Junior Female and Champion White Suri with Surico Cordelia.

The full results for the Surico team...

Read more

31 August 2013

We are very proud to have had Surico Paschendale selected for the prestigious alpaca auction at Alpaca 2013.

Paschendale is a stunning young female with excellent pedigree and fantastic fleece results.  Have a look at her page to get the full details about her and the auction... 

read more

25 July 2013

Enjoy our new enhanced website, please browse our updated pages and let us know what you think....  alpacas@surico.co.nz

We are also in getting ready to wean all the summer cria and start on halter training for Alpaca 2013 and all the shows coming up this Spring.  Read about Coming Events.

Our last cria for the season were born in June and are doing great.  We are really happy with the quality this year - including mid fawn female Surico Alouette pictured left.

6 July 2013

It has been a pretty busy few months at Surico. We are working on updating our website into a new system, it should be up and running soon so keep an eye out. Some page references might change but the website address will still be www.surico.co.nz

Other news - we've had our final cria for the season another girl! In total 19 girls and 7 boys, so a good year for us. Now we are starting halter training and picking the show team for the National Show, held as part of Alpaca 2013 at Claudelands in Hamilton. Make a note in you calendar September 20th to 22nd.

14 May 2013

Congratulations to Anne & Neil Godfrey of Fairhaven Alpacas who have purchased 2 of our top quality young female born this year.  We are proud to have bred these beautiful girls, Surico Cordelia, and  Surico Regala and wish Anne and Neil the best in adding them to their breeding program.

National Alpaca Day, Sunday 5^th May, was once again celebrated at Surico with lots of visitors wanting to learn more about alpaca. Many already knew about alpaca and our suri, but were keen to look at them close up in a farming situation.

North Island Colourbration, held the weekend before at Claudlands was the last show of the season. Our 2 entries did well, both Demoiselle and Armada were in the Intermediate Female Light Fawn class gaining Champion and Reserve, Demoiselle was awarded Supreme. Our only fleece entry, Alto was awarded Champion White Male. Our show focus is choosing our show teams for Alpaca 2013 in September, which is looming fast.

Our new bunch of cria have been steadily appearing over the last few weeks, from 10 matings done on 24-25^th May 2012, the first cria was born 15/4/13 at 325 days gestation and after 2 births yesterday at 352 days gestation we are still waiting for the 10^th. Our tally for the season has been heavily weighted towards females, with only 5 males so far this year. Venus, full sister to Aphrodite is a definite favourite of the last bunch.

13 March 2013

We have had some fantasitc cria born this summer and one of the most promising is Surico Cordelia sired by a young, upcoming male Surico Montpellier.  Montpellier is co-owned with Mark Savage of Firenze in Marton and there is still a shareholding available for sale - give us a call if you are interested in finding out more.

You can see more pictures of our latest cria in the Gallery

Surico had more success at the 2013 Kumeu A&H Show with Surico Demoiselle winning the Supreme Champion award.  Kumeu is a colour show so Demoiselle also won Champion Light Fawn, with Surico Armada winning the Reserve Champion Light Fawn.  In the whites, Surico Figaro took out the Championship.  You can see our full results on the Show Results page.

4 March 2013

Rotorua has stamped its mark on the North Island Show scene in 3 shows already been held this year. Surico and Brenor Alpaca have won Supreme Champion Suri and Huacaya at every one attended. Both studs are based on the outskirts of Rotorua. At the Rotorua Show it was Surico Aphrodite (pictured right) that took out the Supreme Suri award, followed by Surico Demoiselle at Franklin and most recently, Surico Armada won Supreme Suri at Morrinsville. See full Surico Show Results

Congratulations to Ivor and Brenda for their great effort in the Huacaya show ring, their Junior Male, Brenor Point Blanc, won 3 consecutive Supreme Huacaya awards.

The Rumplestiltskin project is progressing well, our bale of 22-23.9 micron white fleece from Australia is on its way and will join the NZ contribution at the scour in the South Is. Although delayed because of the bush fires, Australian suri breeders gathered at Paul Vallely's property in February for the collection day. Our thanks goes to all those breeders who contributed fleece and Paul Vallely and Fiona Vanderbeek for their wonderful efforts in helping us achieve our targets.

