Histograms

Histograms are very valuable tools in understanding the quality of an animals fiber. Alpacas are fiber animals and we feel it is very important to have an idea of where our alpacas statistics fall. It is argued by some that histograms can be manipulated by farms underfeeding their animals and some farms don't even do these reports due to this. We feel though, that they are a tool that we want to use to help us make decisions for our future breedings in order to produce the finest fiber qualities that we can.

We have been using Whittick Fiber Testing for our histograms. I really like the historical graph that they send. In addition to the information about our animals fiber qualities, this historical graph can tell us how well we are managing our herd. Stresses, sickness, over/underfeeding, and protein levels can be seen by the line peaks and dips in this graph.

Below you will find the different pages that Whittick supplies to explain histograms and the historical graph.

Definitions

Reading A Histogram

The First Year/When to Call Your Vet

Fat Fiber and Other Graphic Tales