January 2013

Summer is well and truly here bringing hot and dry weather. We have started the birthing season with 10 cria born this month, 3 males and 7 females, and some real stunners amongst them - keep a look out for Surico Paschendale in the future, she's our current favourite.

The photo is Surico Gloriana, a beautiful golden fawn female, with a view of Lake Rotorua in the background.

The summer show season has started as well with the first show on our calendar at the Rotorua A&P. We were very happy with our results - Surico Aphrodite took the Supreme Suri award and the rest all received ribbons - you can view the full results from Surico here>> Surico Alto's fleece won the Supreme Suri Fleece award and another daughter of Surico Alinghi Sofranisba, was only half a point behind.

Other Rotorua breeders did well with Brenor Alpaca taking the Supreme Huacaya award, congratulations Brenda and Ivor Gainsford.

We thought shearing was over in October - but we decided to shear a couple more when we had the opportunity. One was Far North Zappa an appaloosa male. Have a look at these photos of him before and after...

December 2012

Seasons Greetings to everyone.

With the finish of the spring shows we turned our efforts to the harvest. Shearing once again took most of the week in preparation and pick-up and delivery, between the Hawkes Bay and Waikato shows. Mike Banks and his team managed to break their record from 2011 and shore 123 suri on day one. A great job done. Once again we had the pooled help from our alpaca friends, Ruth Hutton, Brenda Gainsford and Sue Osborne, thank you.

On the first free weekend we held our first Baling Day for the Rumplestiltskin Project, Molly & Steph from Thistledown flew up from Banks Peninsula for this exciting new venture. We all feel these first steps of the future of NZ suri processing were a very successful beginning. This Project has been aided by a small grant from the SFF. 

We look forward to more shows, starting in January. Cria will start arriving very soon and we are excited about seeing the first progeny from some of the young stud males.

November 2012

Another great show for the Surico team at Manawatu on the weekend. Surico Aphrodite won Supreme Suri and the rest of the team did well with all taking home ribbons. You can see the full show results for Surico.

October 2012

It was a great weekend for our Accoyo stud male Surilana Parsifal, he not only sired the Supreme Suri at the NZ Royal, Surico Aphrodite, but his grandson, Surilana Surpass, won the 2012 Australian National Supreme Suri.

The NZ Royal, this year hosted by Waikato A&P, is the second biggest alpaca show in NZ after our National. Parsifal also sired the Champion Junior Male Suri-Surico Figaro, and Reserve -Excellenz Bianco Tamon, the Champion Junior Female Suri - Surico Aphrodite and Reserve -Surico Demoiselle, the Champion Intermediate Female Suri - Riverdale Katie and is grandsire of the Reserve - Andigenetix Glossy Grace.

Surico Walkinshaw was awarded Champion Intermediate Male and Reserve went to Surico Nordica.

Hawkes Bay was also a successful show with Surico Walkinshaw winning Champion White and Supreme Suri, little Aphrodite won Reserve Champion White [her first show], Surico Nordica won Champion Light Fawn and little Armada took Reserve in her fisrt show. We also showed Thistledown Biko, a striking young black male who won Champion Black Suri.

For full show results from the Surico Team Click here

It has been a busy few weeks at Surico, shearing took 2 days, with a record of 123 on the first day, all suri except for the last 2 and 166 in total.

October 2012

Surico and Thistledown are very excited to announce that we have been successful in our application to the sustainable Farming Fund for a grant to assist with processing suri fibre in New Zealand. This project is called Rumpelstiltskin - spinning suri fibre into gold and will hopefully involve all suri breeders in New Zealand in some way. Read more about the Rumpelstiltskin Project

Shearing is set for the 24th & 25th Oct. If you have alpaca in the Rotorua area that need shearing contact us now alpaca@surico.co.nz

September 2012

We are just back from the 2012 AANZ National Show where we had a great time catching up with other alpaca breeders. The Surico show team also had a great time with Surico Walkinshaw winning the Supreme Champion Suri award and Surico Trilogy (now owned by Sonric Suri) winning the Supreme Champion Suri Fleece award. We also picked up a few other ribbons and trophies... Read the full Surico Show Results